We’re firm believers that the show must go on, and we had a chance to experience this first hand very recently…

Having a unique wedding is something many couples strive for, although the remarkably rare experience Gaby and Daniel Rosehill had at their wedding in the Grand Hotel, in Brighton was certainly not the memorable moment anybody would anticipate.

A Bomb Scare, for Real?

Gaby had just finished her walk down the aisle with The Talent’s pianist playing in the background when all 218 of the guests – including us entertainers (as our wedding party band was hired to provide the music) – were forced to evacuate the premises due to a bomb scare.

 

An anonymous source phoned the police and told them there was an explosive device in the building. The fire alarms started to ring when the couple weren’t married yet – they stood under a chuppah, just two minutes into the ceremony when it all went down!

Understandably, Daniel thought it was a prank at first and joked that it might have been ‘divine intervention’. In his own words, “You couldn’t write the timing of it with the alarm going off just as Gaby was walking up the aisle.”

Even the rabbi thought that nothing was wrong, as he joked that “someone had burnt the potatoes.” The fact of the matter is that we all had to leave when police told us there has been news of a bomb threat. Understandably, this certainly put an initial damper on things!

What Happened After

Some of us believed the wedding would not take place after we were all evacuated to the Brighton seafront in the cold. But then we were taken in by the Hilton Metropole nearby, where we were offered a function room for the couple to finally tie the knot.

After months and months of planning a wedding, one of the worst things that can happen to the bride and groom is having it fall through. Gaby feared just that, as she said “I kept wondering whether I’d ever get to see the room where we had planned our wedding for the last 18 months… I had tears running down my face in shock.”

Gaby also says: “I walked down the aisle twice, in two different venues, in two different places. It was so surreal. We’re still trying to process it” and “I had a really tearful moment in the toilets with my sister and mother when I just thought ‘this isn’t how it was supposed to go’, but I quickly pulled it together and the way everyone rallied around was amazing.”

How Did We React, You Ask?

We were going to play music and sing from 3pm onwards in several different locations throughout the hotel, but then we had to evacuate and everything we had was at the Grand Hotel, locked down by the police… including our instruments!

We all ended up partying the night away, so that was fun! Everyone was in good spirits (eventually), but we still had to find a way to make music in order to keep everyone entertained. Can you guess how we did it? If you said car keys, an iPhone and a few pint glasses, bravo!

This resourcefulness was due to how the Grand Hotel became off-limits for five hours while police and bomb disposal experts swept the area.

Necessity truly is the mother of invention and we’re more than pleased about the way we solved the situation. The police were still conducting checks, so we couldn’t even leave the Hilton; still, we went around the hotel to try and find instruments and initially put together a bedside table acting as our bass drum, we filled cocktail shakers with sweets to shake and make some noise, and collected wine bottles that we could hit with forks too! We finally found the AV room by chance and set up some mics and speakers.

All in all, a unique experience that will stay with us for a very long time.

It wasn’t difficult to see that the couple and the family were a bit upset by it all at first (we certainly can’t blame them!). But Gaby and Daniel eventually believed that the events of their big day ended up making it remarkable and even unforgettable – and we can’t argue with that.

And we’re more than happy that they went off on their honeymoon to Tenerife to enjoy a relaxing few days away from it all.

So, what did our musicians have to say about all this? Well, reactions were varied, of course, but one thing was true; we held on strong despite the fright we got! From feeling like “we were the musicians on the Titanic” to “We’re here to give a party and that’s what we’ll do!”, the general sentiment was one of joy and determination.

As one of our musicians put it, “there was a lot of love in the room to help make the wedding special” and we were honoured to have been part of such a beautiful event – even if things didn’t go according to plan!

We’re relieved that in the end, nothing was found and that the police are now searching for the person who called it in, and we can’t deny that we had a fantastic time with everyone. This wedding was truly one-of-a-kind for us too, as guests and entertainers, but we don’t let something like a bomb scare stop us from getting the job done!

Watch us on YouTube, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and take a look at what we’re capable of offering you for your event with our band hire for London, bomb scare or not!

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