Wedding at Waddesdon Manor
Last week we had another Friday wedding at a very local venue to us - Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire. At Waddesdon the weddings take place at ‘the Old Dairy’ which is a separate building to the Manor House itself. It cleverly utilises two buildings with a conservatory type area between the two which overlooks a lake [...]
Wedding at Dodmoor House
Last Thursday we returned once more to Dodmoor House - a wedding venue in Northamptonshire. We provided music for both the reception drinks and for the wedding breakfast until it was time for the speeches. Once again the couple had offered for a string duo, with the popular combination of violin with viola - these [...]
Wedding at Sundridge Park Manor
Last week we played at a wedding in Bromley down in Kent. It was a small gathering so the duo combination of violin and viola was absolutely ideal for the occasion. With in the region of 50 guests and the rooms at Sundridge having an 18th century feel, it was like playing chamber music in [...]
Wedding at Barrington Hall in Cambridgeshire
Last week we provided a string quartet for an outdoor wedding in the picturesque village of Barrington in Cambridgeshire. The ceremony was also outside with the bride arriving in a horse drawn carriage which was very impressive indeed! (and apparently a complete surprise for everyone including the bridal party).
Fortunately the weather remained idyllic, so we [...]
Wedding at Fanhams Hall
On Sunday we found ourselves back at Fanhams Hall once more, on a beautiful sunny day - playing for a wedding ceremony and reception. The couple chose to get married in a garden area to the side of the building, surrounded by high hedges with a green wooden structure which allowed the formal part of [...]
The summer wedding season….
This time of year is as usual, particularly hectic, with bookings on 7 days out of 10. Over the weekend, we provided music for four weddings in places as far afield as Le Talbooth near Colchester, Northampton, Rhinefield House in the New Forest down in Hampshire and a little bit closer to home at the Manor of Groves Hotel in Hertfordshire.
With [...]
The cost of being the best string quartet? £295 + VAT
Today we received a gushing telephone call from a wedding magazine informing us that they were running a special feature about the ‘top twelve’ suppliers of classical music for weddings in the UK. After “careful consideration”, they wanted to recommend the Manor House String Quartet (yes us!) to represent the South East of England – [...]
Cost of a String Quartet - what it costs us
A quick half hour spent on the internet will turn up hundreds of different wedding string quartets, all charging a wide variety of prices - from just a few hundred pounds to over a thousand, superficially it appears for providing the same service. In the same way, calling around wedding venues will also reveal big differences [...]
Booking a string quartet for just the wedding ceremony.
On the whole, quite a large proportion of string quartets have a ‘minimum booking period’ of at least 2 or 3 hours, particularly for peak Saturdays over the summer months. This is simply because in the busiest and best string quartets, all four musicians will not only be in demand for the quartet itself, but [...]
Wedding timings, sunshine, rain and high winds!
Despite the best laid plans for the day itself, if you’ve booked a string quartet for your wedding reception with your guests coming straight from the church or registry office, do allow a generous amount of time for the move between venues. Although you might have envisaged that 5 minute drive taking everyone no more [...]
