On 26^th May 2018, XO Party Band joined Gemma and Paul for their wedding at Cain Manor, Bordon. We had a great time with the new Mr and Mrs Duff, and their friends and family – thank you so much for having us!

The Venue 

Cain Manor is a beautiful barn style country house located on the border of Surrey and Hampshire. The venue incorporates rustic and modern aspects, and feels very romantic – ideal for a wedding venue. Cain Manor is only available for exclusive use, and it’s lovely to have the entire venue for your party alone. The venue’s layout was great – occasionally we come across venues that have an abundance of rooms, which can unfortunately split the guests up and affect the party atmosphere. Cain Manor had plenty of space for the guests, but no one was ever too far away for the music! You enter the venue through The Hall into The Library, which is a beautiful open planned lounge area, with the bar at one end. This space is great for the drinks reception if the weather isn’t perfect, and for extra choices such as a photo booth in the evening. The Library back doors lead out to the grounds, with an great area for drinks receptions and immaculate gardens. The main space in the venue is called The Music Room – this is the large barn style room where the wedding breakfast and the evening reception are both held. The room is stunning and a perfect space for these events.

The Set Up

The weather was lovely when we arrived at the venue at 5:30, and so we were able to carry some of our gear round to the side door of The Music Room. The guests were still enjoying their wedding breakfast, and so we did as much as we could in order to save time when we were able to access the room. Whilst we were waiting for access, the staff were great and served us our pre agreed hot meals. The food was amazing, and it was soon time for us to head back down and set up!

The wedding party mostly moved outside to enjoy the sunny weather, and we swiftly moved all the gear through to the performance space in The Music Room. Cain Manor has quite a strict sound limiter in place and request the use of an electric drum kit instead of regular acoustic drums. They also have their own speakers for the entertainment to plug into, in order to regulate the sound level. This wasn’t ideal for us, but we did the best we could and at least it saved a bit of set up time!
Once everything was up and ready, we performed a sound check to make sure the instrument and microphone levels sounded good, and that each of us could hear a good mix – this is really important for a good performance!
Then we were ready for the evening party to begin. The party was ushered back into the transformed space; Gemma and Paul cut their cake on the dance floor and then we began the first dance.

The First Dance

Cinderella – Boyce Avenue

Mr and Mrs Duff chose ‘Cinderella’ – a heartfelt song by Boyce Avenue – for their first dance. This was a new one for us, and we really enjoyed playing it! First dances are one of my favourite parts of a wedding, as it can show the couple’s personality, and is such a lovely moment. Gemma and Paul’s first dance was no exception; it was very romantic between the two of them, with their guests watching fondly from around the dance floor.

Live Party Band

We had three sets of live music lined up for the evening, and we continued after the first dance with Toploader’s hit ‘Dancing In The Moonlight’, which always gets people singing along. A few ‘Must Have’ choices by the couple were featured in the first set – ‘No Tomorrow’ by Orson (throwback!), ‘This Love’ by Maroon Five, and the classic ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ by Van Morrison. One of the features we offer is for our customers to choose some songs from our extensive set list that they ‘Must Have’ played on the night! We love personalising the sets, as we know every couple is different – then we also have our tried and tested favourites to add in. This leads me onto our Disco Medley that we also included in the first set, which includes hits like ‘Happy’, ‘Can’t Stop The Feeling’ and ‘Blame It On The Boogie’.

During our quick break, Gemma showed me the Glitter Station they had hired and set up in The Library area. After I let slip that it was my birthday, she wouldn’t let me go back on stage without glitter on my face (not that I’d complain!) The ladies were brilliant and it was great having the guests with some extra sparkle. 

We headed back on for our second set, starting with a party essential – ‘All Night Long’ by Lionel Richie. This quickly summoned lots of dancers back, and we knew they’d want to stay on the dance floor. We included a few rocky tunes, per request of Gemma and Paul, like ‘Use Somebody’ by the Kings Of Leon, ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ by Lynyrd Skynyrd and ‘Dakota’ by The Stereophonics, which went down brilliantly! One of my favourites from the set was ‘Smooth Criminal’. I’m a big Michael Jackson fan, but we performed the Alien Ant Farm version, which was really fun to perform!

For the final set, we kicked off with out Party Medley to a full dance floor. With hits such as ‘Uptown Funk’, ‘Moves Like Jagger’ and the classic ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’, it always delivers. The Duff’s guests were an absolute pleasure and were on absolute top form when we began some sing-alongs. They seemed to know every word to ‘Mr Brightside’, ‘Living On A Prayer’ and ‘Sex On Fire’, and so we couldn’t leave them without an encore. They even sang me Happy Birthday! We really brought the live music to a close with Queen’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’. The evening was so much fun, and we really hope everyone had a great time.

Congratulations again to the new Mr and Mrs Duff. Thank you having us and for being so lovely on the day, we had an amazing evening.