“Tldr: If you are looking for talented live musicians, an organized (and truly lovely) planning team, and a wedding or event filled with beautiful music and dancing – book ESQ! We truly cannot say enough good things (and are looking for every excuse to book them again in the future)!
ESQ was recommended to us by friends who were planning their wedding and had booked them. Our friends described them as fantastic to work with, very communicative, and organized. From our initial phone call with Jenny and Ray, we knew we had found our perfect fit for our wedding music professionals. We booked them and then got a preview of them in action at our friends’ wedding – where we had a blast dancing all night long – solidifying that we had made the right decision.
Jenny with her contagious, positive energy and Ray with his strong attention to detail make an incredible team in the planning process. ESQ was truly a beacon of light during what is often a stressful planning process. Jenny and Ray got to know us and our relationship with each other, walked us through the flow of the event, brainstormed song choices with us, and were incredibly gracious with incorporating some last minute requests. ESQ made planning fun, personal, and they really took the time to understand us, the special moments we valued and wanted to highlight.
Music is such a personal thing and choosing who represented the music at our wedding felt like a really big choice. We knew three things when we set out to find our wedding music professionals: (1) we wanted live music incorporated into the day; (2) we wanted a DJ for the reception for ultimate song choice flexibility (we have a wide range of music tastes and it sure showed at the wedding); and (3) we wanted a party on the dance floor. We honestly weren’t convinced that we could find a group that could do all three, but ESQ delivered on these three big things and more! ESQ stood out to us with their unique and talented string quartet, their fun and easygoing personalities, their professionalism and frequent communication, and how much they genuinely care about the couples they work with. Their repertoire is vast – we were overwhelmed (in a good way) with the vast range of songs they are prepared to play live.
As for the actual wedding day, we may be biased but the music at our wedding was incredible. One of the things that drew us to ESQ in the first place was their dynamic ability to transition the music throughout the night – setting a romantic, timeless scene for our wedding ceremony with their live strings, transitioning to upbeat covers of modern songs for our cocktail hour, and really turning up the party with Jenny as the DJ and the accompanying electric strings. Our guests learned the choreography to Chappell Roan’s “Hot To Go,” belted out Teenage Dirtbag, and were delightfully surprised by Simple Plan’s rendition of “What’s New Scooby Doo” (Trust me it’s a banger). You could not pry our feet from the dance floor – we (bride groom) with all of our guests danced the night away. As one of our friends remarked to us after the event “it was banger after banger and it was impossible to find a bad song to sneak away for a bathroom break.”
ESQ was one of the most memorable parts of the day and our guests have continued to share how beautiful the ceremony arrangements were, how fun and unique ESQ was particularly during cocktail hour and the reception, and how sore they were the next day after all the dancing!”