Ceremony music can strike a pleasing chord and enhance your wedding ceremony, if done well. However, it can often be the weak link in ceremony planning and result in a noticeably discordant note in an otherwise beautiful ceremony. If you hire live musicians with experience performing for wedding ceremonies, or if you hire a professional DJ, you can be confident that the music you select will be a lovely accompaniment to your ceremony.
As you’re planning your ceremony you might encounter a cost cutting suggestion of using recorded music played from a personal device. This can be a good suggestion if carefully implemented, but too often leads to disappointing results. With all the technology available at our fingertips today it seems like having a friend or family member run your music from a phone would be a simple and inexpensive option. But a number of pitfalls await this decision.
- Having someone run the ceremony music from your phone can result in them not knowing where the music is located, or what order to play the songs in. Worst of all, the device can lock during the ceremony with no way for the person to unlock it for the recessional at the end of the ceremony.
- You’ll need to have your device connected to speakers, and not any speaker will do. You need to be able to have the music played loud enough that the wedding party can hear it and know when to enter and leave the ceremony space.
- The person running the music needs to know how to fade out a song, cycle it to play again, and switch songs quickly to support a processional with multiple music selections.
- If you’re going to rely on any sound system components from your ceremony venue you need to take the music device there in the weeks preceding the ceremony to ensure that the proper cables and speakers are available. This can help avoid a situation where it’s time to begin the ceremony and no music is available.
- Finally, you will want to have the person running your music attend your rehearsal so they can practice the processional and recessional in your ceremony space. This will give you a final chance to correct any problems with your music plan.
The best way to ensure that your ceremony music strikes a pleasing cord is to rely on professionals for either live or recorded music. If you make another choice, invest the time and attention to detail to maximize the chances of success.