For the amount of money that goes into the wedding industry annually, its a wonder that so little goes to acoustically treat venues. At an event where speeches are so central, it’s frustrating when guests cannot hear the Best Man’s or Maid of Honor’s speech, or other words of support and wisdom from friends and family.
Some choose to keep the wedding all in one place where the ceremony takes place, then everyone migrates to the cocktail room and then to the reception hall. Others may start on a beach or a place of worship and then head to the clubhouse at a different location.
For those of you who have been to a wedding or had a wedding with poor acoustics, you know how disappointing it is to experience that. Some people worry that acoustic treatments can disrupt room design, but it is possible to acoustically treat a wedding venue while also keeping the aesthetics of the space.
Acoustic Requirements for Wedding Venues
There are a few reasons you’d want to have an acoustically treated wedding venue. During the ceremony, the officiant and the couple can likely all hear each other since they’re all so close. However, the guests should also be able to hear what’s going on.
Wedding venue characteristics that can cause acoustic issues:
- The use of speech amplification so the guests can hear the officiant and the couple.
- Churches or club houses are typically designed with high ceilings and hard surfaces. Clubhouse acoustics can be particularly challenging.
- Conversations during cocktail hour plus speeches, music, conversing at the reception.
It is common for many venues to try and address acoustic complaints with new or upgraded sound systems. However, the primary acoustic complaint in wedding venues is too much reverberation/excessive noise levels. This is an architectural issue, and cannot be solved by adding or removing speakers. Rather, the venue requires added acoustic treatment via acoustic wall panels or stretched fabric wall systems.
Specific Venue Acoustic Constraints
In larger indoor venues such as a churches and clubhouses, there may be echo due to the geometrics of the space combined with the use of any speech amplification. This echo will likely make it harder for guests to understand what part of the wedding is even going on.
Read: Church Acoustics Case Study
As for the reception hall, they’re designed to be quite large and filled with hard surfaces such as wood floors. Wedding receptions usually consist of loud music, dancing and a lot of talking. The combination of all of these noises in such a large area will result in a lot of background noise. As a result, the couple and the guests won’t be able to hear each other talk which may put a damper on the evening.
Keeping Wedding Aesthetics while Addressing Acoustics
No matter what kind of acoustic treatment you choose for a wedding venue, it needs to be aesthetically pleasing. People choose their venues based on looks, because they’ll want to impress their guests and make sure it looks good in pictures.
Venues filled with hard surfaces tend to be the go-to at this time. When you attend a wedding or look at the pictures, you see a churches, reception halls and clubhouses with tile, hardwood floors and high ceilings. This trend in venues is not for no reason. Although these characteristics make for awful acoustics, it’s much more attractive than a small room filled with carpet for a wedding.
Suggested Acoustic Treatment for Venues
Out of ABC2 , or Absorption, Blocking, Cover, Consulting, the proper application at a wedding venue would be absorption. Absorption products used to mitigate echo include acoustic absorption panels, acoustic ceiling clouds and acoustic ceiling baffles.
Commercial Acoustics regularly treats venues, restaurants and clubhouses with acoustic panels to reduce excess echo and reverberation. These types of spaces usually choose to use acoustic panels wrapped in fabric that matches the walls. While you can tell the panels are there, you can’t tell what they are so they don’t disrupt the design of the space.
Acoustic Art Panels are another popular option. You can have any image printed on acoustically transparent fabric which is then wrapped around the panel just like the non-printed fabric. If you’d like to add art to a space that also needs acoustic treatment, this would be the ideal application.
Improving Wedding Venue Acoustics
Couples looking to book their wedding venues might not consider the acoustics to be important or may not even consider them as a factor in wedding planning in the first place, but they should. Consider it a selling point for wedding venues.
If excessive echo impairs the guest’s and the couple’s ability to hear anything at the ceremony or reception, people are going to talk and let their friends know not to use this venue. So, before anything like this happens be sure to call Commercial Acoustics for a consultation and possible treatment of your venue space.
