Reviews | Shine Booking

Shine was absolutely incredible! Since our wedding, we’ve received countless messages from guests raving about how much they loved the band. Every song was perfect, the energy was unmatched, and they truly made our night unforgettable. I can’t imagine our wedding without them—they were hands down the best decision we made. If you’re looking for a band that will keep the dance floor packed and make your event amazing, look no further!!

I am so so happy that we booked Shine for our wedding and I would do it again. I wish I could relive our wedding just so I could get out there on the dance floor more. They were professional and so talented and fun and engaging. If you are questioning to go with a live band or DJ, go with Shine!! I have had so many compliments and people asking where I found them and for their contact info. Thank you for making the day perfect!

When I got engaged and booked our venue in Rochester, I knew I wanted Shine to perform at our wedding. They were phenomenal!! They kept the dance floor alive and guests are still raving about how amazing the band was. We also had them play piano for our ceremony and the pianist learned 3 songs for us, they were perfect. We also had the trio for cocktail hour to add some background music. The night was perfect! Shine Band definitely helped to make our wedding dreams come true!

Shine was everything we could have wanted in a wedding band! Jon was fantastic to work with and made the booking and set list planning process easy. Their jazz trio was perfect for our cocktail hour, the full band kept guests young and old dancing all evening.

Also want to give major props to their audio engineer who made sure the volume was just right! Our guests who didn't dance could enjoy the music and still have conversations without having to shout or go to another space!

Shine Band was absolutely INCREDIBLE! I wasn’t able to hear them in person before booking as a vendor, but I trusted the many, many amazing reviews I read and heard from former brides of theirs. I am SO happy I did so! They CRUSHED IT. Our dance floor was jam packed literally the entire night. The band was high energy and incredibly talented and their manager, Jonathan, was so wonderful to work with. He was organized, flexible, and on top of everything. Not only were we able to provide song requests (that were honored), but the band also took our requests and gained a feel for who we are as a couple and used that to play what they felt best fit the time of night / energy / vibes / etc. We have gotten sooo many raving reviews about Shine from our guests. Thank you SO MUCH to Jonathan and the band! We love you!!!

I cannot say enough good things about Shine! They played our wedding on Friday and were absolutely incredible. They brought so much energy to the dance floor and the singer is phenomenal! Jonathan was so responsive leading up to the wedding day and was a breeze to work with. The band even learned one of our favorite songs to play as a surprise requested by my mom! If you are thinking of hiring a band for your wedding, don’t think twice, just book Shine! I can’t recommend them enough.

We just wanted to thank the entire band for a fabulous night as our wedding entertainment. We can’t put into words how much Shine added to our special day and the calls and texts we are still receiving from guests raving about you! Engaging, professional, so very talented, and FUN! It was hands down one of the best decisions we made for our wedding night and we are still reminiscing. Your group is truly the best.

Your biggest fans,

Jenna & Shane Laurie

October 7, 2023

Shine absolutely crushed it at our wedding. Oh my gosh - it was the best night of our lives and Shine was a HUGE part of it. The energy and vibes they brought were truly immaculate. We (and our guests) are still talking about it a month+ later. It felt like we were at a concert/giant dance party - exactly the feeling we were looking for!! In addition to the incredible performance, Jonathan’s attentiveness and help leading up to the wedding was awesome. We can’t thank them enough!

Shine absolutely crushed it at our wedding. From day one they were a pleasure to work with and did anything to make our experience as smooth as possible. They have a huge range of songs that they can play and all of them are terrific. After watching videos online we had high expectations and they exceeded every one of them. All our guests were raving about them after the reception and many said this was the best wedding band they’d ever heard. Would highly recommend to anyone!

