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.
She hadn’t told the musicians about the change. I don’t know if this was an oversight or she thought they’d see it in the program.
Regardless, they weren’t prepared for the change.
When the time for the solo came, they just sat there because they didn’t know. Eventually after a long period of awkward silence, probably sensing what had happened, the minister announced that the solo “would now be sung”. Then came the scrambling as the musicians hurried into position.
I’m sure their performance was not what it could (or should) have been.
As disaster stories go, this one is pretty mild (fortunately for all involved!). It certainly could have been much worse. But it was still an unnecessarily awkward situation.
The lesson to be learned
The obvious lesson here is that communication is critical.
The wedding program wasn’t the ideal way for the musicians to find out about the change. But it was a last chance to spot trouble.
I emphasize communication between you, your musicians and your church in my six wedding music planning steps that you’ll find in my Guide to Selecting Memorable Church Wedding Music. It’s all geared toward making sure your ceremony turns out perfect.
Tips to avoid wedding music trouble
Here are three tips that would have prevented all this:
1. Set a deadline for yourself to declare your ceremony music details “final”. When you get to this point, inform the musicians of your final plans and tell them it’s final. If you absolutely must make changes after this point, check with your musicians first.
2. Pick someone on your wedding day to provide actual, final wedding programs to the musicians. Do this even if you don’t list the music and even if using the church’s musicians.
One of my experiences: Before the ceremony, I hadn’t been given a program, but I wanted one so that I could review it for any unexpected surprises. The guests were already arriving but I couldn’t find one anyone who knew where they were. We finally found someone who knew that the bride’s parents had them locked in their car.
After tracking them down with just five minutes before I needed to start playing music, I finally got my program!
3. Send draft copies of the program to your musicians well in advance for their feedback. In addition to bringing issues to light quickly, it can help spot both big and small mistakes.
Do you have more tips?
What do you think? What communication problems have you seen (or seen narrowly averted) in your wedding ceremony planning? What other tips do you have to share?
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Excellent suggestions! Communications& a cut off for No More Changes!
Some people keep too many changes, which not
only confuses things, but can also cost!!! Since
last minute changes and/or carelessness about
noting start times on contracts means vendors will
be coming up to you at the reception demanding overtime
payments.
Thanks for your comment. There is a natural tendency to keep tweaking until it’s perfect. And then tweak some more. The tendency should be resisted as they introduce risk of things going wrong if good communication isn’t maintained (which is really, really difficult when you’re so busy in the weeks before a wedding).