Last Saturday, we had the honour of being Heather & Dan’s middlesborough acoustic duo and Whinstone View wedding band for their wedding day. They and their guests were so welcoming that, not only did we have an awesome time but we came away with a couple of new friends!
With an early ceremony start of 11am we travelled through the lovely back roads of Middlesborough without any hint of traffic, if that’s not a sign that the day was going to be perfect, we don’t know what is, and arrived early to make sure we were setup and situated for each performance of the day.
The Sun (not the paper) attended the ceremony, too; which was a great bonus and allowed us to perform our acoustic ceremony songs outside in the courtyard whilst the guests arrived and were seated.
Adding a new Middlesborough acoustic duo tune to our setlist!
Heather & Dan chose 3 song requests, when booking live music for their wedding day, the first being ‘I Can’t help falling in love’ by Elvis Presley, to which Heather and her gorgeous bridesmaids made their way down the aisle.
Next up, a song new to us called Toothpaste Kisses to be performed during the signing of the register. We absolutely treasure the moments when a client introduces us to a song that will almost certainly become a mainstay of our live acoustic repertoire, and this absolute gem by The Maccabees is definitely a contender… it’s totally up our street and we promise to work on our whistling for future performances (see video below ).
Watch us perform Dan & Heather’s ceremony as an Whinstone view wedding band below:
Then, once the happy couple had signed their register and had their photographs taken by Chiyo and Kirk photography, with Sam second shooting, we performed Stevie wonder’s classic ’Signed, Sealed, Delivered’ – Such a cheer went up when they walked down the aisle as husband and wife that we almost missed our cue, but this didn’t matter – we could tell the courtyard was full of amazing people so happy to see them married, finally!
Once everyone was ushered to the picturesque grounds of Whinstone View Bistro for the confetti shots and family portraits we set up for the drinks reception music, performing a few choice songs from our acoustic setlist like ‘dreams’ by Fleetwood Mac, little talks by of monsters and finishing off with our raucous acoustic duo version of I wanna be like you from the jungle book, everyone thoroughly enjoyed listening to us whilst they sipped their champagne and worked up the courage to throw themselves into the awesome garden games Dan & Heather had planned for everyone. Giant Jenga? Check. Collossal Connect Four? Check.
WHINSTONE VIEW: AMAZING STAFF, AND EVEN MORE AMAZING FOOD!
We were lucky enough to be included in the numbers for an amazing wedding meal and dessert from the staff at Whinstone View; thank you Dan and Heather! Pie and mash and 3 delicious desserts to choose from – we were fully fuelled up and ready to go for our next post wedding breakfast acoustic set, where we once again performed outside using our battery powered amps. The weather was so beautiful and, combined with the full bellies of the assembled guests, gave us the perfect opportunity to make this set a little bit more laid back with choices from our wedding breakfast setlist: ‘I’m on fire’ by Bruce Springsteen ‘all I have to do is dream’ by the every brothers… and of course ‘lovely day’ by Bill Withers, as it was a perfect choice for the mood… harmonies are a huge part of why we love performing together so anything we can put our own folk spin on is welcome in our setlist!
After a short break, we got to work on building the castle that is our looper rig, for the early evening reception sets, This typically takes around an hour for us to setup and soundcheck properly, depending on the get-in to each venue. Set up with all of the wiring in the right place, it’s like spaghetti junction, we’re not gonna lie, and we were ready to sound check the first dance, secretly… through our headphones, of course!
Wanna make your first dance fun? invite your friends up with you!
Dan and Heather had planned on having everyone join them after the first verse of their first dance song… and when it’s ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ by Andy Williams – we hardly needed to coax everyone up and sing along…
The room was filled with so much joy we couldn’t keep smiles off of our faces watching them have the time of their lives.
Straight into our first set of the evening and we had everyone up from the get go – not an easy feat when you’re starting your first set at 7:30 and the sun is still shining but, Dan and Heather’s guests were such a generous and welcoming crowd that we felt so lucky to be a part of it all. In fact, I don’t think we’ve ever had such a reaction to our looper show… particularly the delay-timed vocals on the dance tracks like What Is Love by Haddaway or Bad Guy by Billie Eilish… we were happily surprised by the crowd’s positive response 🙂
During the break we took the opportunity to avail ourselves of the mind blowing fish & chips that arrived just as we were starting our first set (Bah! Priorities!), and couldn’t get over how good they were – almost giving the pie and mash a run for their money!
Watch a couple of our acoustic songs performed at Whinstone View Bistro:
Are you looking for a middlesborough acoustic duo or Whinstone view wedding band?
Get in touch, we’d love to hear all about your wedding plans!
Soph & Mat x