DESTINATION WEDDINGS ARE THE ULTIMATE ESCAPE WITH YOUR CLOSEST LOVED ONES, WHERE EVERY GUEST HAS FLOWN OUT FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF CELEBRATING WITH YOU.
NO ONE IS RUSHING HOME FOR WORK THE NEXT DAY, SO IT CAN FEEL MORE CAREFREE, INTIMATE AND EXCLUSIVE - THE PARTIES OFTEN REACH HEIGHTS YOU COULD NEVER ACHIEVE AT HOME.
Joe, I don’t know how to thank you and the rest of the band. You guys made our wedding so special! It was a dream. Your performances were impeccable.
Every single guest expressed how much they loved the band, they felt they were at a concert. Thank you so much for your professionalism and heartfelt performance, we are recommending you to everyone we know!!!
Much love 🤍🤍
Video - @ricci.wedding
What an utterly beautiful wedding. Ziad, our groom is an event planner, so expectations we certainly high when it came to carrying out his vision. The couple live together in Dubai and made the trip out to meet us in Majorca in the mountains. Serendipitously, we had another wedding on the other side of the island the night before, so we literally drove ourselves across the island to meet the couple on their wedding morning. The event itself, ran flawlessly with a gorgeous setting complimenting some totally delicious food which we were treated to. We started off the day with Joe jumping in after the ceremony with a solo sax set, playing an array of R&B classics during the cocktail hour. The drum band then brought the guests up to the main dining area!
As the guests arrived in the space where they'd eventually eat, we invited the couple for their first dance which was 'It's Now or Never' by Elvis Presley, as they moved to their seats, we joined the guests for a sing song. We performed 'Killing Me Softly', 'Stand By Me' and 'Hey Jude' in the first set, which our director, Joe, taking the somewhat risky decision to stand on the edge of a fountain for extra stage presence. One of the guests notably was heard exclaiming 'Don't do it!'. The second set included 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You', 'Believe' and 'Sweet Caroline'. Our party sets later on were a great success with the guests going absolutely wild for our Boyband vs Girlband medley. We ended the night with our only ever live performance of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by Queen; a challenge we enjoyed making our best go of!
LOCATION - MAJORCA
BAND - LDN SHOWBAND
COCKTAILS - SOLO R&B SAX
DINNER - FULL ROAMING BAND
MAIN PARTY - 8 PIECE BAND
Video - @huma06_photography
QUALITY - Time and time again, this is the principle reason cited to us as the reason for making the investment of flying a band out of their native country. UK event bands are unparalleled in their quality compared to the global competition.
MULTI-FUNCTIONAL - If you book a band for the evening, rather than needing to fly out another batch of musicians to cover the rest of the day's entertainment, you can have us perform in different iterations throughout your event. It's not uncommon for us to have say 9 musicians cover an entire 3 day event, be it as an interactive roaming band, a romantic ceremony trio or DJ/Sax for the pool party the following day.
MEMORIES - After our performance, on countless occasions, the feedback we've received is that the band made the event what it was. When we fly out, we aim not to just perform a range of songs but to create special moments that you'll never forget. Destination weddings have a unique, close-knit feel about them, and we always come home feeling like we've shared something truly unique with our clients and guests that we can't replicate at home.
All this said, we do often suggest that at least one element of your entertainment could involve local musicians. If you're in Greece, there's nothing we can do that would beat a local bouzouki band under the olive trees, or a local classical guitarist in the sun in Spain!
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I literally have no words... you managed some tricky things moving things around in the rain and yet it all felt seamless. We hope you guys had some fun as well and are getting some much needed rest! Please double thank all the band for me and thel them how amazing they were! We will definitely let you know when we are in London and would love to see you! It was SUCH a blast.
Video - @2become1video
When Brenda Babcock Celebrations gave us the call to perform at this wedding, we jumped at the challenge. Brenda's colourful mediterranean designs beautifully complimented the vibrance of this festival going pair. Rarely does the energy of a couple reach the heights of Lizzy and Matt, and we flew home from Florence with our own post-wedding blues! The brief was ambitious, and the challenges we were met with in the process made it even more so, but it goes down as one of the most memorable weekends in our years of performing across the world.
Day 1 saw a welcome dinner in the evening with a local Italian band ripping up the restaurant with some traditional Italian tunes whilst everyone enjoyed a drink or three. Meanwhile the band were touching down at Florence airport.
