Why I Don't Provide Inflatable Lawn Games or a Wacky Photobooth

There are a lot of things you can add to a wedding these days.

Inflatable lawn games.

Photo booths.

Giant letters.

Sequin walls.

Audio guestbooks.

Saxophonists appearing mysteriously during the evening.

You can apparently hire something for pretty much every spare square metre of your wedding.

And that's absolutely fine.

But you won't find most of that stuff at Offbeat.

Not because I don't think it's fun.

Because I don't think your wedding needs to be filled with things to do.

I'm a DJ. That's quite enough, thanks.

When you book Offbeat, you're booking me to do one thing exceptionally well:

Make your party brilliant.

That means obsessing over the music.

Reading the room.

Getting the balance right between the songs you love and the songs that make everyone else suddenly abandon their conversations and head for the dancefloor.

Knowing when to push things forward and when to leave a great song alone.

And, occasionally, figuring out what on earth to do when someone requests a song that hasn't been good since 1998.

That's what I spend my time thinking about.

I'm not particularly interested in becoming a wedding entertainment warehouse.

Your guests don't necessarily need another activity

There's a strange idea that wedding guests must be entertained constantly.

Perhaps that's because weddings have become increasingly full of things designed to prevent anyone ever having a moment when they're simply... standing around.

But here's the thing.

People are actually quite good at entertaining themselves.

Give your friends a drink, put them around a table with people they haven't seen for six months and they'll manage.

Give them a dancefloor and the right music and they'll manage even better.

Some of the best moments at weddings aren't carefully planned activities at all.

They're the ridiculous conversation your best mate has with your aunt.

They're the group of old friends who haven't been together since university.

They're the moment everyone ends up on the dancefloor because someone put on that song.

You don't necessarily need an inflatable ring toss competition to fill the gaps.

And then there's the photobooth

Again, photobooths are absolutely fine.

If you love them, get one.

I'm not going to turn up at your wedding and confiscate the novelty glasses.

But I've always found it slightly amusing that we're sometimes encouraged to manufacture memorable photographs by putting people behind a curtain with a box of props.

Because if you've got the right people at your wedding, they're already going to make memorable photographs.

Your best mate wearing your grandmother's sunglasses at 11.30pm?

Excellent.

Your entire family dancing like they've temporarily forgotten how legs work?

Perfect.

Your mates recreating the Spice Girls on the dancefloor?

Please, carry on.

You don't necessarily need a giant illuminated LOVE sign to prove that everyone is having fun.

More stuff doesn't necessarily mean more fun

This is really the point.

There's nothing wrong with having lawn games.

There's nothing wrong with having a photobooth.

There's nothing wrong with wanting a wedding that looks like it came straight out of Pinterest.

But there is a difference between adding things because you genuinely want them and adding things because you feel like a wedding is supposed to have them.

And I think the latter happens quite a lot.

You start with:

“Should we have some lawn games?”

Then it's:

“Maybe a photobooth would be fun?”

Then:

“Should we get giant letters?”

Then:

“What about an audio guestbook?”

And before you know it, you're spending a small fortune creating a wedding where your guests have more scheduled activities than they did at school.

At some point, you have to ask:

Do we actually want this, or have we just been told that weddings are supposed to have it?

I'd rather put the money into the party

If you've got a healthy entertainment budget and genuinely want all of those things, brilliant.

But if you're choosing between spending more money on another wedding extra and putting that money into the thing that's going to carry your evening?

I'd choose the party.

Good sound.

Good music.

A DJ who knows what they're doing.

Enough time for the dancing to actually develop into something.

And a room full of people who are there to enjoy themselves.

That's the stuff I care about.

Because nobody ever left a wedding saying:

“That was incredible. They had the most comprehensive selection of inflatable lawn games I've ever seen.”

They remember the party.

They remember the song that came on at exactly the right moment.

They remember dancing with their dad.

They remember their best friend losing their mind when their favourite track came on.

They remember being there with everyone they love.

That's the bit I'm trying to create.

So, no inflatable lawn games. No wacky photobooth.

If that's what you're after, I'm probably not your guy.

And that's completely OK.

There are loads of brilliant suppliers who specialise in exactly that stuff, and I'll happily point you in their direction.

But if you're looking for someone who is going to obsess over the music, take the pressure off you, read the room and create a dancefloor people don't want to leave?

Now we're talking.

I'm not interested in filling your wedding with things to do.

I'm interested in making it somewhere you want to be.