The end of the summer – a fine time for a ceilidh wedding!
At a wedding a couple may like to have a ceilidh dance to break the ice when there may be some guests who may not know each other so well. This past Saturday was just such an occasion.
The venue was the atmospheric barn setting of The Priory, Little Wymondle.
After the first dance (the appropriate Happy Together by the Turtles) Pastiche opened the ceilidh dancing with the Circassian Circle – a country dance traditionally the first dance of the evening. After a brief teaching session from our caller the dancers were whirling around the dance floor. We followed this up with Strip the Willow, another popular country dance, where the couple link arms and spin each other around.
We gave the dancers a break while we played a few traditional folk songs – Step it Out Mary, Star of the County Down, The Wild Rover.
We then went into another ceilidh set, the classic Gay Gordons, (where couples dance in a circle around the room) then the Dashing White Sergeant (with the dancers in groups of six). After another short break, while the dancers recuperated, we play one final ceilidh dance – The Heel and Toe Polka.
On Saturday Pastiche had a seven-piece line up comprising female vocal; guitar/vocal; keyboards; bass; drums; saxophone/flute; fiddle/vocals. This gave us the flexibility to play a couple of party music sets after the ceilidh.
Pastiche played a variety of well-known party songs such as:
- Valerie
- American Boy
- Crazy (Gnarls Barclay)
- Nine to Five
- Michael Jackson medley Blame it on the Boogie, I Want You Back and Billie Jean,
- Ain’t Nobody (originally by Chaka Khan currently in the charts by Felix Jaehn),
- Get Lucky
- Price Tag
- Moves Like Jagger
- You Got the Love
At midnight we fished off getting everyone to sing along to The Proclaimers 500 Miles and Bon Jovi’s Livin’ On a Prayer. The lights went up and the evening was over. The happy couple drove off in to the moonlit evening.
Sep 7, 2015