(Part 2 of a 4-part article)
What if your wedding processional ended before you even walked down the aisle because the music ended too soon? A silly question, but it nicely introduces the topic of this part of the article.
In part one of this article, I looked at how to use your processional music’s style to set a tone for the beginning of the ceremony. In this part, I discuss ceremony details affecting how long your music for processional use should be.
Ceremony details
Your musician can assist you in sorting through these factors as you choose your music. Don’t feel that you have to do it all yourself. But you should understand these factors—it will help you choose the music.
The needed length should be well-understood so the musician can be prepared to extend or shorten it (by repeating or skipping certain sections).
Discuss these factors with your musician(s)!
Here are some important details that affect how long the processional needs to be:
1. Whether the bride has her own processional
With a separate bridal processional, be sure that you don’t have too much music on your hands: even for the longest church aisle, it will not take long to walk down the aisle. I guarantee that every single piece of music you consider to walk down the aisle to will be much longer than you need!
2. Length of your church’s aisle
The longer the aisle, the longer it will take to walk down it. You only really need to be concerned about this if your church’s aisle is extremely long or short. But for most churches, this is unlikely to be a big concern.
Be sure to run through the processional with all involved, including the musician(s), at the rehearsal.
3. Size of the wedding party
The larger the bridal or wedding party, the longer the music for processional will need to be. A longer aisle, multiplied by a large wedding party and the time in between each entrance can really add up.
I recently played for a wedding where there were eight bridesmaids and four children involved in the processional. As written, the processional music was long (chosen for that reason), but it still had to be extended on the fly to make it long enough!
4. Children in the processional
Young children can be unpredictable. Extra time may be needed to coax a terrified child into walking down the aisle. There’s no telling how long the processional will take.
Better to be prepared and have a slightly longer piece than to hear something repeated over and over again.
With this information, experienced musicians can judge whether a piece will be too long or too short and can plan accordingly. A less experienced musician may need to be reminded to be prepared to do so. The rehearsal will show whether further adjustments are needed.
In the next part of this article, I’ll look at some ways to make commonly-used processionals sound more distinctive.
Tell us what you think
What are some other considerations for selecting music for processional use? Do you know of a wedding processional that went very well because of careful planning (or perhaps poorly because of a failure to plan)? Please leave a comment. Your comments are always welcome and appreciated!
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Great tips. Will share this to my sister. Her wedding’s in three months and we’re DIY-ing everything! It’s fun, though!
Thanks for the comment and have fun with her wedding!
Be sure to check out my brand new article “A DIY Approach to Your Wedding Music“.
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