When planning wedding ceremony music, couples quite often ask us for a specific last song before the arrival of the bride.
On paper, this sounds perfectly straightforward.
The guests are seated. We play several pieces while everybody arrives. Then, a few minutes before the ceremony begins, we play one particular song chosen by the couple. It becomes the final piece before the bridal entrance music and perhaps provides a little musical signal that something important is about to happen.
Lovely idea.
And, when the timings work, it can be lovely.
The difficulty is that a wedding ceremony is not a railway timetable. More importantly, the two musicians sitting at the front of the ceremony usually have absolutely no idea what is happening behind the closed doors at the other end of the building.
This is particularly relevant for a registrar-led civil wedding ceremony, where the registrars themselves control much of what happens immediately before the bridal entrance.
At JAM Duo we are very happy to accommodate a requested final song before the ceremony where possible. But it is important to understand that there are several variables which mean we cannot always guarantee that a particular piece will end immediately before the bride walks down the aisle.
And therein lies the problem.
How We Normally Approach a “Last Song” Before the Ceremony
If a civil wedding ceremony is scheduled to begin at, for example, 2pm, and a couple has asked for a particular final song before the bridal entrance, our normal approach would be to start that piece at approximately 1.56pm.
Most popular songs arranged for cello and piano last somewhere between three and five minutes, so starting four minutes before the advertised ceremony time generally makes sense.
If everything runs precisely to schedule, the result can be perfect.
The final pre-ceremony song ends at about 2pm. The registrars make their announcement. Guests are asked to stand. We begin the bridal entrance music and the ceremony starts.
The trouble is contained in one rather significant word:
If.
There are several things which can upset that beautifully simple plan.
Is the Wedding Ceremony Definitely Running on Time?
The first problem is also the most obvious.
Is the ceremony actually going to start at 2pm?
As musicians, we frequently have no way of knowing.
The bride may still be upstairs. Photographs may be taking slightly longer than expected. A buttonhole may have fallen apart. Somebody may have mislaid a bouquet. A bridesmaid may have disappeared to the loo at precisely the wrong moment.
All of this is entirely normal.
The difficulty is that nobody necessarily tells the musicians.
From our position in the ceremony room, everything can look completely ready. The guests are seated. The groom is at the front. The registrars are present.
As far as we know, the bride could be standing immediately outside the door.
Or she could still be fifteen minutes away.
Unless somebody specifically tells us, we cannot know which.
So imagine the couple has requested Can’t Help Falling in Love as the final piece before the bride arrives.
At 1.56pm we begin it.
At 2pm we finish.
Nothing happens.
We play another piece.
Then another.
At 2.12pm somebody finally appears and tells us that the bridal party is ready.
The requested “last song” was therefore not the last song at all.
It was the third-last song.
Musically there is nothing wrong with this, of course. The guests have enjoyed several additional pieces and everything continues perfectly happily.
But if the intention was that one particular song should have a very specific position immediately before the bridal entrance, that cannot always be guaranteed simply by working from the scheduled ceremony time.
What Happens When the Registrars Make Their Announcement?
This is particularly relevant to civil ceremonies.
Before the bridal party enters, registrars will normally address the guests.
The precise wording varies between local authorities and individual registrars, but it commonly includes housekeeping points such as asking guests to switch mobile phones to silent, explaining whether photographs are permitted during the ceremony and perhaps reminding everyone that they should remain seated or stand at the appropriate moment.
From a musician’s perspective, the registrar standing up to make this announcement looks remarkably like the ceremony is about to begin.
Often, it is.
The registrar gives the announcement, turns towards us, somebody opens the door, the guests stand and we begin the bridal entrance music.
Perfect.
Except sometimes that is not what happens.
Occasionally the registrars make their announcement and then sit down again.
The bride, it turns out, is not ready.
Unfortunately, nobody has mentioned this to us.
So we are left looking across the ceremony room wondering whether we should resume the pre-ceremony music or whether the bridal party is about to appear.
This is one of those slightly peculiar situations which only becomes obvious when you have played at a very large number of weddings.
To a guest, nothing particularly unusual has happened.
To the musicians, several questions are now racing through our minds.
Is the bridal party outside?
Should we play?
Are we waiting for another signal?
Has the registrar finished?
Is somebody about to open the door?
And most importantly, if we have been asked to perform one particular piece immediately before the bridal entrance, has that moment already happened?
What If the Bride Is Fifteen Minutes Late?