Shine is absolutely incredible. If you are even considering hiring them- I am here to tell you to DO IT! You will not regret it! We ended up booking the full package with Shine: they DJed our ceremony, we booked the jazz trio for cocktail hour, and we added the horn section for the night. Our guests are still raving about how great the band was! All of our guests partied on the dance floor all night with Shine! Thank you so much Shine for helping to make our wedding unforgettable. Our wedding would not have been the same if we hadn’t had such an amazing band!

Shine is a group of very talented individual musicians who come together to make great band! From the jazz trio at our cocktail hour to the full band playing during the reception, everything was awesome! The dance floor was always filled with people dancing and having a great time which was something that was important to us! We have received so many compliments on Shine and would recommend them to anyone! Jonathan is great to work with during the planning phase and is always responsive. We are so happy we were able to have Shine part of our wedding day!

We knew that we wanted Shine to play at our wedding and after seeing them perform at 2 other friends' weddings. They provided music from their jazz band trio at the cocktail hour and then the band including the horn section entertained during the reception. Jonathan was so easy to work with and was flexible with us when we had to postpone and reschedule our event due to the pandemic. We had emailed an itinerary to him prior to the event and they kept us sticking to it, our reception ran smoothly and we would have forgotten the cake cutting if not reminded by them! Their music is extraordinary and they play a wide range of genres. Some of our guests thought that the music was a recording, they were that good. Our dance floor was PACKED from the minute they began playing until the end of the last song, including during their breaks. A couple of members even got on the dance floor with us! Everyone has said how much fun they had and how wonderful the band was. I cannot recommend Shine enough!

Shine was by far the best decision we made for our wedding. They were incredibly easy to work with and were very responsive and accommodating. They absolutely ROCKED and our dance floor was packed the entire night. Our guests cannot stop raving about how it was the best live band they have ever seen! We could not recommend them enough. THANK YOU for making our night so special and fun! You guys are the best!!!

Shine's stage presence, energy, and musicality was beyond compare! Live music has always played a huge role in our relationship so we invested a lot of energy into finding the perfect fit for our wedding. We knew we had to book Shine within the first minute of listening to one of their recordings and still they exceeded our high expectations. Their choice of music perfectly fit our personalities and the feeling we hoped to create for our big day. We have continued to have compliments pour in weeks later from our guests who were blown away by Shine's talents. We had an absolute blast celebrating with them and would book them again in a heartbeat!

There are not enough praises for Jonathan Stevens and SHINE BAND. Jonathan was extremely professional and a pleasure to work with from the moment we met him. He was super prompt in confirming our wedding day details and fielding our questions. We decided to book their most extensive package which provided the ceremony music, a jazz trio for cocktail hour, and the reception band performance with a horn section. 10/10 that arrangement helped make our wedding day so memorable and entertaining for us and our guests. We especially appreciated that Shine was able to sing our first dance song, “At Last” by Etta James, flawlessly. Seriously, it was the highlight of my life as a bride! We did a doubletake to make sure it was a live performance and I could hear some of our guests actually GASP in amazement. That is how epic and talented the band is!! Highest praise and gratitude to the lead singers for covering every genre under the sun and keeping the excitement going all night long. Our family and friends were on the dance floor ALL NIGHT LONG. Our other vendors told us that it was the most packed, high-energy dance floor they had ever seen! Guests excitedly kept gushing how they enjoyed the band and entertainment. It was some of the best investment we spent in planning our wedding knowing that if you are going to have a band, you MUST do it right and book Shine immediately!

