This guest blog post is from church music singer Karoline O’Sullivan who shares her advice for couples when choosing their ceremony music.
When someone asks me what kind of music I like I often have to stop and think. We all know what we like when we hear it on the radio or at a concert, but how easy is it to remember, just off the tops of our heads what it is we really like? This is the most common problem with which brides and grooms come to me. They can feel completely out of their depth when it comes to choosing the music for their ceremony.
It is the role of your singer or musician to take all that stress and worry away from you, but just in case they don’t, here are a few tips to help you out:
- Firstly try to get hold of some booklets from previous weddings. Simply looking through these will give you a general outline of how many pieces of music you will need and for church weddings, the type of music that is accepted.
- Secondly try to listen to a few recordings which you will find on YouTube and wedding singers websites. As you listen to the recordings, read the lyrics, soon you will find something that really reflects your personality and your relationship as well as the mood you wish to set during the ceremony.
- Now would be a good time to speak to whoever is giving the ceremony. Your server or priest may be very open minded about the music you chose but they do like to have some kind of input. Also they may have some great ideas.
- Finally you must meet your singer. I don’t believe you will get the best results from simply speaking on the phone or communicating via email, you must request that your singer meets you in person. That way you can ask him or her to sing through a few of the pieces and help you decide what works best. Also hearing the songs may remind you of pieces you learned as a child or something a parent or grandparent once sang. That kind of personal connection with your music really helps to take the stress out of making your final choices and can make a real difference to your wedding ceremony.
I hope that helps a little. To hear some of my recordings and/or to make an enquiry please check out my page or my Facebook Page. Thanks for reading, Karoline.
