September 29th, 2016

Choosing a Wedding DJ Top Tip 9 - Ceremony Music

As a professional DJ with over 20 years experience I thought it might be helpful if I offered a few tips to help you get the right DJ for your wedding.This is the ninth in my series of bite sized tips which will look carefully at the music you choose for your wedding ceremony.

The wedding ceremony music is normally made up of three distinct parts:

• Processional music to walk up the aisle too. Normally quite a calm piece of music that is elegant and contains a message of lasting love.
• Background music while signing the register. Often this is where the other tunes you considered as your processional music can be played. Again these are usually quite calm with messages of love.
• Recessional music to walk back out too as a married couple. This is normally upbeat and celebratory to reflect the occasion.

When choosing your music think carefully about songs that carry an appropriate message and importantly are songs that have some significance to you both as a couple.

Listen carefully to the songs you select as it is important to remember particularly with the processional and recessional songs that it is extremely unlikely that the whole song will be played.
Make sure you are clear on which version of the song you would like as there are often many versions of the same song.

The best you might hope for would be around a minute or so of the song.

Think about your venue and the time you have and how the music you have chosen fits so the right part of song is played at the right time.

Songs with a long introduction before the melody and lyrics kick in might need to be edited so that the right part of the song is played e.g. whilst walking up the aisle.

In terms of the recessional song it is likely that you will want this to kick in immediately at the first chorus and again some editing may be required.

A professional DJ can cue your songs at the right part in a live environment and ensure the song is played at the right time and even if the DJ isn’t going to be present during the ceremony ask if they can edit the music for you.

Finally if you aren't engaging a Professional DJ or musician for your ceremony music double check you have the music in the right format for the venues play out system, make sure you know who is going to press the button to start and stop the music and finally make sure they know their cue.