Niche London String Quartet had a very busy April travelling all over London and the Home Counties providing wedding music for beautiful and unique Spring weddings! We’ve been so busy we have only just managed to update the blog now it’s into May!

Our first wedding in April was in the heart of London City – The fabulous Conservatory at The Barbican to provide wedding music for the ceremony and reception of Helen and Andrew’s wedding. Helen had requested that we specially write and arrange 3 songs for her ceremony. As she made her big entrance into the luscious tropic gardens we played the hauntingly beautiful ‘No Surprises’ by Radiohead, which carried across the huge conservatory perfectly.

After the happy couple had become man and wife and were signing the register we played the romantic ‘There is a Light that Never Goes Out’ by the Smiths and then as they left the room to cheers we played the up-beat ‘Here Comes Your Man’ by the Pixes. A unique venue in the heart of London and equally unique ceremony music that was tailored specially by the Bride and Niche Quartet to make her big day unforgettable!

To see more photos visit https://www.facebook.com/nichelondonquartet

That evening we then travelled out of London to Tythe Barn in Oxfordshire to provide Becky and Rob with music for the wedding breakfast. The setting was beautiful in the middle of the countryside. The most important part of our performance that night was to play ‘Cry Me a River’ by Michael Buble as members from the party entered dressed in surprise chefs outfits to carve the meat themselves. What nobody expected is that when Niche Quartet were cued to play the sassy jazz song arranged by ourselves, they would enter dancing hilariously down the hall dressed in their surprise outfits! It certainly was a special and unforgettable moment for all of the guests and Niche London Quartet too!

Yesterday was our first December wedding and Niche – The London String Quartet travelled out across the frosty fields of Essex to provide wedding music for a beautiful countryside wedding.

The venue was the lovely Maidens Barn and Niche had arranged and rehearsed plenty of new wedding music requests for the happy couple to enjoy. The String Quartet was hired for 3hrs to entertain guests with our modern music selections during the reception in the marque and then to move to the hall where dinner would be served and provide a different set of classical and Christmas songs. The important request was that the five songs that we had written specially for the brides were to be played when they were around to enjoy them with their guests and children – this was made possible by our large and varied experience of wedding entertainment and of course the careful timing of our flexible setlists.

All of Niche were excited for this to be the first outing of some of our latest Christmas songs, ‘Winter Wonderland’ and ‘Let it Snow’ and also to play old traditional favourites such as ‘Deck the Halls’. Our arrangement and performance of Kirsty’s favourite song Iris finished to applaud by the guests and people were tapping their toes and children dancing as we played the special romantic wedding song requests One Day Like This, If Your Not the One, Only Girl in the World, All My Life, and You Give Me Something. It was a beautiful wedding with a high level of fun and Niche were happy to add something extra special to the joyous atmosphere! Kirsty and Naomi were even kind enough to quickly come out to say that our performance was everything they’d dreamed of as we finished our set, which to Niche means it was a complete success.

Congratulations Kirsty and Naomi!

Niche – The London String Quartet had an extremely busy time in this weekend rushing around London performing in all different settings! The 2 bookings that stand out the most were played within 24hrs of each other!

On Friday Niche Quartet travelled to famous London venue The Underworld in Camden to accompany The Eljiah as session musicians in their specially arranged full album gig. This gig had been months in the planning and fans from all over Europe would be travelling to experience this one of style concert. Also some of the Niche Quartet fans that had experienced our playing in entirely different wedding based events were coming along to hear the performance!

It turned out to be an amazing gig with nearly 500 fans filling the venue and creating an energised and buzzing atmosphere right from the start. The Elijah’s debut album ‘I Loved I Hated I Destroyed I Created’ is awash with lush and emotive string sounds, and therefore since July Kimberley from Niche Quartet had been working with the composer and band member Sean Harrison to get the scoring and music perfect for this highly anticipated gig. It went exactly as planned and the both the band, Niche Quartet and the fans were completely absorbed into the music throughout the whole set – a complete success!

Feedback from the fans and the band has been excellent and Niche London Quartet were so glad we could be involved – A DVD is soon to be released of the performance: See The Trailer Here

Within 24hrs Niche – The London String Quartet were heading to the heart of the city to provide wedding reception music at Haberdashers’ Hall. The couple had already been married in a luxury wedding in Barbados and had returned to their hometown London to have their wedding reception. They used Niche Quartet’s complimentary arrangement service to have the wedding music they walked down the aisle played at the beginning and end of the reception.

After much work and rehearsing we arranged Debussy’s enchanting Clair de Lune (famously used in the last scene of Ocean’s 11) and it is now a firm favourite in our classical repertoire! For the remainder of the reception we entertained guests by creating a jovial atmosphere with classical favourites mixed in freely with our modern wedding songs. See what Paul had to say about Niche Quartet and our performance here!

A highly exciting and varied way to spend a weekend for Niche – The London String Quartet!

Niche – The London String Quartet received very exciting news this week! Our last blog post mentioned that we had been nominated to take part in the 2013 Wedding Industry Awards after our performance at the London Sassi Holford Couture Wedding Dress Launch.

We are now pleased to announce that we have been shortlisted for Best Live Music Wedding Entertainment  in London and the South East!! The placement is decided by the judges from all different parts of the wedding industry but most importantly influenced by the votes and comments collected from our previous wedding clients.

It is so lovely to see that so many of our past wedding clients have voted for us and left feedback to make us stand out from the crowd!

At the very end of September Niche – The London String Quartet were asked to entertain guests with all our wedding music favourites at the Sassi Holford 2013 Couture Bridal Collection launch! This event was particularly special as it lead to us being nominated for...

For September Niche were back in London and providing events entertainment at some very exciting venues for weddings, launches and parties!

A September London wedding that stood out from the crowd was a late night affair at The Landmark London Hotel. Niche were hired as a String Trio to provide wedding music from 11.30pm onwards for the couple’s first dance, family dancing and the cutting of the cake. Viyan and Mikkel had travelled all the way from Denmark to have their wedding in one of London’s most luxurious venues and they had asked Niche to write and arrange two special songs for their big moment.

The first was a beautiful traditional Danish Bridal Waltz ‘Brudevalsen’ for the couple’s first dance – as tradition dictates as Niche played the lilting and gentle music the couple waltzed round the dance floor surrounded by their guests. As the bridal waltz continued the circle of guests began to clap to the beat and drew closer and closer to the couple and then finally picked them up! This was a new experience for Niche, but it was great to witness and provide the music for a totally different wedding tradition!

The second song that Niche Trio arranged for the wedding was ‘What a Wonderful World’ for the Father, Daughter dance. The soaring melody and flowing cello notes were the perfect accompaniment for this touching and special moment. For the rest of the set and as all the guests joined in dancing we played modern wedding music from our selection of favourite pop songs such as Marry You and Moondance. The final song of the night was to coincide with the cake cutting, and Viyan and Mikkel chose the wedding song favourite At Last to make the first cut into their gorgeous cream, tiered cake.