String Quartet For Berkshire Wedding in Newbury – On Saturday we performed as a string quartet for a wedding near Newbury in Berkshire. I arrived earlier than usual as there were quite a few things about the ceremony itself that¬†needed careful co-ordination. The bride’s father had kindly sent me copies of all the hymns, so I checked how many verses were needed for each one and rehearsed them with the choir and keyboard (it being judged that the organ may have been too out of tune to be reliable). This being said, we found the keyboard to be extremely flat, so David (on violin) had a good look and could only adjust it up and down in semitones. It was only just before the guests entered the church that he successfully located the control for adjusting the pitch (hidden away at the back of the keyboard) and saved the day by tuning it to a perfect! There was also a favourite song of the bridal couple that involved a vocalist, string quartet and choir, so that needed rehearsing as well. Do take a look at our FAQs page for information on wedding services as well as hymns accompanied by our string quartet. Here is a video of us playing Cesar Franck’s beautiful ‘Panis Angelicus’ for string quartet:

After the ceremony we drove the five minute journey to the father of the bride‚Äôs house, where there was a splendid marquee that adjoined a barn, which was conveniently set up as the bar area. We played for the drinks reception (which was in the region of an hour and twenty minutes just right for guests to enjoy a drink or two without starting to get hungry!) and as everyone entered the marquee for the meal, we spent a few minutes playing a couple of favourites for just the bride and groom.