Wedding Processional Music Dos and Don’ts….In most cases when a couple book a wedding string quartet, we are asked to play a well loved piece of music as the bride walks up the aisle. This can be anything from¬†a traditional bridal processional piece such as the ‘Wedding March’ or Pachelbel’s Canon (see our performance of this below), to an arrangement of a favourite modern rock or pop song for string quartet song to a piece of music from a film or musical. If you’d like some wedding songs ideas, you can see our informative blog entitled ‘The Bridal Entrance Music – Songs to Walk Down the Aisle To’.

When choosing a piece to enter to, it’s always worth bearing in mind that the time taken for the bride (and possibly bridesmaids) to reach the registrar or minister is actually quite short, so the most ideal choices are pieces that are recognisable from the very beginning, or that can be rounded off quite easily within a few seconds of the bridal party arriving at the front. Sometimes couples request a favourite piece that has quite a long introduction and if we were to play that piece from the beginning, the main melody would not even have started by the time the bride reached the front and the string quartet would be left with two options – either to finish it very early so that nobody actually gets to hear the main tune, or to continue playing – leaving the bride standing there for several minutes whilst we finish (potentially embarrassing and awkward for all concerned!).

For this reason, we usually recommend having any particularly meaningful pieces played during the signing of the register so that everyone will get to hear them in their entirety – without cutting anything short, or leaving people standing around waiting. It’s easy to see why pieces such as the ‘Bridal Chorus’ (Here Comes the Bride) or other wedding marches are so frequently chosen as they are recognised instantly from the first few notes and we can round them off gently¬†at the end of a phrase -¬†without stopping suddenly and creating a jarring effect.