Why Blossoms crashed three weddings and closed street

Stockport indie band Blossoms have embraced wedding season by rocking up in a van to play pop-up gigs while fans are tying the knot as a celebration of their upcoming album.

Their new-found role as welcome wedding crashers comes ahead of the release of Songs From The Wedding Cake on 2 October.

The title of their sixth studio album is a nod to their hometown's town hall, known locally as "The Wedding Cake" due its white façade and tiered clock tower

It is also the building where frontman Tom Ogden got married himself five years ago.

He and drummer Joe Donovan joined me in the studio ahead of the new album release.

The last time I sat down with these two in September 2024, I got them to rank the five Blossoms albums to date.

It was a trend doing the rounds on social media at the time, and Tom and Joe got stuck right in.

When I went to meet Tom and Joe for our interview, we joked about the response.

And when we started recording, Tom was rightly unapologetic: "I was honest. They're my songs anyway, so I can say what I want about my own songs."

He also offered up a new order, including the currently unreleased Songs From The Wedding Cake.

"I'm going to put the new one at the top. I just think it's probably the best album", he said.

'I guess this argument's not the place for a joke about divorce' is the chorus line from the new album's first single, Joke About Divorce.

For those who don't know, frontman Tom is married to drummer Joe's sister.

"I tried to defuse something with tension and it didn't work", Tom told me. "We've all been there to some extent haven't we?"

"So I just, I learned from it and also wrote a song… when you're a songwriter that's what you do isn't it?"

There is a confidence about Blossoms in 2026. This is a band who definitely know their sound.

And the buzz around these five lads from Stockport is helping to pull in some major celebrity collaborations.

TV personality Maya Jama features in the video for the album's lead single, Meet Me In Love.

The band met Jama at the MTV EMA's in Manchester's Co-Op Live in October 2024, and after bonding over how she shares a birthday with band pianist Myles Kellock, they kept in touch.

Tom said: "We were talking about the next music video idea and we were like, you know, we should try and get someone in it.

"And then someone suggested, 'why don't we just ask Maya?'

"So we just DM'd her and she replied straight away saying yeah 'I'm up for it, send me the tune'.

"That was it. Next thing you're in Chads Theatre in Cheadle in Stockport."

The community-run facility has been the filming location for two of their recent music videos.

The marketing around the band's fifth album Gary was inspired by a radio news report about the theft of a giant model gorilla from a Scottish garden centre.

Blossoms went on to dedicate their fifth album to the ape and brought a replica around with them on stage.

For the new record, they have embraced wedding season and their album theme by rocking up in a van to play some weddings in recent weeks.

Tom and Joe said they wanted to replicate the "energy" of the Gary campaign, but not take away from somebody's big day.

They have been quickly rocking up to fans' weddings, doing a short gig and then heading off again.

And it was after one of those wedding gigs earlier this month that Miles from the band joked: "Should we just turn up at 42's in the van?"

Tom said he rang his manager to double check the surprise gig idea was "not too mental".

The band hid out in Hawksmoor on Deansgate before running out to play a pop-up gig on a truck outside the nightclub, and stunned fans poured out of the venue to watch

"I think the word got out in '42s'… straight away, we had the whole of 42s out the front", Joe said.

"As soon as we started playing a police van went past with his sirens on and we were like 'oh no'.

"But he [the officer] literally was out the window, hanging out the windows, like fist pumping."

Blossoms will make their debut appearance at Co-Op Live on 28 November and they have put in on a second night due to popular demand.

And who knows what they've got in store for us: I for one would love to see Maya Jama wheel out Gary the Gorilla.

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