Which band should you choose to provide entertainment at a wedding in the 64?

You’re getting married in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, you want live music, and you’re finding that there’s no easy way to compare options. The websites all look the same, prices are never shown, and no one explains the difference between the packages.

Here’s what we wish someone had told us - written by musicians who play at weddings, and who therefore have no reason to claim that live music is suitable for everyone.

Firstly: how many parts of the event need sound coverage?

That’s the question people tend to overlook, and it determines everything else.

A wedding isn’t a concert: it’s three or four very different parts of the same day.

• The ceremony - civil or religious. Two or three pieces, often emotionally charged, sometimes a song chosen by the bride and groom.
• The reception - background music, kept at a low volume, whilst people are chatting. The pitfall is to turn it into a proper concert: nobody will be listening, and the musicians will be tired for the rest of the event.
• The meal - between courses, or not at all. To be decided with the caterer, not with the musicians.
• The dance - the moment when the music needs to keep the party going until late.

The same band can rarely do everything properly. Many successful weddings combine an acoustic duo for the day and a DJ for the evening. We’re happy to admit this, even if it means we lose out on part of the gig.

Duo or band?

A duo isn’t a budget version of a band. It’s a different format.

Two voices, a piano, a guitar: they can set up in twenty minutes, they fit in a living room just as easily as under a marquee, they can be set up without a sound engineer, and it allows them to chat to the guests. For a ceremony and a reception, it’s almost always the right choice.

A band really comes into its own when there’s a dance floor and a hundred and fifty people on it. It requires space, set-up time, electricity, and a venue that can cope with the volume. These three requirements must be confirmed before you sign the contract, not the day before.

Six questions to ask a band

In order of importance:

1. Have you ever played at this venue, or at a similar one? A Béarn barn, a château, a village hall: the requirements are not the same.
2. What’s included? Sound system, lighting, a microphone for speeches, travel. The microphone for speeches is forgotten nine times out of ten.
3. How long will set-up take, and at what time? A set-up at 5 pm in the hall where the caterers are laying out the tables requires planning.
4. Can we hear a live recording, not a studio one? An album proves you know how to record. A live concert recording proves you know how to play.
5. Can we request a particular song? And how much notice is needed - learning a piece properly takes work, it’s not a favour.
6. What happens if it rains? In Béarn, that’s not a rhetorical question.

The set list: the real discussion

Most couples turn up with a list of songs. That’s all well and good, but it’s not the most helpful.

What really helps is knowing who’ll be in the audience. Three generations? Mostly friends in their thirties? Grandparents who’ll be heading home by 10 pm? A band that knows the make-up of the audience puts together a night’s entertainment; a band that’s given a list simply plays the list.

And there’s one thing you have to accept: at a wedding, it’s the covers that do the trick. They’re what get people on their feet, because everyone knows them. A band that only wants to play its own songs isn’t the right choice for a dance party - though it might be for the ceremony.

Two examples, to be specific. ‘Les Champs-Élysées’ is requested at almost every wedding. We’re not particularly keen on it - but we play it anyway, because it does exactly what’s expected of it. Conversely, ‘You’ve Got the Love’ is a song we adore, yet it hardly ever gets the dance floor going.

That’s the whole art of the trade summed up in two tracks: what the band prefers and what gets the crowd on their feet aren’t the same song - and it’s the crowd who are right.

When to book

In reality, the couples who write to us book one to two years in advance. This isn’t being overly cautious: it’s simply the actual lead time for summer Saturdays.

Show the figures

Month	Gigs
January	7
February	5
March	10
April	3
May	6
June	19
July	34
August	15
September	17
October	3
November	11
December	15

Saturdays in June, July and September get booked up quickly - often a year in advance for popular local bands. Fridays, Sundays and winter dates are much more readily available, and often cheaper.

If you’ve settled on a date, contact two or three bands straight away, even if you haven’t made up your mind yet. A polite refusal takes five minutes; securing a date saves you weeks.

And what about us?

TidyMess is a French chanson duo based near Pau, who have been performing in the department since 2016 - 145 gigs, including venues, festivals, village fairs, weddings and even a murder mystery party.

We perform as a duo or as a band depending on what the evening calls for, with a set list that features mainly covers and, if you’d like, a few of our own songs.

Just to clarify whilst we’re on the subject: we play for free two or three times a year for causes and charities close to our hearts. This isn’t a commercial offer and we choose those dates ourselves - we might as well be upfront about it rather than leaving the question hanging.

The easiest way is to email us with three details: the date, the venue, and the number of guests. We’ll let you know very quickly whether it’s possible and what we can offer - and if it’s not right for us, we’ll say so too.

Drop us a line, or get in touch via our business page if you’re an organiser.

Nelly and Thomas

Lead photo: Alexandra Sarragot - Au Cœur d'un Regard Photographies