Wood Wedding

For the band’s first outing in December, XO Surrey Wedding Band travelled to a beautiful venue – The Red Barn in Lingfield for Mr and Mrs Wood’s wedding celebrations. We had an incredible time performing for Kirsty and Craig’s evening reception, especially as we had met a few of the family at previous weddings!

The Venue

This was the first time we had the pleasure to perform at The Red Barn, and what an amazing venue! Set in Lingfield, Surrey, the venue is ordinarily a traditional country pub that can be hired for weddings. With the building be a 300 year old converted barn, it’s quite different to a regular pub setting. An amazing space for a wedding – a beautiful, large barn, with amazing little touches. Our favourite was the tall book filled wall, and the Christmas decorations – it is December after all! Check out the venue’s website here – www.theredbarnblindleyheath.co.uk

The Set Up

Being the beginning of December, we braved a freezing cold load in into the side of the barn. Once the speeches came to a conclusion, we were able to discreetly load our equipment into a section of the barn, meaning we were ready to set up as soon as the room was cleared!

Loading in and setting up is sometimes a bit challenging when the wedding takes place in one room. Luckily, the staff at ‘The Red Barn’ were very accommodating, and everything went smoothly with us all working together. Once the guests had mostly cleared the room, the staff cleared away the top table and surrounding space, which is where we were to set up for the evening.

We’re aware that after the wedding breakfast and speeches, brides, grooms and guests alike are keen to get the party started! We’re also aware that it’s not unusual for times to run over slightly – so we always try our very best to keep times to a minimum. However, we want everything to look and sound (most importantly) as good as possible for the evening!

After everything was set up, sound checked and ready, Kirsty and Craig were set to cut their wedding cake before starting the evening with their first dance!

The First Dance

All Of Me – John Legend

 For Mr and Mrs Wood’s first dance, we got to play a favourite from the past few years – John Legend’s ‘All Of Me’. It is a beautiful song that I’m sure many couples can relate to, and is absolutely perfect for a first dance – I really love singing this song. I also love seeing how much it means to the couple and seeing guests sing along in the crowd. After a little while everyone joined in on the dance floor and we continued into a special request for Kirsty and Craig…

Live Party Band

The couple are big Queen fans, and so had asked us to follow the first dance with the band’s classic hit ‘You’re My Best Friend’. The song is so appropriate for a wedding, and I’m shocked we’d never played it before! It obviously went down amazingly, and it was so much fun. We knew we had a great crowd for the evening to come! We continued with our Disco Medley, which includes classics such as Stevie Wonder’s ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’, and The Jackson 5’s ‘I Want You Back’, as well as a bit of a modern classic ‘Can’t Stop The Feeling’ by Justin Timberlake. We finished off the first set with another Queen request – ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’. This song is so much fun to perform, especially when the crowd get so involved! I personally love all the vocal harmonies in this one!

After a quick look at the fun photo booth on our break, we were back into set two! We played a couple of 80’s favourites – ‘Footloose’ and ‘Easy Lover’ before getting stuck into our Party Medley, which includes Beyoncé’s ‘Crazy In Love’, Mark Ronson’s massive hit ‘Uptown Funk’ and a party favourite ‘IWanna Dance With Somebody’ by Whitney Houston. The slightly cheesy vibe was going down well, so we pulled out a bit of One Direction, ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ – which was a request! A favourite moment of the night was a conga line round the barn to ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ before everyone returned to the dance floor to sing along to all the answer backs! Soon the evening was coming to an end, but not before we played another request, and classic song, ‘Sweet Child Of Mine’.

We would like to congratulate the new Mr and Mrs Wood, and thank you so much again for including us in your special day. It was an absolute pleasure to celebrate with you all, and we hope to see you again in the future!