There is absolutely nothing unusual about a wedding ceremony beginning a little late.
Five or ten minutes is commonplace.
Sometimes it is longer.
And generally speaking, it does not matter.
We simply continue playing music for the guests until the ceremony is ready to begin.
This is one of the advantages of having live musicians for your wedding ceremony. We can respond to what is happening rather than relying on a predetermined playlist.
But this flexibility creates an obvious difficulty with a designated final song.
If we know that the bride is going to be fifteen minutes late, the solution is easy.
We simply delay the final requested song.
The problem is that we generally do not know.
From our perspective the ceremony appears to be about to begin at any moment.
At a typical wedding venue there may be several people who know the bridal party is running late — the wedding coordinator, photographer, registrars and perhaps members of the venue team.
But unless somebody communicates this to the musicians, we are still working from the published ceremony time.
This is why live ceremony music requires a degree of flexibility.
And Then There Is the Opposite Problem: The Early Registrar
Late ceremonies are one thing.
Early ceremonies are rather more challenging.
We have experienced registrars who have decided to begin a civil ceremony several minutes before the scheduled start time.
Imagine a ceremony advertised for 2pm.
We are playing guest arrival music and expecting to begin the couple’s chosen final piece at approximately 1.56pm.
At 1.54pm the registrar suddenly stands up.
“Ladies and gentlemen…”
Phones are switched off. Cameras are discussed.
Then comes the signal that the bridal party is ready.
We now need to begin the entrance music.
The carefully planned final pre-ceremony song has never happened at all.
There is very little the musicians can do about this.
We cannot tell the registrar to sit down for another four minutes because the couple wanted to hear A Thousand Years first.
Once the registrar has started the formal process of beginning the ceremony, we have to respond to what is happening in the room.
The bridal entrance music is obviously the priority.
Why We Cannot Simply Stop a Song Halfway Through
Another suggestion might be that we simply begin the requested final song and stop whenever the bridal party becomes ready.
Technically, of course, we can stop.
Musically, however, it is rarely desirable.
Imagine choosing a song because it has particular significance to you and then hearing approximately one minute and seventeen seconds of it before the musicians suddenly stop halfway through a phrase.
It rather defeats the purpose.
Wherever possible we try to finish pieces naturally.
Sometimes we can shorten an arrangement intelligently. Because everything JAM Duo plays is performed live, Jules and Anne-Marie can often find an appropriate musical point to bring a piece to an earlier conclusion.
But there are limits.
We cannot magically convert every four-minute song into a perfectly formed seventeen-second miniature simply because somebody has unexpectedly opened a door.
Live Music Is Flexible — But It Still Needs Information
One of the great advantages of live wedding musicians is flexibility.
If things run late, we continue.
If guests take longer to sit down, we adapt.
If the registrars need another few moments, we keep playing.
If the bridal party becomes ready sooner than expected, we can move straight into the entrance music.
But musicians can only respond to information they actually have.
This is perhaps the central point.
A “last song before the bride” is very easy to achieve if somebody can reliably tell us when the bridal party is approximately four minutes away from entering.
Without that information, we have to make our best judgement based on the official ceremony start time.
Most of the time that works perfectly well.
Sometimes it does not.
Can We Guarantee a Particular Last Song Before the Bridal Entrance?
The short answer is no.
We can absolutely plan for one.
We can make every reasonable effort to play it in the intended position.
But unless the ceremony timing is tightly controlled and somebody is communicating directly with us, it cannot be guaranteed.
There are simply too many variables outside the musicians’ control.
For the idea to work perfectly, several things ideally need to happen:
- The ceremony needs to be running broadly to time.
- The musicians need to know whether the bridal party is ready.
- The registrars need to make their pre-ceremony announcements at a predictable point.
- Nobody should unexpectedly decide to begin the ceremony several minutes early.
- If there is a delay, somebody needs to tell us.
If all those things happen, a designated final song can work beautifully.
If they do not, the song may happen earlier than intended — or occasionally may have to be omitted altogether.
Choose Your “Last Song” With This in Mind
If you would like a particular final piece during guest arrival, our advice is therefore to choose something you would love to hear but which does not carry such enormous significance that your wedding will feel spoiled if it happens ten minutes earlier than planned.
Think of it as a preferred final guest-arrival piece rather than a precisely timed ceremonial cue.
That distinction removes a great deal of unnecessary pressure.