If I could give more than 5 stars, I would! We originally hired Shine for our 9/4/20 wedding and when it got postponed due to Covid, they were flexible about rescheduling to our 9/3/21 date. We had heard amazing things about the band from our venue and listened to the music clips on their website, but were absolutely blown away by their performance at our wedding. Hiring a live band was one of the first decisions we made and I'm so glad we did. We had so many guests come up to us and ask us about the band - who are these guys? where did they come from? Can I get their card? The consensus was that this was the best wedding band folks had ever seen or heard - and they made our dance party absolutely unforgettable. We added on their horns section - which was incredible - it really added to the performance in a big way. The dance floor was high energy all night, just like we wanted! We hired their guitar player and sound crew for the ceremony as well, and they executed amazingly. I cried coming down the aisle and one of the main reasons why was the beautiful rendition of Here Comes the Sun they played. My husband and a large number of the crowd are Buffalo Bills fans and they led the "Let's Go Buffalo" cheers with Shout at the end of the evening. Jonathan was a dream to work with over two years - professional, responsive, and detail oriented. It made for a beautiful emotional day that we will never forget. Hands down, best wedding band ever - if you are debating if you should hire them, you SHOULD! You won't regret it.

Shine are an incredible band! If you're getting married, and are looking for entertainment, book them! Seriously. You, and your guests will have a great time dancing the night away! So many of our guests said it was the best wedding they have been to, and Shine was a large part of that. They bring a concert like atmosphere. They are a talented group of professionals, from the musicians, to the sound crew. They are amazing to work with, and you will have nothing to worry about for your big day. SO MUCH FUN!!

Shine played for our wedding day on 7/3/21 at 500 Pearl and they are hands down the best band around. The band manager, Jonathan, is extrememly helpful in the planning process and makes sure everything runs smoothly. The band is extremely professional and does an amazing job. We added the jazz trio for cocktail hour which everyone enjoyed. Our guests haven't stopped talking about how great the music was! I highly recommend Shine for any event.

My daughters wedding was June 5, 2021 at the Park Country Club in Buffalo, New York. We are sooo thrilled we chose Shine for our music! Jonathan was wonderful to work with. He answered all of our questions in a timely fashion and was very professional. The band was so accommodating with our play list and they also provided a great emcee. We had a jazz trio during the cocktail hour which was wonderful. The wedding was beautiful, but Shine made it an exciting, super fun wedding. It was the best entertainment I could have ever hoped for!

All we have to say is WOW! You guys sincerely were a huge, huge part of the best day of our lives. We'll never forget it!

Shine was everything we could have hoped for out of a wedding band and then some! When we first set out to look for a wedding band, we knew exactly what we were looking for: an energetic, passionate band that played “our” music (Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake, etc.) The type of music that gets everybody going, regardless of age. Upon doing some googling to figure out which Rochester bands actually played this type music, we stumbled into a short list of bands that included Shine. We soon realized (based on some videos, etc.) that Shine was *the* band we had to book, went out to see them at a public show. Within about two songs we knew we HAD to get them locked up ASAP. We met Jonathan after the show, got the date locked up - and from that point on, everything was smooth sailing. Jonathan was extremely easy to work with throughout the planning process – he has a foolproof process in place to make sure that he has everything he needs from you, and vice versa. As for the actual wedding performance itself, the entire band was unbelievable. We had concerns going in that the acoustics at the Strathallan would be shaky (surrounded by glass), but the band sounded absolutely fantastic. We had at least a dozen people come up to us throughout the night and rave about how good Shine was, wondering how we found them, etc. We told Jonathan this many times leading up to the big day, but (other than the ceremony itself), this was the single thing we were most looking forward to on our wedding night. They somehow managed to completely blow our expectations of the water. We will almost certainly be seeing more of Shine in the future and are going to check their website regularly for public shows we can attend! Thanks again to the band!

We had Shine as our band at our wedding reception on 9/1/2018. I highly recommend hiring Shine. We cannot say enough about how amazing they are. From the beginning, the band manager Jonathan was so great to work with. He was very attentive and helped every step of the way throughout the planning process. Our wedding was filled wit nonstop dancing. From the moment they started playing the guests filled the dance floor. We are extremely happy with how interactive the whole band was with the guests. There is not one negative thing to say about them. We hired the horns which added a nice touch. Our guests cannot stop raving about how it’s the best music they have ever had at a wedding. We love shine!

