Wedding Blog

feel better soon, miss poppy!

Anyone have thoughts on a single instrument? Like one violin? or one harpist (which is nice, but what my sister had) or a pianist (which isn’t possible at my venue)…

thanks everyone for the get better wishes. i’m feeling better already!

e - i understand what you mean about high schoolers but if you get high schoolers that been to many music festivals such as aspen chances are they are quite outstanding. i know a lot of high school musicians that play for weddings and they are fantastic. a lot of the youth symphony kids are prodigys and crazy talented. that’s why it’s always important to ask those questions that i mentioned. plus having a rehearsal dinner allows the musicians and the wedding party to see timing.

but i’m glad that you wrote what you thought too! i was writing for the brides that wanted a much cheaper option than professional musicians since a lot of them can’t afford the profs.

Thanks a lot for this post, Miss Poppy! I totally agree with everything you’ve said, but I wanted to add a few things; both my parents are classical musicians and play a lot of weddings, so I know the kinds of things that tend to annoy musicians.

First off, Aspen is, like, the cream of the cream of the cream of the crop when it comes to music festivals for high-school musicians. So yeah, if the kids in question have been there, they play probably about as well as any professional musician. However a lot of us simply can’t afford it but still play awfully well and have gone to really high-quality music festivals. If the students you’re considering have gone to Tanglewood, the Eastern Music Festival (my favorite, I was there for two years), Chautauqua, or a few others that I can’t think of right now, they’re probably pretty decent. If they’ve gone to Interlochen for summer programs, they’ve got a chance at being decent, but moreso if they go to Interlochen for school year-round. There are other regional music festivals that can be quite good, and certainly even the worst festivals help young musicians get experience, so be willing to at least give any group a listen.

Also, something I beg anyone getting ANY kind of live music to listen to: PLEASE let the musicians know far in advance exactly what you want them to play and when; don’t spring anything on them at the ceremony! My father played a wedding this Saturday with a string trio, and when they got to the ceremony site they found out that one of the bride’s friends was going to be singing during the ceremony and was expecting them to accompany her. But the only thing she had for them to read off of was the piano part, which was impossible for them to use! It got worked out in the end (I think she sang with a tape or something), but please please PLEASE do not do stuff like this to your musicians. A single pianist might be able to sight-read something like this, but any kind of group like a string trio or string quartet MUST have pieces that are arranged for that instrumentation. If you have certain songs you want them to play, let them know well enough in advance that they can find an arrangement of it! This goes quadruple for high-school musicians, since they tend not to have a lot of money or a lot of music available to them! So just try to be clear about what you want from them; most groups are very professional and will do everything they can to meet your requests, as long as they know in advance what they are!

Fal - don’t apologise it’s great info you’re giving all of us