pre-recorded ceremony music

stinkle

Just reading the thread re: ipod instead of DJ and I'm getting a bit anxious about our ceremony music... we don't have the budget for live musicians but a (musical) relative is taking care of it for us.

It's a humanist ceremony, we're both big into our music and a couple of pieces we've chosen will have to be recorded versions rather than live. I'm just hoping these parts wont seem "lacking". Person helping us works as a sound engineer and has lots of decent equipment so this will all work out!

As time is ticking I think I must be looking for stuff to worry over! I guess I'm just curious about other people's experiences with ceremony music both as guests and as bride and groom, as ours will be the first non-religious wedding I've ever gone to and all the others had harpists, string quartets and the like, which was never really us to begin with.

mozattack

Stinkle, I am in the same boat, not into all that stereotypical crap you HAVE to listen to a wedding... Ava Maria... snooze.

I like metal, she likes pop so neither would be suitable.

We are thinking of shoving in one of our favourites songs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22hvEdaPSMs and for fillers I am thinking something neutral, like from the Lord of the Rings songtrack.

It is hard to know.. dont want it too in your face and also we have to bear in mind the room is small and only 20-22 will be in there so Metallica won't work! UGH

stinkle

sooooo glad it's not just me!!!! Yeah I guess it's usually "nicer" to have live musicians doing the old favourites, but we aren't having those. Also you're right about the smaller rooms etc. Our celebrant knows our venue well and did say live works better there, but at the same time some of the stuff we like would be impossible to do well live (unless we wanted to hire the actual band/s themselves!) and I trust the person helping us to do a good job editing stuff down - it's not just a case of a randomer holding an ipod up in the air...

Love the Staind song!!!

lainycool

We had a humanist ceremony in December and I was in the same situation as yourself, I didn't want to spend a huge amount for a singer that was going to sing 4 songs but in the end I found I was really stressing over it!

I was going to give the job of music to my friend but I was so worried something would go wrong with timings etc so I decided it was better to get a professional and I found the perfect people, They were great and they played the piano too.

stinkle

that's great you were happy! Ours is v soon though, prob a bit late for me to get anyone (and also hurt the feelings of our helper). We'll have a mix of live and recorded, but the recorded will be for the "dramatic" bits like processional so I was worried it'd sound lame. Thing is, the stuff we've chosen would be v hard to do justice to live anyway, so that's helping me calm down and justify it.

I should point out that my normal way of dealing with stresses is to stick on some music. Wedding tunes normally help till these thoughts popped into my head today that our choices are awful and will sound bad....

Faith

I know of someone who got married recently and they had recorded music while they were signing the register. The feedback was that the music was hard to hear and people just started murmuring over it so it got lost. Now, that was in a church so that's a big factor. I'd say just let your helper know it'll need to be at a decent volume, but if they're a sound engineer, they'll probably be well able to make it sound perfect. You could always rehearse it when you're doing the rehearsal beforehand.

stinkle

that's true, we wont be rehearsing in the venue, but the coordinator said he can drop out any time to have a nose re:room size etc. I trust them!

mozattack

If in a church = no, wont work

If in a room = am thinking little choice, musician could be crowding the place