On Day 2 we provided DJ + Sax for the pool party at which we had the guests vibing to a deep house set whilst being soaking with bubble guns.
Then came the wedding day - and here we had a huge array of special moments lined up. The ceremony was certainly not one we'll forget any time soon, as Lizzy had cued us up to surprise Matt with a pop-up performance of 'All You Need Is Love' in the style of Love Actually with our musicians/horns/singers popping out of the windows, to the guests' sheer delight!
The plan was then to jump across to the terrace to sound check for our dinner roaming set, but to say the heavens opened is honestly a severe understatement. The AV company hadn't expected quite such a rain storm, and the power box they'd place under a table got flooded, and so when the rain eased off they discovered it had blown... we were able to work together fortunately and rustle up a sound system to come out of the house enabling us to tear it up for our dinner roaming sets. After mains we had the guests in full swing, standing on their chairs on songs like 'Unwritten' and 'How You Remind Me' by Nickelback - a tune Lizzy had dropped into conversation on whatsapp as a joke, days before the wedding, probably was the highlight!
Transitioning from dinner to the party was fun too - it was a bit of a walk so our two saxes did a pied piper style walking ditty, where they had the guests following them to the nightclub to the tune of 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered' by Stevie Wonder - when they arrived in the space, the band seamlessly joined in with the song (it's like we'd planned it!).
The party which had been relocated to indoors, started with the LDN Showband performing the first dance which was 'Iris' by The Goo Goo Dolls - then frankly spiralled right until reportedly about 6am in the morning.
LOCATION - IL BORRO, TUSCANY
BAND - LDN SHOWBAND
POOL PARTY - SAX/DJ
CEREMONY - FLASHMOB
DINNER - ROAMING BAND
MAIN PARTY - 9 PIECE BAND
AFTER PARTY - DJ DUO
I cannot thank you guys enough for everything you did for the wedding. It was just seamless, it was the music perfect PERFECT music set. Everyone killed it for the rehearsal dinner, the cocktails, the ceremony. You brought an energy that I will never ever forget for the rest of my life to that wedding that day. The sax playing, the games you played with them, making everyone sing. It was just absolute perfection.
Thank you so much for everything you did for us. I hope you all had an absolute blast and got home ok! Wow, what a weekend!
REHEARSAL DINNER - PIANO/VOX
CEREMONY - SINGER + STRINGS
COCKTAILS - GUITAR + SINGERS
MAIN PARTY - 8 PIECE BAND
AFTER PARTY - COUPLE DJ SET
The House of Ellington flew out for this idyllic 2 day event, at which our performers made a number of appearances. At the rehearsal dinner, Aleysha and Jerome (keys), performed a beautiful duo set at the GH Tremezzo Hotel. Special request was 'That's Amore' to set the scene on a gorgeous Italian evening.
Fast forward to wedding day, where we kicked off the ceremony teaming up with string quartet to perform a dreamy rendition of 'I'm Kissing You' by Des'ree. The guests took a short walk along the lake in 30 degree bliss to the aperitif where they were met by Jaz and George doing a guitar/vocal duo - after 45 min we rotated the singers for a change in flavour where Kirsten jumped in and performed the son of the bride's special request 'Watermelon Sugar' by Harry Styles. The dinner took place in the glass house of Villa Pizzo where everntually House of Ellington 8 piece band took over and kicked off performing the Father/Daughter dance 'Something Got Me Started' by Simply Red. We partied the night away, starting with a soul heavy first set, progressing into some more contemporary bangers. Then it was time to hand over to Alice and Taylor who took the guests into the early hours with a newlywed DJ duo set!
LOCATION - LAKE COMO
BAND - HOUSE OF ELLINGTON
Video - @elisabettaricciowedding
After seeing the band at a wedding in Scotland the previous year, Lauren & Elliott were keen to have the band for their own special day! This was a true all dayer... we started with Wallis performing some hymns in the ceremony before launching straight into a trio set backed by guitar and drums in the drink reception. We then shuffled the pack a bit during the drinks to bring in Jay and Joe to the fold to warm up the guests a bit.
For the dinner, we shipped over to Bovino's where we treated the guest to some full band sets, played from local-made podiums. Their special request here was Hero - Enrique Iglesias which predictably went off!!
