Hannah and Gary’s Stretton Manor Barn wedding music combined live electric cello and piano with everything from Einaudi and Elvis to Shrek and Guns N’ Roses.
There are wedding playlists that proceed carefully through a recognised sequence of tasteful romantic songs.
And then there are wedding playlists containing Ludovico Einaudi, Elvis Presley, Guns N’ Roses, Shania Twain, Game of Thrones, Jurassic Park, Shrek and Pink Pony Club.
Hannah and Gary chose the second type.
This was an excellent decision.
Their wedding took place at Stretton Manor Barn near Chesterfield on 26 July 2026. With rolling Derbyshire countryside, dramatic summer clouds and around 90 guests dressed in an assortment of pastel colours, it already had everything required for a magnificent wedding.
All it needed was live music.
JAM Duo provided that music for both the ceremony and drinks reception, with Anne-Marie playing electric cello and Jules using the venue’s grand piano. This arrangement also involved something wedding musicians encounter less frequently than they encounter requests for A Thousand Years: one setup that remained in the same place for the entire afternoon.
A Remarkably Sensible Musical Setup
At some weddings, moving from the ceremony to the drinks reception requires musicians to dismantle speakers, cables, instruments, stands and various electrical objects whose disappearance would immediately stop everything working.
These must then be transported through a building containing several hundred people holding champagne.
It is a process combining the logistical complexity of a military withdrawal with the personal-space awareness of supermarket shopping on Christmas Eve.
At Stretton Manor Barn, however, the ceremony and drinks reception could both be covered from the same position. Anne-Marie set up her electric cello beside the bar area, Jules took his place at the grand piano, and that was that.
After the ceremony, the guests moved.
We did not.
This is clearly the correct way for the world to operate.
The grand piano also made a suitably impressive centrepiece for the ceremony room. A real piano always brings a certain sense of occasion. It announces that proper live music is about to happen and that nobody will be pressing a button marked “romantic wedding playlist number four.”
With everything ready, we began playing at 12.30pm, an hour before the ceremony itself. This gave guests plenty of time to arrive, greet one another and discover that the musical programme had no intention whatsoever of remaining inside one genre.
Romance, Dinosaurs and Middle-earth
Hannah and Gary’s pre-ceremony choices included plenty of beautiful contemporary and classical music. There was Ordinary by Alex Warren, A Thousand Years, Nuvole Bianche and Due Tramonti by Ludovico Einaudi.
So far, perfectly normal.
Then came the theme from Jurassic Park.
This is not an obvious wedding selection. The film is principally about a badly managed tourist attraction where enormous prehistoric animals escape and eat the customers.
Nevertheless, the music is glorious.
Played on cello and piano, John Williams’s theme becomes sweeping, romantic and surprisingly appropriate for a Derbyshire wedding. It filled the barn with the sort of cinematic grandeur normally requiring a helicopter shot and several million pounds of computer-generated reptiles.
There were, fortunately, no actual dinosaurs at Stretton Manor Barn. They would almost certainly have exceeded the venue’s sound limit.
The couple’s other choices included Romantic Flight from How to Train Your Dragon, The Lord of the Rings, Toto’s Africa, Shallow, The NeverEnding Story, Dancing in the Moonlight and Accidentally in Love from Shrek.
It was essentially a grand tour through romance, 1980s pop, fantasy films, animated ogres and Middle-earth.
Before lunch.
And it worked beautifully.
Wedding music should reflect the people getting married. It should contain the songs they love, the films they have watched and the melodies that mean something to them. There is no regulation stating that a wedding playlist must consist entirely of slow acoustic covers performed by someone who sounds mildly inconvenienced by happiness.
Hannah and Gary’s choices had character. More importantly, they created a warm, cheerful atmosphere as everyone settled into the ceremony room.
The Procession Arrives
The bridal party was not a small operation.
There were five pageboys and six bridesmaids before Hannah entered with her dad. This meant coordinating twelve separate arrivals, assorted ages and a collection of formal outfits while ensuring everyone proceeded in roughly the correct direction.
For comparison, some regional airports operate with less ground staff.
The pageboys and groomsmen wore pale grey, while the bridesmaids were dressed in sky blue, salmon pink and pale yellow. Against the countryside and the dark clouds outside, the colours looked fantastic.
