Rachel & Ollie at Priston Mill

Rachel & Ollie at Priston Mill

Priston Mill is a beautiful venue outside Bath. Rachel and Ollie’s wedding will always be a memorable one for me. I love the opportunity to meet with couples prior to the wedding. It’s a great way to connect with people and get a picture of what they have in mind for their big day. This is particularly key when it comes to song choices.

Over coffee, Rachel and I talked about song choices for the ceremony. Rachel requested a song that was very special to her, to be sang in memory of her father. The song was Dance with my Father by Luther Vandross. On the day, Rachel and Ollie were so busy with their photographer that they missed out on hearing this requested song. Thankfully I was able to create an opportunity before the reception to give a private performance of Dance with my Father – just for Rachel and Ollie. That moment made this wedding extra special for me.

My first blog!

My first blog!

Hello Brides and Grooms to be!

Welcome to my first ever blog!

Now, I am a performer, not a blogger. My strengths are in performance – singing and playing guitar, not blogging. But, communication is hugely important to me. I love meeting and getting to know new people. I am lucky that in this job I have the opportunity to do both on a regular basis. I am passionate about performance and about the way I grow my business. I feel it is important to share with you the history of my business and how I see it progressing. So here we go!

I started performing at weddings eight years ago. Last year, I decided to make some big changes to the way I ran my business. Until then, my business had the name Bristol Wedding Singer which had suited me well for a time but now, the majority of my wedding bookings are outside of Bristol, many of them in the Cotswolds. After some thought I went with my gut feeling and decided to change the name of my business to Cotswold Wedding Guitarist. This felt like a much better fit considering all of the beautiful, high-end weddings I perform at.

I also decided to take the plunge and employ a company to manage my SEO and social media. It was risky for a small business owner and after six months I decided to part ways with that company as I wasn’t seeing a return on my investment. It was disappointing at first but from that frustration I found the incentive to roll my sleeves up and get stuck into managing the advertisement myself. Instagram became my new way of reaching potential customers so I began to create video clips of myself performing to post daily. This was especially effective in showcasing my add-on feature, Jukebox Guitar.

Jukebox Guitar is a live acoustic jukebox style performance – a fun and interactive experience allowing guests the opportunity to choose the songs I perform. It always goes down a storm! 2020 is my busiest year to date. I’m on track to double the amount of wedding bookings I had in 2019. Crazy!