Wedding Music
The advantage of having a live musician is that they can provide the music for both the ceremony and the wedding breakfast. If you are thinking of hiring anyone to play music for your wedding, the only thing that you really need to concern yourself about is the choice of music for the ceremony. You can of course leave the choice up to the musician, but try and give them a guideline. If you don't want to pick each piece of music for the proceedings then just try giving a style of music or maybe a composer. For a civil ceremony you can have any music you want as long as the title or lyric does not have any reference to religion.
The Civil Ceremony
The civil ceremony has four main part's as far as a musician is concerned and they are:
1) The gathering of the congregation.
2) The Procession
3) The signing of the register
4) The recession
The gathering
of the congregation.
The gathering of the congregation speaks for itself really - The musician just plays music while people gather and seat themselves. This section doesn't really have a time span - so when a couple does select music for this part of the ceremony, they must accept that either: he or she won't be able to play all of the chosen piece or pieces, or more frequently they will have to play extra music of my choice.
The Procession.
The next section is the entrance of the bride and traditionally this is carried out to Wagner's Bridal March. Although most people stick to the Wagner; you can have any music you like. The one thing you must consider when looking an alternative is that it doesn't take long for the bride to walk down the aisle. I think that it is wiser to stick to the Bridal March.
The signing of the
register.
There never seem's to be a problem with this part. A piece of up to five minutes is usually fine and anything goes really. I suppose that if you did choose something that was too long there would come a point when the musician would have have to stop playing but the piece would have to be excessively long for this to happen.
The recession.
This is where everyone leaves the place of the wedding ceremony and traditionally this was always carried out to Mendelssohn's Wedding March. In this day and age wedding couples seem to request everything but the Wedding March. Anything seem's to be appropriate for the recession and there isn't a problem with the length of the music. As soon as the last person has gone; the musician finishes.
That's it! The ceremony is over and you can start the celebration.
Pre Meal Drinks
After the ceremony everyone usually starts making a lot of noise. They have so much to say because they've had to keep so quiet throughout all the serious bit.
The Wedding Breakfast
It is rather nice to have live music while everyone is eating and chatting. Most musicians will play right up to the speeches and then finish. They do however, occasionally carry on after if there is a gap between the end of the speeches and the start of the evening's entertainment. All weddings are different and at the end of the day it is up to you and what you would like them to do - so make sure you discuss your requirements with whoever you decide to hire.