Eventually, with the bridal party safely dispatched down the aisle, Hannah entered with her dad to Maria Callas by Ludovico Einaudi.
This was a particularly beautiful choice for the entrance. The piece has all the emotion required for the moment without becoming excessively sentimental. On piano and electric cello, it built naturally as Hannah made her way through the ceremony room towards Gary.
Timing a live bridal entrance is always different from playing a recording. A musician can watch the procession and allow the music to breathe, extending or resolving a phrase at exactly the right moment.
Recordings, by contrast, continue regardless. They have no interest in whether a pageboy has stopped halfway down the aisle to examine something on the floor.
Happily, everyone arrived, the music resolved and the ceremony could begin.
Pure Imagination and Burning Love
For the signing of the register, Hannah and Gary selected Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factoryand We’re Going to Be Friends by The White Stripes.
These were two wonderfully gentle choices for the quieter part of the ceremony.
Signing music often needs to be flexible because the process can last anything from a couple of minutes to approximately the length of a parliamentary inquiry. There are documents to sign, photographs to take and witnesses who must remember where they are supposed to stand.
Playing live means we can extend the music naturally until everything is finished. No awkward silence. No track ending just as someone discovers that another signature is required. We simply continue until the official paperwork has been completed and everyone looks confident that the marriage is now legally recognised.
Then came the exit.
For this, Hannah and Gary chose Burning Love by Elvis Presley.
After the emotion of the entrance and the ceremony itself, Elvis provided precisely the right change of gear. The newly married couple headed back up the aisle to something joyful, energetic and completely incapable of taking itself too seriously.
It was considerably more effective than leaving to a delicate piano ballad while everyone shuffled politely towards the door.
A Drinks Reception Without Musical Border Control
Once the ceremony finished, the guests headed outside for drinks, photographs and a closer inspection of the dramatic Derbyshire sky.
We remained at the piano and cello.
No hurried relocation. No dragging equipment across the venue. No asking someone to move a prosecco glass away from an extension cable.
We simply carried on playing.
The drinks reception repertoire began with pieces such as Einaudi’s I Giorni, Harry Styles’ As It Was and Better Togetherby Jack Johnson. Relaxed, summery and entirely appropriate.
Then Guns N’ Roses arrived.
Sweet Child O’ Mine works extraordinarily well on electric cello and piano. It retains the famous melody and energy of the original but becomes polished enough for a wedding drinks reception. Nobody needs to produce a leather jacket or stand on top of the piano, although the option remains theoretically available.
The afternoon also included Muse’s Starlight, Shania Twain’s You’re Still the One, Eye of the Tiger, Blackbird, Seasons of Love, A Million Dreams and the theme from Friends.
Then there was Game of Thrones.
On paper, this is another curious choice for a summer wedding. The television series is known for political betrayal, enormous battles and a general reluctance to let popular characters survive until the following episode.
But the theme itself is magnificent.
On cello and piano it sounds dramatic, imposing and just slightly excessive, which makes it tremendous fun at a wedding. It rolled out across the venue as guests enjoyed their drinks, and no one was required to seize the Iron Throne before the photographs were finished.
Finally, there was Pink Pony Club by Chappell Roan, because after Einaudi, Elvis, Guns N’ Roses, Shania Twain and a fantasy drama involving dragons, there was clearly no sensible reason to become restrained.
A Splendid Derbyshire Wedding
Hannah and Gary’s wedding demonstrated exactly why personally chosen live music makes such a difference.
Their soundtrack did not follow a theme assembled by a committee. It moved confidently from classical minimalism to film scores, rock, pop, television themes and Elvis. The result felt completely personal and gave every part of the afternoon its own atmosphere.
There was beautiful music as guests arrived, cinematic drama before the ceremony, genuine emotion for Hannah’s entrance and an exuberant Elvis-powered exit. The drinks reception then became a cheerful musical expedition through several decades and genres.
All of it was performed using electric cello and the venue’s grand piano.
And, as an additional triumph of planning, we only had to set up once.
Thank you, Hannah and Gary, for choosing JAM Duo to provide the live music for your ceremony and drinks reception at Stretton Manor Barn. It was a genuine pleasure to be part of such a happy and wonderfully individual wedding.
Pastel dresses, pale grey suits, Derbyshire countryside, dramatic clouds and a playlist containing both Einaudi and Shrek.
Sometimes everything comes together perfectly.
