Crow Wood Hotel Wedding Band
Carla and Paul found us via Facebook when looking to book their ceremony acoustic duo and drinks reception music. They fell in love with our acoustic duo covers and here we are!
After a couple of months of build up to the wedding day, we were so excited to get our teeth into learning their ceremony requests, and with it being our first time performing as a wedding band at Crow Wood Hotel in Burnley, we made sure to arrive with plenty of time to figure out the layout of the ceremony and drinks reception space… always great to be prepared!
Meeting the managers on arrival and watching creative venue stylists set up the ceremony room to look like a gorgeous light and airy foliage dream, with Rustic love letters and a kick-ass neon sign for the alter, we were so excited to see the end result and boy they didn’t disappoint, it really is how venue stylists can transform a room and make a couples dream come true!
With the weather being so warm, and moody, we decided to rehearse our ceremony songs outside, as to not disturb everyone else working whilst the room was being decorated, And with such picturesque grounds we had to take a moment to film and photograph the gardens… What a beautiful view – Burnley, we didn’t know you had it in you!Once we were sound-checked and feeling confident, we moved inside to meet the registrars and go through the plan of action for the nuptials. Something we’re very experienced in, is knowing when to play and not to play during ceremonies.. after 12 years of performing together as a north-west wedding band, we would hope so! 😉
Carla and Paul had a large number of guests to celebrate with them so whilst everyone was being choosing a seat we performed a couple of our acoustic covers, two of which being ‘Time of your life’ by Green Day and ‘stand by me’ by Ben E.King – songs we’ve been performing for years but have never gotten around to recording… Should we? Once everyone was situated we waited for our cue from the registrar for us to perform Carla down the aisle, She chose a beautiful love song by Ruelle. ‘I get to love you’, which is a song we learnt, and recorded, back in May 2021 for Charlotte & Gareth’s wedding music at Crab Manor in York. It’s a great touch to have us record your ceremony songs before the day, get in touch if you would like us to more information about this!
So lovely to revisit this perfect love song which, to us, is very reminiscent of Elvis’ ‘I can’t help falling in love’.
Listen to the recording here:
I Get To Love You
The Distance
Carla floated down the aisle in her beautiful gown and met Paul at the alter and after the vows were recited ], after a slight hiccup from Paul, and rings exchanged, then came our time to perform whilst the beaming couple signed their register and made everything official! They chose jack Johnson’s ‘better together’ for this part of the ceremony, with Mats harmonica solo getting some attention people were soon singing along and tapping their feet…
On their way out of Crow Wood Hotel’s ceremony suite, the happy couple chose ‘Now that I have found you’ by Liam Gallagher, which we put our usual folk-style on, Watching her sing the lyrics whilst she walked out with Paul was awesome, So happy… and finally married!
Listen to Carla & Paul’s acoustic wedding songs here:
One thing we’ve learn about working as a wedding band over the 12 years is how to make things run smoothly, for us and the happy couple. Waiting until the confetti shots have been taken, and guests have scattered around the venue is always the perfect time to setup our battery powered PA, for the drinks reception set.
With the weather still being warm, but moody – with some dark clouds rolling in, we chose to perform outside, just for the thrills. Living dangerously! Although, we did place our amp on a trolley to be wheeled in quickly, if the heavens opened on us, so, we’re not that daring! Another plus of being battery powered is being able to move our PA so quickly from one space to another – oh, the convenience.
We set up on a miniature golf course, with a view of everyone close to the venue, and the happy couple off in the gardens having their portraits taken – everyone could hear us.
Carla and Paul chose requested some great acoustic tunes from our setlist that we haven’t performed in a while, I love you always forever by Donna Lewis – which we recorded earlier this year but haven’t performed since, Cecilia by Simon and Garfunkel – you know we’re ALL about those 2 part harmonies…. And shut up and dance by Walk the Moon, brilliant song requests for their drinks reception entertainment!
Bumping into Claire from The Fromm shoppe, as well as her second shooter George foy films was lovely, her style is light and airy and with the ceremony room looking so romantic, the photos are bound to look spectacular. Claire even filmed a little snippet of us one of Carla’s drinks reception music requests and tagged us on instagram , thankfully we sounded in tune (woo!).
With the weather becoming more and more moody we were slightly concerned that we were going to have to rush in for the last 10 minutes of the drinks reception set, but with it only slightly raining it made for a nice way to cool us down – every cloud!
Once we’d finished and packed up we had a couple of guests tell us how much they enjoyed the live ceremony and drinks reception music and thanked us for making their day – how lovely!!
After an entire 4 hours of being there and performing it’s normally the case that we only really get to say hello to our couples when the rush of the ceremony and drinks receptions die down – and today it was right at the end of The Fromm shoppe taking Carla’s portraits, before everyone headed in for their wedding breakfast meal – in which, we had found out there was a surprise singing waiter – how cool.. sometimes we wish we could hang around all day to see the other performers and wedding bands do their thing, we very rarely get to see any live wedding music, that isn’t our own!
Carla couldn’t have been more lovely and complimentary towards our wedding music, She loved our ceremony choices and couldn’t wait for the little pre-ceremony video to be uploaded to our Facebook and instagram accounts…. And also told us she would have loved to have booked us for as her evening reception band too.
With a couple of days away for the happy couple and their kids they were so excited to unwind after a few months of planning everything, and enjoy married life.
Thank you so much to Carla, and Paul, for having us perform as your Burnley Wedding Band & Acoustic Duo – we had such an amazing time as your ceremony and drinks reception band and hope you both had an amazing rest of your day at CrowWood Hotel.
Congratulations to you both!
Soph & Mat x