“Do I have to use classical music for my church wedding ceremony? Why can’t it be the music that I listen to?”
I wrote in an earlier article about using classical music for your church wedding music. That article explains what it means for music “to be appropriate” for use in a church.
This time from a different angle
This time, let’s look at it from the “But I don’t listen to classical music!” perspective. After all, classical music doesn’t have the audience it once did. This impacts wedding music planning because it’s very easy to discount it as irrelevant. [Read the full article…]
Spend just a little time reading this and you’ll have ideas to end your wedding on a perfect note that will leave everybody in just as joyful a mood as you!
In the first part of this article, I offered tips about choosing your church wedding recessional music. This time, I’ll give you some specific music ideas. [Read the full article…]
Here’s something that should help you with your expectations for how your ceremony music will sound.
Here’s a small article from one of my email newsletters. It got some great feedback so I thought I’d share it with everyone. [Read the full article…]
Who doesn’t love a good disaster story?
When it comes to wedding disaster stories, I like them because there’s often a lesson that can be learned. And when there’s a lesson, some good can come from what may have been an awful experience for those involved.
In that spirit, here’s another wedding music disaster story. From the lesson come three specific tips you can use in your wedding planning.
The Story
At the wedding ceremony, no one provided the musicians with a copy of the wedding program.
By itself, this wasn’t a big deal. But if the musicians had seen the program, one of them could have noticed that the bride had switched the location in the ceremony where the vocal solo was to be sung. [Read the full article…]
You’d like your wedding ceremony to be filled with joy and drama-free, right?
Here’s a wedding music tip for you that could help prevent an awkward or even possibly disastrous ceremony. If you’re using an amateur musician in your ceremony, think about this.
Anyone can be nervous
Almost everyone can get nervous before a big event. Athletes, performers, speakers can all suffer from being nervous. Even you, before your wedding ceremony will probably be nervous! It takes determination to get through it.
Professional musicians can also be affected, so amateur musicians can be affected even more so. And since amateurs usually don’t have the training or experience that professionals do to help overcome it, nervousness can lead to big problems.
A friend or family-member musician may be extra nervous because of their relationship to you and may put extra pressure on themselves.
You want to do whatever possible to put your amateur musicians at ease.
A tip to help put nervous musicians at ease
If you think this could be a concern (and you can usually figure it out from their situation), you want to make sure that you don’t have a ceremony marred by a musician struggling to get through a piece of music.
So here’s my tip: Invite the amateur musician to your wedding rehearsal and have them play or sing there.
This will help them get comfortable with the surroundings. It gives them an audience, helping them feel more at ease and boosting their confidence.
Even if their part of the ceremony isn’t a significant part of the rehearsal, you can still have them play or sing while another part is rehearsed.
For example, have a vocal soloist sing while you’re rehearsing something else, such as the processional (if your processional musician isn’t there or doesn’t specifically need to rehearse their part). You might need to make sure the accompanist is present (who might already be present). But this is a small detail compared to the pain or awkwardness of a difficult performance during the ceremony.
Trust me, your heart will go out to your friend or relative if they start struggling.
Not using amateur musicians isn’t the answer
[Read the full article…]
