Selecting the music for your wedding ceremony

Welcome to the very first Rylands String Quartet blog post! We’re excited to share with you a few thoughts and tips from our years of experience working in the wedding industry! To start us off we thought we’d write a little guide to choosing the music for your ceremony. Any topic suggestions for our next post are more than welcome so please do drop us a message in the box below.

So, here goes…

When performing at your wedding ceremony we’ll usually provide live music at the following points –

music for the entrance of the bridal party

music during the signing of the register

music for the exit of the bridal party

and we’ll be asking you to choose what you’d like for each of these parts. Generally in the UK the bridal party will all walk in to one song, and we suggest that this is… anything you like! Our most popular choices are pieces such as Pachelbel’s Canon, A Thousand Years (Christina Perri) and How Long Will I Love You (Ellie Goulding), they are all slow and serene, perfect for creating that stunning, tear-inducing atmosphere for your entrance into the wedding ceremony room. Or if you’re interested in going the more traditional route we can also play the Bridal Chorus (by Wagner – possibly better known as ‘Here Comes the Bride’) and Wedding March by Mendlessohn.

If this doesn’t sound like you why not have a browse of our repertoire list and see if your special song is listed there. We can arrange anything for string quartet so if there’s one particular piece of music that’s your song that we don’t already have then please don’t hesitate to get in touch! We can’t emphasise enough that it’s your day, unique to you both as a couple, and you should choose whatever feels right.

A popular question is whether or not the piece of music you’ve chosen is too long for your journey down the aisle and we’d like to put your fears to rest! If this is the case we will be watching and find a suitable point in the music to stop as soon as you reach the top of the aisle.

During the signing of the register we aim to keep your guests entertained while you are busy with the legal documentation by playing a few popular songs of your choosing. We would suggest that these are uplifting but not too upbeat as it’s not time to get the party started just yet! Popular choices are Make You Feel My Love (Adele), Greatest Day (Take That) and All You Need is Love (The Beatles) but again we would stress that you should choose what feels fitting for both of you, and choose songs that you love.

And finally, after the registrars have presented you with your marriage certificate, it will be time to walk back down that aisle as a married couple! We have a huge selection of songs suitable for this part, and often we will play the happy couple out to Signed Sealed Delivered (Stevie Wonder), One Day Like This (Elbow), Rather Be (Clean Bandit) or simply anything that’s lively and joyful to set the tone for the rest of your day.

We hope this helps and we look forward to reading your comments in the box below!

RSQ x