Saturday, mid-April, with the 2024 wedding season well underway and we, SouthWestBand were headed up the road to Hillam in North Yorkshire for the the wedding of Laura and James.
The location for the celebration was Bert's Barrow, a family run farm with it’s own rustic barn wedding venue on the outskirts of Leeds.
Being a West Yorkshire wedding band and only a stones throw away we had performed many times at Bert's Barrow but this would be our first visit of the current wedding season.
After arriving and setting up our SouthWestBand three piece ‘Power Trio’ and DJ in the main barn we were ready to bring the party. As we gathered guests around the dancefloor the newlyweds cut their cake (made entirely of cheese) and entered the dancefloor for their first dance as a married couple.
The song James and Laura chose for their first dance was 'Always remember us this way'. A great tune by Lady Gaga from the soundtrack to the 2018 award-winning film 'A Star Is Born'. This song has been mega popular as a first dance choice of late, being easily one of our top 5 most requested last year.
As the couple swayed together the guests surrounded them before joining on the dancefloor for the final part of the track. Once the song had finished we asked the guests to give the newlyweds a huge cheer before we kicked straight in with our first live band set of the night.
For the first of our two sets we kept the songs to general floor fillers, songs like 'Man I Feel Like A Woman' and 'Shut Up and Dance' and ‘I’m a Believer’ kept the dancefloor full. We ended the set on our Fleetwood Mac mashup before heading over to the decks to start our DJ set.
During the break one of the younger guests asked if we could play 'Livin' on a prayer' by Bon Jovi. Never ones to shy away from a request we quickly went over the tune backstage before adding it to the setlist for the second set.
During the band’s second set the dance moves were in full flow. Special shout out to one of the guests Timmy who after ditching his tie and jacket unleashed some serious shapes on the floor! 🔥
In our preparation for the evening we had noted that the couple enjoyed our SouthWestBand ‘Kerrang Pop Punk medley’ so after testing the water with ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ the party went to the next level. Leaning into that style we played ‘Fat Lip’ by Sum 41, ‘Basket Case’ by Green Day, ‘Girl All the Bad Guys Want’ and ‘All The Small Things’ by Blink-182 before ending on our SouthWestBand Arctic Monkeys Medley, when in Yorkshire right?
After we had finished our favourite request of "one more song!" erupted from the crowd. Gladly we picked up our instruments again and played one final tune, ‘Mr Brightside’ to finish a thoroughly enjoyable band set!
Encore over and the band done we headed back to the decks to perform our final DJ set. The bride Laura came over and asked if we could play the early 2000s song 'Unwritten' by Natasha Beddingfield. We gave it a spin and the tune went down a storm with Laura and her bridesmaids. Dancing hand in hand in a big circle the bride and her besties belted the tune out at the top of their lungs.
Anther highlight of the last DJ set was in one of the couples requests 'I've Had The Time of My Life' from the film Dirty Dancing. During the verse we jokingly asked if they would be going for the 'lift', to our surprise the bride and groom immediately started limbering up! Sure enough during the chorus the bride took a quick run up, leapt forwards and was hoisted high and horizontal in the air by her husband and guests!
To end the DJ set and the night decided to go with the Taylor Swift modern classic 'Love Story'. The wedding guests all crowded round the couple on the dancefloor and gave one last huge cheer as the final notes rang out. A fantastic wedding and another great night at Bert's Barrow under our belts.
Thanks for stopping by, see you in the next one
P.S. Watch our Gig in 60 seconds here with some of the story of the evening 👇
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