Weddingbee Blog

Although I had never really pictured my wedding as a little girl growing up, I still had a few preconceived notions of what ’should be’ in a wedding when I started planning. One of those things? A string quartet playing the music for the ceremony.

(Tin Alley String Quartet)

Maybe because I play the violin (and played in orchestras my whole life until grad school), my sister is at a music school (for a number of instruments), my grandmother plays in the symphony, my mom plays piano, and my dad plays acoustic guitar - somehow classical music was always pervasive in our house (but not in an annoying/overwhelming way).

In addition, the few weddings I had been to were all accompanied by the classic string quartet. So naturally I started researching ways to get live string groups at our ceremony (although not necessarily a quartet, based on our budget). I sent Mr. Guinea Pig links once I had accumulated some names, and the response I got back from him shocked me! “Why does it have to be a string quartet? They’re so stuffy/snobby. Seriously, why can’t the DJ just play the ceremony?”

{Gasp}. No string quartet? Stuffy? Snobby?! No way. Somehow it had never occurred to me that not only might Mr. Guinea Pig not want a string quartet, but that he thought classical string music in general was too formal! Stunned, I tried to talk him into it with assurances that we would play music that wasn’t stuffy, but fun! Didn’t he want me floating down the aisle to something whimsical/ethereal/magical?! Alas, it was to no avail. To give him credit, he saw how much it meant to me and said we should go ahead and find a string group; he didn’t care too much. But I didn’t want such an important part of the ceremony (in my opinion) to be something he didn’t enjoy!

We ran through a couple other instrument options: harp, flute, solo cello, a trumpet, even! Finally we discovered something that made us both sit up and say, “ooh, that would be awesome.” A classical guitarist! Mr. Guinea Pig plays guitar pretty nicely himself, so again I collected a bunch of names (this time for local guitarists) and sent him links to hear their samples. There was one clear winner we both loved, and it turned out he was the best price option, to boot!

(Rich Barry)

We loved Rich’s technique, his rich (ha! had to see that coming), mellow sound, and the types of music he can play. In fact, we’re going to have him play the ceremony AND keep us entertained during cocktail hour! If you’d like to be similarly impressed, you can head over to his music samples page here, or his more wedding-oriented music sample page here.

As you can see, Rich does classical music (like Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven, etc), current music (think Beatles, The Verve, Coldplay), and also Spanish/Latin music - which I was surprised to discover I absolutely love. So we have a whole range of options to choose from! … Oh dear.

The only thing I know for sure is that I will not be walking down the aisle to Wagner’s Here Comes the Bride (although Rich does play it, should you want that). I think we’re leaning towards doing Spanish/Latin during the cocktail hour because we’d like to keep things lively, for sure. So now that leaves us with the question of what we should play for the ceremony.

What are some of your favorite pieces on the guitar? Do you think we should do everything (ceremony + cocktail hour) to Spanish/Latin guitar music, or stick with classical for the ceremony? What kind of music will you have for your ceremony?