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.

Throughout the summer Niche – The London String Quartet have been busy travelling here, there and everywhere to play for gorgeous weddings out in the British countryside! The past two August weddings were perfect examples of why it is worth considering travelling out to the sticks to hold your wedding.

On the hottest day of the year Niche were playing wedding music in a beautiful church and wedding venue in Hertfordshire. This wedding was the perfect example of a musical mix with the bride and groom choosing wedding quartet music from our repertoire that was classical, from musicals, jazz based and popular. After they had taken their vows and their first kiss as man and wife they moved to go sign the register – for this we played our unique Beatles Medley which aptly starts with those famous ‘Love, love, love’ chords everyone in the world must recognise! Their aim was to create an atmosphere of joy and triumph through the music – perfectly epitomised by their exit to Handel’s famous Water Music to smiles and cheers.

The weekend just gone we travelled out into the green fields for the Sussex wedding of Chris and Marty based at the regal Newick Park. For the fashionable and stylish wedding this London string quartet played classical music punctuated by the famous Queen of Sheba as Marty arrived by horse-carriage. Niche quartet then relocated indoors to play the grooms’ special request Sweet Disposition – arranged by ourselves for their big entrance. The ceremony was beautiful with personal poems written by friends and small highly personal speeches passed between the happy couple. With their vows complete we played Marry You as they signed the register to make their vows official and then Paradise as they left the room to cheers.

We then moved to play popular music as the drinks reception commenced and the guests enjoyed the delightful fairground on the lawn. It was good to the see the guests enjoying our renditions of Adele and Coldplay as they sang and danced along! It was a perfect wedding and the such a delight to see the happy couple enjoying themselves so much on their unforgettable wedding day.

So despite our name of ‘The London String Quartet‘ we do travel to provide event entertainment and wedding music throughout the South East and further afield! This year we have covered Weddings in Hertfordshire, Weddings in Buckinghamshire, Weddings in Surrey, Weddings in Oxfordshire, Weddings in Berkshire, Weddings in Sussex, Wedding in Hampshire, and of course Weddings in London!

Today the sun shone on the string quartet again as we visited Wimbledon just before the Wimbledon Tennis Championships 2012 begin!

Today the quartet were providing live music entertainment for a private party in London‘s leafy borough.  The quartet set up on the decking under a picture-perfect weeping willow and got to work entertaining the guests. We filled our two hour set with 1.5 hrs of delightful classical music and the remaining half hour we filled with songs from our upbeat popular sets.  By the end people were dancing and we’d been showered with compliments!

From Bach to The Beatles – through 300 years of music – in just 2 hours!

Don’t forget you can follow what we get up to on Twitter and Facebook, find inspiration for your next event and even tell us what we should play next!

Today I am excited to announce our latest wedding music entertainment option! The Niche Quartet Jukebox! Niche – The London String Quartet are used to providing the best entertainment and wedding music for your event and now we are introducing our interactive option to please you and your guests.

When everyone plans their wedding they are looking to create a day unique to them and that also stands out from the crowd.  Is it enough to just have a beautiful wedding? You want music for your ceremony that is special to you and sets the perfect atmosphere instantly as your big moment unfolds – we already have the option in place for a special song that isn’t in our repertoire to be arranged for you at no extra cost; but we wanted to go one step further.

Introducing The Niche Quartet Jukebox, the ultimate personalised choice for wedding reception music, while the bubbly starts to flow and photos are taken. We provide the list, bring along all our repertoire music and you and your guests get to chose what you want to hear there and then! Once again this option is provided at no extra charge – just ask when you book your string quartet hire and you can have London’s most fashionable string quartet and wedding musicians play the completely bespoke soundtrack to your special day.

[singlepic id=3 w=320 h=240 float=left]Remember you can find out more about our wedding service here.

It’s been a busy start to March for Niche – The London String Quartet as we provided gala ball entertainment and released some big news!

For the first weekend we travelled down to leafy Surrey and the beautiful Savil Court Hotel to entertain at the Tasis Gala Ball and Silent Auction.  For this the girls were wearing our favourite red dresses and playing a full one and a half hour set. For the first 45 minutes as the guests arrived we kept it sophisticated and relaxed with our classical set.

Once the reception was really on its way (and after a quick break to indulge in a sip of champagne!) we returned to play another set filled with our contemporary songs and favourites.  It was the first outing for our Beatles 12 Song Medley which is an arrangement unique to Niche – we saw smiles as the guests recognised strains of their favourite songs across the venue. As the silent auction hotted up and the guests were vying to place the final winning bid we finished our set with the vibrant and exciting Pirates of the Caribbean Soundtrack, from which you can hear extracts from our recording in the player on the left.

As we left many of the guests came over to thank us and tell us how much they appreciated our work – this is always the best part of the evening for Niche, as we love playing, but even more so we love to hear that others have enjoyed it too! A successful double set for Niche and a very successful fundraising Gala Ball for Tasis!

For the second weekend in March we were back to London and the gorgeous venue 8 Northumberland right next to Trafalgar Square.  This time we were dressed in black and white ball gowns to play for The Children’s Trust Spring Ball. For 30 minutes we set the ambience with pieces from our classic set list as the guests arrived and mingled downstairs.

Our next half hour set was to take place in the grand ballroom upstairs to accompany the start of dinner and the silent auction. Once again the recognisable melodies of the Beatles and ‘Holding out for a Hero’ had everyone’s toes tapping and we finished with the humorous ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ leaving the guests in high spirits as Phil Tufnell took to the stage.  Find out what the host and double World Record Holder Sally Kettle said about Niche – The London String Quartet’s performance here.

We have two more massive news releases to write about but for now we have got to dash; they will be covered in the next blog post. Subscribe on the left to be the first to find out about the next update!

All our tracks are now on Soundcloud for you to hear!  We hope you enjoy our varied mix of songs, from Bach to Coldplay! Also check out this blog post if you want to find out more about the behind the scene shots and info...