Your Wedding Doesn't Need To Look Like A Wedding (My War On Tackiness and clutter).

I have a bit of a problem with wedding tackiness.

Actually, quite a big problem.

Eliminating it in all its forms is pretty central to how I approach weddings.

And before anyone gets upset, I'm not talking about whether something is expensive or cheap, fashionable or unfashionable.

It's about adding things because you think a wedding is supposed to have them, rather than because they actually make your wedding better.

And there are quite a few things in the wedding entertainment world that I think fall firmly into that category. Fodder. Clutter.

Game-show voice MCing

You know the one.

“LAAAAADIES AND GENTLEMEN...”

Suddenly your wedding reception sounds like someone has won a speedboat on daytime television.

I'm sure there are people who absolutely love it.

That's fine.

But if you're having a sophisticated wedding in a beautiful venue, I'm not convinced you need someone shouting at your guests like they're about to choose between a washing machine and £500 cash.

Widescreen televisions

I've never quite understood the obsession with DJs bringing televisions to a wedding.

There might be some exceptions.

If you've got a genuine reason for one, brilliant.

But sticking a giant widescreen somewhere in the room because apparently weddings require a giant widescreen somewhere in the room?

Why?

You already have a room.

It's probably beautiful.

No one came to your wedding to watch TV.

Monogram projectors

Your initials are important to you.

I get it.

You're getting married.

But I'm not convinced the world needs to see them projected onto a wall in six-foot letters.

You don't need to turn your wedding into a corporate rebrand.

Lovehearts everywhere

One loveheart can be charming.

Seventeen thousand lovehearts, printed, projected, illuminated, hung, stuck, scattered and somehow incorporated into the napkins?

We get it.

You're in love.

You can stop proving it now.

Scanning lasers

I have nothing against lasers.

Lasers are brilliant.

But there's a time and a place for everything.

If you're deliberately trying to recreate a nightclub from 1997, then by all means, let's get involved.

Otherwise, I'm not convinced your wedding needs to look like it's about to host a trance night in a provincial leisure centre.

Starry backdrops

Here's another one I struggle with.

Not because stars aren't beautiful.

They are.

It's because sometimes the real venue is already spectacular.

A beautiful country house.

A converted barn.

An old industrial building.

A gorgeous hotel.

A room with incredible architecture and character.

And then someone puts a giant synthetic starfield behind the DJ.

Why?

The room was doing just fine.

The problem isn't fun

Here's the important bit.

I'm not anti-fun.

I'm a wedding DJ.

My entire career is basically built around getting people onto dancefloors and making them have a ridiculous amount of fun.

I'm not anti-decoration either.

I'm not suggesting every wedding should consist of four white walls, a folding table and a speaker.

And I'm certainly not suggesting that if you genuinely love lasers, monograms or inflatable flamingos, you shouldn't have them.

Have the flamingos.

If they're you, they're you.

That's the difference.

The problem comes when wedding culture tells you that you need to add a load of generic stuff simply because that's what weddings are apparently supposed to look like.

That's when things start becoming tacky.

Sometimes the best answer is nothing AT ALL.

This is probably the most important part of my philosophy.

Less is usually more.

You don't always need another feature.

You don't need another prop.

You don't need another visual effect.

You don't need another “wow moment”.

Sometimes the room is already beautiful.

Sometimes the people are already interesting.

Sometimes the music is already enough.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is leave something alone.

That's actually quite difficult in an industry that constantly encourages you to add more.

More lights.

More screens.

More entertainment.

More decorations.

More things to photograph.

More things to talk about.

More things to sell.

But more isn't automatically better.

Sometimes it's just more.

Authenticity beats decoration

If you want to add something, I think there's a much better question to ask:

Does it feel like you?

Not:

“Do other weddings have this?”

Not:

“Will Instagram like it?”

Not:

“Does the wedding package include it?”

And definitely not:

“Are we supposed to have one of these?”

If you love something, have it.

If it makes you laugh, have it.

If it tells people something about you, have it.

If it makes the party better, even better.

That's where I think weddings become genuinely interesting.

Not when they look like the best bits of a hundred other weddings.

When they look like your party.

My three-question test

There's a very simple filter I use when deciding what belongs in an Offbeat package.

Does it make the party better?

Is it likely to make people want to dance more?

Will it look great in photographs for years to come?

If the answer is no, it doesn't make it into the package.

That's it.

No complicated formula.

No trend forecasting.

No chasing whatever wedding entertainment companies have decided is the next big thing.

Just:

Does this actually make things better?

Because ultimately, that's what I'm interested in.

Not how much stuff I can put into a wedding (or upsell you).

How much better I can make it.

Cut the clichés

I suppose this is where Cut the Clichés comes from.

It's not about being deliberately alternative.

It's not about being contrarian for the sake of it.

And it's definitely not about telling you what you should or shouldn't like.

It's about questioning things.

Why are we doing this?

Does it actually add anything?

Would the wedding be better without it?

And sometimes the answer will be yes.

Sometimes it'll be no.

And occasionally, the answer will be:

“Actually, the room looks amazing already. Let's not mess with it.”

That's a perfectly good design decision too.

Because your wedding doesn't need to look like a wedding.

It needs to look like you.

And if we can make it look great, sound great and give everyone a ruddy good party while we're at it?

Even better.