Your bridal entrance music is different.
That piece is directly cued to the arrival of the bridal party and can therefore be managed very precisely.
We do not simply look at the clock and start the bridal entrance music at 2pm.
We wait until the bridal party is ready.
That is why your entrance piece is the ideal place for a song which absolutely must coincide with a particular moment.
Could the Groom Have an Entrance Song Instead?
One alternative is to choose a groom entrance song.
This can work extremely well, particularly if the groom wants a more defined moment of his own rather than simply appearing at the front of the ceremony before the guests arrive.
There is, however, a similar practical consideration.
At most civil wedding ceremonies the groom’s arrival is not part of the formal registrar-controlled sequence.
There is usually no equivalent of the very obvious:
“Please be upstanding for the bridal party.”
Therefore, if the groom would like to enter to a particular song, somebody needs to coordinate it with us.
That might be the wedding coordinator, best man, toastmaster or another nominated person.
We need a clear signal that the groom is ready to enter.
With that system in place, a groom entrance can be extremely effective because the music is being triggered by an actual event rather than by an approximate time on the clock.
Other Alternatives to a Specific “Last Song”
There are several other ways to incorporate an important piece into your ceremony without relying on uncertain pre-ceremony timings.
You might choose it for the signing of the register, where there is considerably more flexibility and several songs are usually required.
It could become your ceremony exit music, giving the piece a wonderfully celebratory association as you leave together as a married couple.
You could use it as a groom entrance song, provided somebody is available to give us the appropriate cue.
Or simply include it among your guest-arrival music without insisting that it has to be the final piece.
Another option is to let us choose the final pre-ceremony piece according to what is happening on the day.
Because we play so many wedding ceremonies, we are accustomed to reading the room. We can select something of an appropriate length and mood when it appears that the ceremony is getting close to starting.
That will often create a smoother result than attempting to force a predetermined four-minute song into an unpredictable three-minute gap.
Communication Makes Everything Easier
If having a particular final song really matters to you, the best solution is simple: make sure somebody is responsible for communicating with us.
Ideally, we need one reliable person who can tell us something like:
“The bridal party will be ready in about five minutes.”
That information is enormously useful.
We can then finish whatever we are currently playing and begin the designated final song at the right moment.
The venue coordinator is often ideally placed to do this, although arrangements vary considerably between venues.
What is less useful is assuming that we somehow know what is happening elsewhere in the building.
We may be very experienced wedding musicians.
We are not clairvoyant.
The Important Thing Is the Bridal Entrance
Ultimately, guest-arrival music exists to create atmosphere while everyone takes their seats.
It should feel elegant, relaxed and natural.
Trying to make every second of it correspond to a rigid schedule can sometimes achieve the opposite.
A designated final song before the bride arrives is a perfectly reasonable request, and we are always happy to plan for it.
But it comes with an unavoidable caveat.
We cannot guarantee its precise position unless we are given an accurate cue.
If the ceremony begins exactly on time and the registrars make their announcement immediately before the bridal party is ready, everything is straightforward.
If the bride is fifteen minutes late, the registrar starts five minutes early or an announcement is made and everybody then sits down again, the plan may change.
And that is fine.
Weddings are live events.
Things move.
Timings change.
People appear early, late or occasionally from entirely unexpected doors.
Our job as live musicians is not to fight against that unpredictability. It is to respond to it and make the ceremony sound seamless.
So by all means choose a final song before your bridal entrance.
Just regard it as a musical preference rather than an immovable point in the timetable.
And if there is one piece of music which absolutely, definitely has to accompany one particular moment?
Make that your bridal entrance song.
Because when the doors open and everybody stands, we know exactly what to do.
Can I choose the last song before the bride arrives?
Yes. JAM Duo can plan to play a particular final song before the bridal entrance, but its precise position cannot always be guaranteed because civil ceremonies can run early or late.
When should the last song before the bride start?
We would normally begin it around four minutes before the scheduled ceremony start time, depending on the length of the chosen song.
What happens if the bride is late?
We continue playing live music for the guests. Unless we are told about the delay, however, the chosen “last song” may already have been played.
Can the registrar start a wedding ceremony early?
Yes, this can happen. If the registrar begins proceedings before the advertised ceremony time, we must respond to what is happening and prepare for the bridal entrance.
Is a groom entrance song easier to arrange?
Potentially, but it requires somebody to give the musicians a clear cue when the groom is ready to enter.
