Francis

We're Francis, a four-piece wedding and party band based in Milton Keynes. The line-up is drums, bass, guitar, and me on vocals, switching between guitar and keys through the set. That's what most couples book. We also work as a duo or trio for ceremonies, drinks receptions and smaller rooms, and we can expand for bigger venues — so the same act covers the whole day rather than you booking two. Between us we've played over 3,000 shows. A lot of that was abroad: three years of residencies in Dubai, including the Waldorf Astoria and Lock Stock and Barrel, where we picked up TimeOut Dubai's Best Bar Band award in 2019. The same year we played the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, on a bill that also featured Sam Smith and Guns N' Roses. We've done after-show performances for Coldplay and Kings of Leon, and flown out for weddings as far as Cape Town. Our music is licensed to Universal Music in Dubai. That background matters less than what it taught us, which is how to read a room. A wedding is not a gig. The dance floor fills in its own time, the first hour is not the third, and a band that plays its favourite set regardless of what's happening in front of it will empty a room quickly. We watch what's working and move accordingly. The live repertoire runs to about 180 songs — pop, rock, indie, soul, Motown, and everything from the 60s through to now. Send us the songs you want in, and just as usefully the ones you want kept out. Anything not already in the set, tell us early and we'll say honestly whether we can have it ready for your date. First dances we arrange specifically; six to eight weeks' notice is ideal. A standard wedding booking is two 60-minute sets in the evening, with a DJ service running before, between and after them at no extra cost, so the room never goes quiet. Hand us a playlist for it or leave it to us. PA, stage monitoring and lighting all come with us — there's nothing for you to hire in. We also run Bandeoke, which is live band karaoke: your guests take the microphone and the band backs them properly, following whoever is up there rather than playing to a backing track. It needs a decent crowd — 40 guests upwards, strongest between 80 and 200. Most people have us play a normal set first to warm the room, then move into Bandeoke once people are up. Marshall booked us to do it for a corporate event, which tells you it travels beyond weddings. Alongside the covers work we write and release our own material, somewhere between alt-rock, indie and soul, out on CD and vinyl. We're within an hour of most of Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire, and travel well beyond that, including overseas. Tell us the date, the venue and roughly how many guests, and we'll come back with a firm number rather than a range.