Your wedding postlude music will be the last music your guests hear before walking out the door. It’ll be the music that sticks in their mind.
I’ve got some tips for planning your wedding postlude music and some music suggestions that will be sure to leave your guests with a great tune in their heads.
Purpose of the postlude
The wedding recessional and the postlude go hand-in-hand. Sometimes they are even combined. The transition from one to the next is usually seamless.
Because of this, you might not be entirely clear about the difference and how to choose your wedding postlude music.
The purpose of the postlude is to provide joyful music to accompany the departure of your guests from your wedding ceremony.
This is only slightly different than the recessional, whose purpose is to provide joyful music to accompany the departure of the newly-married couple and the wedding party from the ceremony. See the article “Everything You Need To Know About Recessional Wedding Music” for more information about recessionals.
Considerations for picking wedding postlude music
Just like the recessional (because of the similar purpose), the postlude music should be joyful and exuberant. But it is not unusual (nor required) that the postlude is “toned down” a little when compared to the recessional.
A wedding postlude is usually a collection of several pieces of music. The term “postlude” would normally refer to a single piece of music, but not so with a wedding ceremony.
If you have a large wedding with a receiving line planned, it’s very possible that the postlude music could go on for a while. In such a case, it makes sense that you don’t want to have loud music go on for an extended period, especially toward the end when there will be relatively few people left in the church.
Because of this, consider using quieter (but still joyful!) pieces as time goes on.
How much do you need?
So how much music is needed?
If your guests were clearing out of the church as if a fire alarm went off, they could leave very quickly and you’d need only a few seconds of music.
But since they’ll probably be ushered out a row at a time and you’ll probably have a receiving line to greet your guests, it will take longer, much longer for everyone to leave.
I recommend about fifteen minutes for a typical wedding. If you will have a very large ceremony, you could plan twenty minutes of music. Similarly, for smaller weddings, plan for between five and ten minutes.
There’s always some guesswork involved. It’s impossible to predict how quickly people will pass through the receiving line.
It’s not necessary to have music until the very last guest leaves the church. Having a few rows of guests still seated when the music ends is okay.
The last guests to leave will be growing weary of still sitting and will likely be talking amongst themselves by the very end. It’s fine to end the music at this point and thus not necessary to worry about predicting exactly how much postlude music is needed.
Choosing your music
Because both the recessional and the postlude are almost always of the same, joyful style, choosing your postlude music can be pretty straightforward. The same list of music you looked at for your recessional will often work as a list to choose from for your postlude.
Obviously, you want your favorite, “most-joyful” piece to be your recessional. But because they’re the same style, many times you can just use your second, third, fourth, etc. choices for the recessional as your postlude music!
If you have some joyful-sounding music that you thought about but ended up not using for either before the ceremony or the processional, you might consider these pieces for the postlude (saving quieter music for the tail end of the postlude).
Music suggestions
Here are some music suggestions for your postlude.
- Paul Manz: Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee (the “Ode to Joy” melody)
For more suggestions, see my list of recessional ideas in the article “Give Me 5 Minutes And I’ll Give You 11 Great Wedding Recessionals.” Remember, almost any piece that could work for a recessional can also work as postlude music.
Your thoughts?
What other good wedding postlude music do you know of? Leave a comment and share it. Your comments are always welcome and appreciated!
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