During the cocktail hour, we had a DJ getting the guests going some more as the sun began to set, and after a quick dress change, the bride and groom were greeted with confetti for their first dance. Our 10 piece band brought the house down and we played a pretty diverse range of music here, culminating in another special request of theirs - 'Something Just Like This' by Coldplay ft Chainsmokers.
Another successful event with Zoe Jordan of Eden Events, who always seems to pull off the most beautiful event design to compliment our musical performances. We're looking forward to seeing Lauren and Elliott soon in Barbados where their friends have just booked us to fly!
CEREMONY - PIANO/VOX
DRINKS - QUARTET
DINNER - FULL BAND
PARTY - 10 PIECE BAND
AFTER PARTY - DJ
LOCATION - ALGARVE
BAND - LDN CITY COLLECTIVE
PLANNER - ZOE JORDAN
Hi Joe, just wanted to message to say how thankful we are for Saturday.
You guys genuinely smashed it, absolutely incredible! All our guests are commenting on how good the band were- don’t think anyone left the dance floor for the moment you guys started which is awesome.
So yeah just wanted to say a massive thank you! We loved every minute of it!
Video - @huma06_photography
We worked with Majorca planners Mille Papillons (meaning 1000 butterflies) on this gorgeous event in the Majorcan countyside. Here we had the pleasure of sound checking in 34 degree heat, which was a challenge for the decks to avoid over-heating, or burning Joe's fingertips for that matter! We also had the bridal party getting ready during said sound check who were vibing out on the balcony as they took their first swigs of champagne. It was pretty clear this was going to be a good night.
We weren't due to play our first set until 11pm, such is the way with later set schedules in hot countries, and Wide Awake did 2 x 1 hour live sets with Joe DJing until 3am. At no point during this time did the dancefloor even begin to threaten to calm down, especially with a few of the guests getting up and singing late on in the night.
The highlight of the night without a doubt would have been Josh (the groom's) guest appearance on stage to flawlessly perform all of the raps of 'In the End' - Linkin Park. Epic!
LOCATION - MAJORCA
VENUE - SA TORRE DE PORRERES
BAND - WIDE AWAKE
AFTER PARTY - DJ
Wow - the band was just unbelievable! I knew they'd be good from the videos, but this was honestly the next level. Thank you so much for all your hard work to make this happen this week.
LOCATION - PARKLANE, LIMASSOL
BAND - HOUSE OF ELLINGTON
With a lead time of 8 days between the initial enquiry and the actual event, this was a true opportunity to put our logistics system to the test. We worked together closely with the client's PA to make sure that everything ran smoothly, and boy it did! A true testament that with a focussed mind you can make it happen. We made sure that all flights/accommodation and transfers were booked with 5 days to spare to make sure that we had time to hone in on the idiosyncrasies of the event.
This event was the birthday party of a supermarket owner, so whilst we wanted to make the night fun for everyone, we also wanted it to feel special for the birthday boy, so a last minute special request and some awesome interactive performances made it just that. Not to mention of course a big rendition of 'Happy Birthday'!
MAIN PARTY - 11 PIECE BAND
AFTER PARTY - DJ
Alex and I are finally back in the land of the living following the weekend and wanted to say thank you so much for all of the hard work you and your team put into Saturday! I know that it was a little disjointed in the lead-up at times but you certainly understood the assignment on the night! It was such a godsend for you to sort travel, accommodation and off-site meals, as well as to push for us to use Tim.
You and your team are such talented musicians - we, as well as Saskia and Ross and all of the guests, were so happy with the performance on the night. To keep 75+ people on the dance floor until 1am in full period costume and wigs is no mean feat! The fact that you understand the planning side of things as well as the performance side of things is invaluable to us and we wouldn't hesitate to work with you again.
Truly, when you're accustomed to costumed events, it's quite rare that a costume theme will take your breath away, but the commitment by Saskia and Ross' guests was next level.
The story behind this party is even cooler - they are a couple who are currently in their 3rd year of sailing the world, and this party was simply their excuse to see as many friends as possible whilst on dry land, and boy did they do so in style.
Fortissimi slotted into this event perfectly in the Bridgerton style, fully embedding into the drinks and dinner, adding to the theatricality. The night was finished off by an epic set by Wide Awake which literally had people in corsets dipping it low...