The Acoustic Duo Experience: How We Prepare for Your Wedding Day

Suzie Langton
6 days ago
3 min read

Your wedding isn’t just another event, it’s the most special day of your life, which means we take it very seriously - it means so much to us as well to make sure your day is perfect. When it comes to preparing and planning your acoustic wedding music for your wedding day as a duo, we go as many miles as we need to, to make sure that your soundtrack is just as it should be. Here's an insight into some of our pre-wedding plans!

Suzie holding a microphone and Sam playing a guitar

Getting to Know You - it's your day, so you should hear your songs!

From day one, we want you to have a personal, stress‑free experience. In the run up to your wedding, we will have at least one, if not two consultation calls to dive into your vision for your musical backdrop, answering questions like preferred genres, timeline, venue logistics, and bespoke requests.

Crafting a Bespoke Repertoire

With a repertoire of 200–300 songs, including classics and modern hits, we help you tailor your setlist, taking into account our knowledge and experience, and your favourite genres and artists as well.

Rehearsals & Arrangements

As much as it might look like we turn up and play, there's a whole process behind this that runs months before your wedding. Here's some examples of the preparation that goes into your wedding music:

Sourcing backing tracks, often bespoke arrangements in the right key and with the right instrumentation
Rehearsing tempos, styles and keys, not forgetting any backing vocals that are needed
Timing rehearsals, ensuring that for stand out moments, we have a plan in place to either shorten or lengthen a song depending on the timing of the moment (eg, needing a shorter or longer entrance song)
Practice hours, once all the logistics are confirmed, it's down to practice makes perfect, and making sure that your songs will be the best version we can possibly give you when it counts.

Technical Prep

We pride ourselves in the highest quality equipment, that gives us quality sound, versatility, and much more. Some of the work that goes into the equipment preparation is:

Making sure all our equipment is PAT tested, and functionality tested prior to the day
Checking all of our spare equipment - as there's nothing worse that the back up kit failing!
Spares checks - of everything, cables, batteries, microphones, iPads, you name it, we have it, and it gets the once over.

Venue Prep

We don't often get to visit the venue prior to arriving for your wedding, so unless we have played there before we will do our own research online, and through talking to fellow suppliers who have worked there and combine this with the information we have from you in our calls. Areas we prepare for are:

Loading in arrangements, checking where we can park to load our equipment in, and what the distances are from where we load in to where we are playing.
Power access, as ideally we want to be close to a power source, and if we aren't, how long our extensions need to be.
Checking for any noise restrictions (this should be done prior to booking, but we always double check), to make sure we stay within any limitations.

Preparation for an efficient Setup & Transitions

To keep the day running smoothly, we have to factor in setting up and breakdown time, as well as any transitions through the day. We will quite often have multiple PA systems with us, so our preparation in advance is where we would use each PA, how we would move from one to the next including any equipment to take with us, and how we would pack down after using that PA if we don't need it again.

Finally, and probably the most important, is health

Without us, the music would not be playing, so staying healthy is our absolute priority. Vocal coaching, and regular practice time is key to this, to ensure both the vocal and guitar technique stay fresh and in place. From a vocal perspective, this might also mean checking plans for the days running up to your wedding, and the days following, as vocal rest is so important for keeping the voice healthy. Vocalists will often say no to social plans the day/s before your wedding, to make sure that we rest and are in tip top condition ready to perform.