After a long, crazy few months (can you seriously believe it’s September already?), August has seen shows slowly creeping back into the diary for us and all the other acts represented by Tailored Entertainment. With new COVID-19 wedding guidelines announced in the last few weeks, it’s allowed couples to start putting together their wedding plans and get back to the business of getting married!

That means we’ve been getting back to what we do best – providing amazing wedding entertainment to happy couples right across the continent. And whilst this blog has spent the last few months being dedicated to things like advice on planning your wedding during Coronavirus and other such useful bits and bobs, we’re just so pleased to get to use it to shout about and ACTUAL GIG. And boy what a gig it was.

Our first booking back saw us heading out to Florence for a truly spectacular wedding in the Italian countryside. We asked Lisa to give us a quick round-up of how it all went, including some pretty envy-inducing photos.

We’ll leave you in the capable hands of Lisa Check it out!

OUR FIRST GIG BACK! NEON IN FLORENCE

So after what felt like a lifetime without any shows, one of our only remaining bookings for the year was upon us - Stephané and Océane’s wedding in Tuscany! (Could be worse right?!) We had our fingers, toes and every other available limb crossed in the weeks prior to the show, hoping it would be able to go ahead. With several last-minute changes and the longest email thread known to man, it did and BOY we are so glad it did…

After what was probably the easiest airport experience of our lives, even managing to make use of the ‘Eat Out To Help Out’ scheme in Gatwick, we arrived in Florence airport late Wednesday evening before heading to our hotel in Siena.

On Thursday we had a day off, so made the most of exploring the quintessential city in the Italian heat, although our hotel rooms did have air con which was FULLY appreciated. We saw various architecture, walked down cobbled streets, ate the most delicious food *drool*, and even scouted out a music shop (as only musicians do when exploring a foreign city).

Dinner that day was a highlight for us, as we decided to try and find somewhere off the beaten track and stumbled across a pizzeria down a side street that had an amazing view of the city. We sat there for hours, ate the most incredible pizza, drank local Tuscan wine and beer and generally had a lovely evening.

Then came the big day, Stephané and Océane’s wedding! Italian weddings are slightly different from weddings in the UK. As it’s so hot, everything is pushed back to happen later and the party goes on through to to the early hours, which we were more than up for! So we had the morning to get ready and at around three we were picked up, arriving at the venue after a short drive through vineyards and countryside.

Beautiful was an understatement. We walked through a courtyard where long rows of tables were set up ready for the wedding breakfast, overlooking the rolling Tuscan countryside. We went down (through a mini maze) to the bottom of the garden and found our friendly sound engineers from Audio Visual Siena all set up and ready for us to sound check for our first set of the day (the dream).

Us being typical brits, managed to bring the rain with us, so we had to make a mad dash for tarpaulins and cover up the equipment.

The sun soon came back out though and at around 6pm, Stephané and Océane made their way down to the garden to have the ceremony. It was a beautiful moment and not something we often get to see as a band! After vows were said and celebrations were had, we kicked in with our live lounge set. People were mingling in the garden with drinks, (socially distanced of course) and some were even having a boogie which was a sign of what was to come. By the end of our set the sun was setting and the view was incredible. We all felt very blessed to be a part of something so special.

We then had to transition to our inside venue for the party sets and re-set up and sound check, but as we weren’t playing until midnight we had some time to spare, so we were treated to some food and wine from the wedding breakfast. Midnight came around and as soon as we started playing, we knew it was going to be a special evening. The atmosphere in the room was ELECTRIC and you could tell everyone was up for having the best time to celebrate the newlyweds. Two hours, multiple encores and several buckets of sweat later we were finished and gutted that we could not carry on, even though it had gone 3am by this point! After a chat with Stephané, Océane and some of the guests, who were all so lovely, we went back to the hotel, positively buzzing!

With about two hours of sleep we headed back to Florence airport for the trip home and were all genuinely gutted to be going after an amazing couple of days! On the plane, some of us managed to get some much needed shut-eye and before we knew it, we were back in a very grey and drizzly London!

We want to say a MASSIVE thankyou to Stephané and Océane for choosing us to be a part of their special day, ensuring we were generously looked after and making our trip hassle free, which in the middle of global pandemic, we cannot thank them enough for! We also want to give an especially big shoutout to Erin, Iain and the team at tailored who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make the booking happen (and safely at that), in these very uncertain times! It was definitely an experience none of us will forget any time soon…

Now, when can we go back to Italy and eat some more gelato? Ciao!! NEON x