Unexpected Ways to Add Music to Your Wedding

1. Think Beyond Just Your Wedding Day. Get your guests excited to attend your wedding by having music for your pre-wedding festivities. Live background music is perfect for engagement parties, showers, rehearsal dinners, and luncheons.

2. Music for Guest Arrival – Not just at the ceremony. Have music playing outside of your venue, so guests hear it the moment they get out of their cars. If you are providing transportation, have a strolling violinist or guitarist in the vehicle to take requests. You can also have music at the guests’ hotel(s) during check-in time or for breakfast the day of and after your wedding.

3. Ceremony Elements. Extend the music for your unity ceremony by going as a couple to greet each set of parents. This is a great way to hear more of the piece you have chosen for your unity candle or sand (which usually takes about ten seconds). You can also incorporate vocal or instrumental solos to give you some time during the ceremony to just relax and enjoy. Some officiants allow you to play soft music under a reading or the vows. “Moving music” is an effective way to keep the ceremony cohesive as readers walk to and from their seats, or as the bride & groom move up to take their vows.

4. Formal Pictures. While your families and bridal party are having pictures taken, it is customary to have music playing while guests are enjoying the cocktail hour. Why leave yourself out of the fun? Have music where you are doing pictures, too. It’s also a great stress reducer when you are trying to herd people and work on a tight schedule.

5. Unexpected Places. Gives a new meaning to “elevator music”! You can have musicians set up in bathroom entrances, by the coat check, or in the elevator. Guests will return to their dinner tables, and tell everyone that they need to go check out the harpist in the bathroom!

6. Kids’ Room. You can make your wedding reception enjoyable for children, too, by having a separate kids’ area. They can make simple instruments (egg shakers, tambourines, etc.), or you could have an early childhood music teacher come in to teach a music and movement class.

7. Thank You Notes & Favors. Send your guests home with a musical tribute to your day. You can offer CD’s of your wedding musicians playing the songs you selected either as favors or enclosed with your thank you notes.

If you are looking for a harpist for your upcoming wedding, I’d love to work with you!  Please visit my website (http://www.theclassicharpist.com/) and contact me for more information.

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