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The Distance

cragwood house hotel wedding band & acoustic duo
Cumbria
Acoustic duo
/
17th November 2022

Cragwood country house wedding band

Andy & Linzi must have vetted every wedding band cumbria has to offer and were so excited when they found little old us to perform during their wedding day. They spent a long time browsing our acoustic covers on YouTube, and even chose their live ceremony music based on the sound we create… if there’s a bigger compliment you could give us, we haven’t heard it yet!

An acoustic duo in Cumbria gets to experience a gorgeous drive to work, through rolling hills and valleys lush woodlands and beautiful lakeside drives. Of course, when it’s snowing it’s a different – and entirely more treacherous story. So we were delighted that Andy and Linzi’s big day fell on a gorgeous spring day. The Lake District has some beautiful scenery, and Cragwood Country House Hotel And Restaurant, which overlooks lake windermere, gets the very best of them. What a gorgeous place to get married.

Mr & Mrs Harland had booked us to be with them the entire day, from the ceremony right up until the evening reception. Part of us always worries that guests will be slightly sick of hearing us drone on for a full day but from what we were told they loved every minute of it, some of them even a little too much – yes, we’re looking at you, mr drunken menace, you!

When we arrived we were greeted by the lovely Samantha, who, as it turns out knows our best mate in the business, Gary Mills – DJ extraordinaire! He was the official DJ at Samantha’s wedding and plays regularly at Cragwood house hotel, too. It’s a small world!

For the acoustic ceremony performances, we were situated just outside of the ceremony and wedding breakfast room in the lovely bay windows with breathtaking views. The ceremony songs Linzi and Andy had requested were ‘A Thousand Years’ by Christina Perri, A song we haven’t performed in a good few years, so it was a nice little revisit for us, ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’ which by now has to be the most requested song in our setlist (we’ll never tire of it though, Elvis is king after all), and to walk back down the aisle they went for ‘Truly, Madly, Deeply’ which is lovely song that we really don’t play enough, and was a wonderful way to to round off their live wedding ceremony music.

Listen to the songs they chose below:

During the drinks reception everyone headed outside for some photographs taken by David Millington, as well as a glass of champagne to accompany them whilst they took in the view. We tried out a couple of new songs to our setlist – ‘Jolene’ By Dolly Parton, ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’ by Bob Dylan – which is our favourite track from our latest acoustic album ‘If The Mood Carries’ – listen here! And also ‘Sloop John B.’ by The Beach Boys.

The breakfast room was filled with the smell of Cragwoods outstanding chef cooking up the most beautiful 3 course meal, and we were delighted to discover that the bride and groom had counted us among the catering numbers. First though, we had another set to perform: this time providing yet more acoustic music for wedding breakfast. It was during this set that we were able to sneak in the couple of songs that Andy and Linzi had mentioned they fell in love with while browsing our acoustic covers on youtube: The first being our acoustic version of ‘Islands In The Stream’, originally written by The Bee Gees and perhaps made most famous by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton (someone’s got a Dolly fixation… we suspect Andy… 😉) . Performing a duet song like this, with prominent male and female parts, is one of the advantages of being an acoustic wedding band with male and female singers. It opens up a lot of possibilities for our setlist.
 
Their second was ‘Fields Of Gold’ by Eva cassidy; this one has been requested a few times since we put together our acoustic cover a couple of years ago. There’s something about the arrangement and the lead vocal and the way they play together that is just totally intoxicating. We like to think it’s a decent tribute to one of the brightest stars – and saddest losses – of the music world.

After we had eaten and got to know David, the photographer a little better, the happy couple and their guests got ready for their hour long cruise on Lake Windermere, a MUST when you’re getting married in the Lake District, Giving us just enough time to setup the early evening looper show, whilst they set sail. This also gave us a nice opportunity to have a final practise for the live first dance: Brett young’s ‘In Case You Didn’t Know’. A beautiful country song, which they heard one night whilst playing pool at home.

What a wonderful bunch of people to perform for, Thank you to Andy & Linzi for inviting us to be a part of the wedding day!

We’d like to extend huge thanks to Stacey and the rest of the incredible team At Cragwood House in Windermere. We had a lovely time and would heartily recommend this place to any couples looking for a wedding venue in the lake district… as well as being a fantastic place for a wedding band in Cumbria.

Soph & Mat x

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