Wondering why you need wedding postlude music and recessional music? Wondering what the purpose of a wedding postlude is? Wondering whether you really even need a postlude at all?
You’re not alone. This is just one of those music terms that couples encounter when planning their weddings that feel like a foreign language. It may seem like just more music that needs to be selected. Other guides and churches ask you to choose your postlude but don’t bother to explain what it is.
Purpose of the wedding postlude
The wedding recessional and the wedding postlude go hand-in-hand. Sometimes they are even combined into a single piece of music. But when separate, 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. Want to know more about recessionals? See my article about recessional wedding music.
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.
Is a wedding postlude required?
Do you need to have wedding postlude music?
No.
But should you?
I think it’s a great idea.
Having it extends the joyful mood of the ceremony. Just like you won’t have many periods of silence at your reception, I think it’s a great idea to keep the celebratory music going. Remember though, just like the music at the reception, the purpose isn’t to cover up silence, it’s to convey a mood.
When to not have wedding postlude music
But there are reasons when you can safely not have any wedding postlude music.
- Smaller weddings where there won’t be many guests attending. You can have guests exit to an extended recessional (in this case, it essentially becomes your postlude music) or just let them exit without music.
- You have a lengthy recessional. Rather than keep guests in their seats until the full recessional is over, you can have them exit during the recessional. Again, in this case, the recessional essentially becomes your postlude. But you get to save the trouble of picking out more music!
- You’re just way too pressed for music-planning time. Sometimes, it just can’t be helped and you don’t have the time available to do everything you might like. If you need to cut a corner or two to save time, dropping the postlude music is an option.
In the next part of this article, I’ll give you some tips for choosing your wedding postlude music! The article after that will have some exciting postlude music ideas.
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What thoughts do you have about postlude music? Have you been to a wedding where there wasn’t any?
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