RMW Real Bride {Vicky & Oli: Entertainment}

Hey lovelies, hope everyone is enjoying some of the gorgeous weather we've had this week, and unlike me avoided any t-shirt tan lines! Todays blog is all about what we have chosen for entertainment for our big day so that all our amazing guests, as well as of us of course, have simply best day ever.

THE MUSIC

We were very lucky to book the incredible Bill Downs as our main wedding entertainment. Bill downs is an acoustic singer/guitarist who featured on a previous series of The Voice, and is actually from our very own hometown of Norfolk. I had always imagined that we would have a big 5 piece band for our big day, but Bill quickly changed my mind. The story of how we actually came to choose him is a surprisingly emotional one. I’ve not touched on my accident much on here as I don't want to dampen the mood, but as a brief overview in January 2016 I had a bike accident, and narrowly avoided being paralysed. Afterwards I was wheelchair bound for about 5 months. However, knowing I needed to get stuff sorted for the wedding next year, my mum, sister and nan took me to a Wedding Fair, which turned out to be well worth a trip! As we settled down to watch the catwalk show, Bill came on stage as an introduction. Straight from the get go all 4 of us were amazed by his voice has he sang numerous upbeat tunes. My mum then put her hand up and requested Tracey Chapman’s fast car, knowing that this was the song that I played a lot in hospital. Bill took to his guitar and sang the most beautiful version of the song, and within the first 30 seconds I had broken down into tears, followed then by the rest of my family (and I think a fair few of the audience sat around me!). From our reaction I think it was clear that I simply had to book him. As our venue, Southwood Hall, is open until 2am, we have also booked a great DJ, Joshua Roberts, for the last few hours - who's going to put together a pretty awesome playlist, of course including a pretty epic old school hour.

THE CUTE EXTRAS

In terms of activities for the wedding day we have planned a few nice little touches to keep guests occupied whilst we are busy having photos. Instead of having an official booth for photos we have opted for a DIY version, well two actually! The first one is a large frame full of our guests names on luggage tags, which then are to be replaced with a polaroid photo of themselves - this will also be a great piece to have in the house after the wedding. We have also got a beautiful statement flower arch, which will not only look great in our photos, but also works perfectly for a guests photo point. We are planning to stand the arch against the beautiful brick walls of our venue, with some more amazing signage from The Little Lending Co, of course including our wedding hashtag, OVBWedding. Another idea I've pinched off Pinterest is a ‘win a bottle’ sweepstake for the length of the speeches. They look like great fun, and obviously with us both being very competitive we were adamant we needed one. With only having our immediate families children at our wedding, which is only a couple, we are still making sure they have lots of things to do during the meal. A few garden games, and also some great online printable templates for kids activities which I would definitely recommend having a look at. Not forgetting the adults, we are definitely going to add some little wedding lib sheets onto the tables for our guests, as again these will make a perfect keepsake and something we can look back on. Hope you are all enjoying the bank holiday, I would love to hear what entertainment you have chosen? And of course any other activities you've got planned to keep your guests entertained! Lots of love Vicky x