Neal McCoy has a special wedding present for buddy Blake Shelton’s upcoming nuptials to Miranda Lambert: he’ll be playing their wedding reception! Seems Blake and Neal are longtime friends, and when the two performed at an Oregon show last summer together, Blake was so impressed with Neal’s show that he asked him to play for the couple’s big day!

"He and Miranda pulled up chairs on the side of the stage in Oregon and watched my show, and they were kind of blown away by the spontaneity and goofiness of my show I guess," says Neal. "And so they asked me to play their wedding reception. They wanted to pay me, and I told them, 'Of course you don’t have to pay me, that’ll be an honor, and I’m sure it’ll be a who’s who kind of thing.'

“He’s actually a good friend—he reminds me of myself, in fact!" Neal says of Blake. "He’s a little goofy—he’s a lot goofy—and he’s funny, and he just says what he says, you know."

Neal is gearing up for a busy 2011 touring schedule, which will include his usual fair and festival dates, along with plenty of book signing events for his brand-new inspirational book, A New Mountain to Climb.