The Right Note — How Classical Music Can Enhance Your Special Day

The Right Note — how clas­si­cal music can enhance your wed­ding day

Clas­si­cal music has a funny rep­u­ta­tion – it’s either scream­ingly elit­ist or ring­tone fod­der (Tore­ador, any­one?!). When I tell peo­ple I’m an opera singer, eyes slowly glaze over and quiet prayers are sent up that they’re busy the night I have a con­cert. How­ever, my job has been use­ful to friends and fam­ily when they’ve asked me to sing at their wed­dings – a gift for them and a priv­i­lege for me!

I recently decided to set up Wed­ding Music Con­sul­ta­tion, a ser­vice help­ing cou­ples select the per­fect clas­si­cal music and musi­cians for their cer­e­mony – after all, I have many years of expe­ri­ence. I excit­edly got online to do some research but it soon became clear that there is lit­tle to no infor­ma­tion avail­able. I should have felt like I’d found my niche – the only busi­ness out there pro­vid­ing a much needed facil­ity but instead I felt a lit­tle dis­heart­ened, like I was try­ing to res­ur­rect a dead art.

Photo credit Chris Han­ley Pho­tog­ra­phy from Chris and Kate’s UK wedding

Well, I am here to con­firm that clas­si­cal music is alive and well and, after chat­ting to sev­eral brides-to-be at a recent wed­ding fair, I want to dis­pel the two main rea­sons that – accord­ing to my less than offi­cial poll – put peo­ple off:

1. “Clas­si­cal music isn’t for us”

It is true that con­certs are filled with older audi­ences but clas­si­cal music is used daily in all media (remem­ber The Flower Duet in the BA advert?), mak­ing it much more acces­si­ble to all gen­er­a­tions. When it comes to wed­dings, I under­stand why cou­ples tend to go for the ‘stan­dards’ for their cer­e­monies – and why not? Ave Maria is pop­u­lar because peo­ple love it – but I really think that, with a lit­tle help, your cer­e­mony music can be as unique as your dress, your flow­ers and your favours.

As an exam­ple, I recently organ­ised the music for a bride in Dublin. She sent me some details about her­self, her fiancé and her church and we agreed that I would offer up choices for the church organ­ist to play for her entrance, the sign­ing of the reg­is­ter, Holy Com­mu­nion and their exit at new­ly­weds. After read­ing about her church online, I looked into Irish clas­si­cal com­posers around the time the church was rebuilt in 1802 (when I felt its his­tory began) and found John Field, whose piano sonatas are both beau­ti­ful and peace­ful – a won­der­ful accom­pa­ni­ment to Holy Com­mu­nion and reg­is­ter sign­ing. I then chose a warm French aria for her to walk in to and a sec­tion from an upbeat Han­del Organ Con­certo to leave to – choices which met the bride’s require­ments for Pachelbel’s Canon-like har­monies and a quirky, happy exit. My bride will now have her per­fect cer­e­mony music with­out lift­ing a finger!

There was a time when clas­si­cal music was just music and musi­cians always played at great cel­e­bra­tions – espe­cially wed­dings, the great­est of them all. Don’t be afraid of what we call clas­si­cal music, as songs from 40–50 years ago can be ‘clas­si­cal’ to the mod­ern ear. What music comes to mind when you think of your favorite film? More often than not, it’s a clas­si­cal piece – why not walk down the aisle to that? My last bride requested Ste­vie Wonder’s ‘You are the Sun­shine of My Life’ as exit music – this was the a first for me but, after a lit­tle bit of work, I found an arrange­ment for her string trio to play and she and her hus­band left beaming!

My ini­tial advice would be to go to your venue and stand by the entrance. What do you hear? Do you hear strings or trum­pets? Do you hear one voice or a choir? Live music can enhance your spe­cial cer­e­mony no end, so be as bold as you dare.

Clas­si­cal music for your wed­ding — photo credit Carl­ton Ensemble

2. “Clas­si­cal musi­cians are too expensive”

If only! We all train very hard for many years for not much finan­cial reward but, hon­estly, it’s the pas­sion that dri­ves the major­ity of per­form­ers — not the check. If today’s sta­tis­tics are true, and the aver­age wed­ding does set cou­ples back approx­i­mately £15,000 – £20,000, then the cost of live cer­e­mony music will only be about 1–2% of the over­all cost — a bar­gain, no? You can also book musi­cians to play on after your cer­e­mony, enter­tain­ing your guests while they enjoy their first glass of champagne!

I under­stand that, with­out fam­ily or friends in the biz, you might feel it’s dif­fi­cult to know who to book, not trust­ing the adverts you see in mag­a­zines or online. This is where Wed­ding Music Con­sul­ta­tion can step in! All rec­om­mended singers and instru­men­tal­ists are pro­fes­sional musi­cians, so you can rest assured that your choice of music will be beau­ti­fully performed.

So please remem­ber that cer­e­mony music can be as per­sonal as pos­si­ble to you both on your spe­cial day – just don’t sac­ri­fice the majesty of the moment because you don’t think clas­si­cal music applies to you or you think we’re too expen­sive… it does and we’re not!

Sam Hous­ton
Wed­ding Music Consultation

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