We just celebrated my daughters wedding on 8/25/18 and we had Shine as our band . I have been fortunate to have heard Shine numerous times and actually have used them at a function we host every year so I was very familiar with them and they were our top choice for a band at the wedding. We were thrilled when we found out that they were available! Jonathan was wonderful as far as getting back to us whenever we had questions. The preparation before the actual wedding was so easy. Jonathan worked with my daughter and son -in-law and helped them select music and did everything possible to help create sets with what they wanted to hear . Although extremely comfortable with Shine we were amazed at how awesome they were that night. Jonathan worked closely with our wedding planner to lay out the evening and the sets they would play. They were so flexible and the dance floor was packed the entire evening. Our guests can not stop raving about how fun they were and the amount of energy they brought to the evening. As musicians they are the absolute best. My husband and I would give them the highest rating possible and they made the night so memorable. We were over the top thrilled with Shine as our band.

I have had “write a review for Shine” on my to-do list since my wedding day (6/9/18….I guess I’m not TOO behind; after all, it’s only been 20 days…), and the reason I start with that is I really leave reviews sparingly but I had no doubt I would be writing one for this band. As both a PR professional and a small business owner (not to mention a VERY Type A personality), I understand and appreciate the value and merit of a review, and I take them quite seriously.

That said, I cannot rave enough about Shine. My husband and I were at a wedding in Geneva, New York (close to the bride’s home town) a couple of years ago before we were even engaged, and Shine was their band. Since we are from NJ/NYC, we had never heard of them, but to say we were beyond impressed is an understatement. Although we weren’t even engaged at that point, we got their business card, saying that we would look them up when our time came.

Sure enough, they were first on our list when we started to look for vendors for our wedding day. I must also add that my mom had a local band in mind for us, but my husband really pushed for Shine (I will give him major credit, especially as this was one of his only wedding-related tasks – ha!). He himself is a musician and he assured my mom that she would not regret it if we booked them. Needless to say, we all could not have been happier that we did!

Jonathan is incredibly professional, easy to work with, accommodating and responsive. There were also no hesitations when it came to the fact that the band would have to travel a bit of a distance to perform for us and we worked around those logistics easily.

I really cannot say enough positive things about Shine’s talent. Absolute rock stars! They are so kind, fun and beyond gifted. It was really a priority for us to have guests dancing from the start of the reception to the end, and Shine did not fail in meeting those expectations. They also worked seamlessly with us to arrange for one of our groomsmen to play the keyboard during the bridal recessional because it was a song my husband wrote and it was very meaningful to us. At the end of the evening, I started a chant “one last song” because I simply did not want it to end, and Shine delivered. We were all mesmerized by how incredible they were for the entire party, and I’m still getting compliments to this day.

Pushing HARD for my sister and her fiancé to book them for their wedding next summer. Hope to see you guys again soon someday regardless!!

We had Shine perform at our wedding reception at the Harro East Ballroom in downtown Rochester and our guests have been raving about it ever since. The group brought so much fun and energy to the celebration and truly helped make it an unforgettable night for us and our guests.

Having good music at the reception was extremely important to us, and Shine brought a level of quality to the event that DJs or other bands in the area can't match. Shine's performances are authentic, soulful, funky and unique. They have an extensive repertoire, excellent taste, they're all impressive musicians and they play with passion. All three vocalists have powerful voices, the musicians are extremely talented, and they chose great songs that kept our guests on the dance floor all night long.

Early on during the cocktail hour and dinner they had a light jazz trio play, which was great atmospheric music while we dined. As the night progressed they cranked up the energy and very quickly everyone in the room was on the dance floor moving, singing along and having a great time. Dancing our first dance while a live band played in the background was also an incredible, indescribable feeling. Even during that band's breaks, we saw the members of Shine out on the dance floor, dancing alongside our guests and teaching them new dance moves.

Finally, from a planning perspective, the band manager was very responsive and easy to work with, and he did a great job coordinating logistics with the venue's manager.

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