There are some wedding venues where the music simply seems to belong. The Priests House at Barden Tower, near Skipton, is very much one of them. Ancient stone walls, enormous windows, candlelight and a proper grand piano already give the room a sense of occasion before anyone has played a note. Add a small wedding, some very thoughtfully chosen music and the sort of September weather which actually allows you to use the lawn, and you have the ingredients for a rather lovely day.
We returned to The Priests House on 23 September to provide live cello and piano music for Sabrina and Myles. With just 24 guests, this was a wonderfully intimate wedding, but musically it was anything but small. Their choices moved effortlessly from John Williams and Lana Del Rey to Fleetwood Mac, Taylor Swift, ABBA, Coldplay and Olivia Dean, with a Chinese Tea Ceremony woven into the afternoon as well.
It was also one of those weddings where our ability to move between different instruments and setups became particularly useful. We used the venue’s grand piano for the ceremony, moved outside with our own Nord Stage piano and Yamaha electric cello for the drinks reception, and then used the Chinese Tea Ceremony as our opportunity to relocate everything back indoors ready to play during the wedding breakfast.
In other words, quite a lot of musical furniture shifting — but all carefully arranged so the guests never really needed to notice any of it.
An Indoor Ceremony at The Priests House
The wedding ceremony took place inside The Priests House, where the grand piano sits beautifully within the historic room. Whenever a venue has a good grand piano available, we are always very happy to use it. There is something particularly satisfying about live piano and cello in a room like this; the acoustic, the architecture and the instrument all work together naturally.
For this ceremony we paired the venue grand piano with our Yamaha electric cello. That gave us the warmth and presence of a real grand piano while allowing Anne-Marie plenty of control over the cello sound within the room.
As always with JAM Duo, every note was performed live. There were no backing tracks quietly doing the difficult bits behind us and no pre-recorded accompaniment. Just cello and piano, responding to what was actually happening in the room.
That becomes particularly important during a wedding ceremony because timings are rarely as predictable as they might appear on a beautifully organised schedule. Someone pauses at the door. A page boy discovers something fascinating halfway down the aisle. A registrar gives a slightly longer introduction than expected. Music therefore needs to breathe with the ceremony rather than simply continuing regardless.
And Sabrina and Myles had given us some particularly interesting music to work with.
Star Wars, Boney M and The Jungle Book
The pre-ceremony selections perhaps demonstrate better than anything why we enjoy modern weddings so much.
Guests arrived to a playlist which included John Williams’ Binary Sunset and Across the Stars from Star Wars, alongside Iris by Goo Goo Dolls, Rasputin by Boney M and The Bare Necessities from The Jungle Book.
It is difficult to imagine those five pieces appearing together on many conventional wedding-music lists.
Yet that is rather the point.
Wedding music should tell you something about the people getting married. There is absolutely no requirement for every guest to spend half an hour listening solemnly to eighteenth-century repertoire while waiting for the bride. Classical music can, of course, be beautiful at weddings, but so can John Williams. And frankly, if you can move from Star Wars to Boney M before the ceremony has even started, the afternoon is unlikely to be dull.
For Sabrina’s entrance, however, the mood changed completely.
She had chosen Lana Del Rey’s Young and Beautiful, with a specific request that the cello should play throughout the song. She also wanted us, if possible, to shape the music so her entrance coincided with the familiar “Will you still love me…” section.
This is precisely the sort of detail that live musicians can accommodate.
Rather than pressing play and hoping everyone walks at approximately the correct speed, we can adjust introductions, repeat material and alter the pacing as the entrance unfolds. With a two-year-old page boy involved, precise predictions about walking speed would have been brave. Small children have their own interpretation of ceremonial timing.
But that flexibility meant we could shape the music around the actual entrance rather than expecting the entrance to fit a recording.
Music for the Signing and Exit
During the signing of the register, Sabrina and Myles chose another beautifully eclectic selection: Just the Two of Us, Olivia Dean’s So Easy (To Fall in Love) and Nat King Cole’s L-O-V-E.
These are exactly the sort of songs which work especially well for cello and piano. They are recognisable without needing vocals, and they create atmosphere without overpowering what is happening in the room.
The ceremony concluded with Fleetwood Mac’s Everywhere.
After the intimacy of the entrance and signing music, Everywhere provided exactly the sort of lift you want as a newly married couple walk back through their guests. It is upbeat, instantly familiar and works wonderfully as an instrumental arrangement.
With the ceremony complete, however, our next job was waiting outside.
Live Music on the Lawn for the Drinks Reception
September weddings always come with a slight meteorological gamble. You can have glorious sunshine, horizontal rain or, occasionally, both before lunch.
Fortunately Sabrina and Myles were able to have their drinks reception outside on the lawns.
For this part of the day we switched completely to our own setup: the Nord Stage piano and Yamaha electric cello. This gives us much greater flexibility outdoors and means we can position ourselves wherever the music will work best for the couple, guests and venue.
The drinks reception repertoire moved firmly into contemporary territory. Sabrina and Myles had requested Taylor Swift, including Wildest Dreams, Enchanted and Love Story, alongside Childish Gambino, The Neighbourhood, Bruno Mars and ROSÉ, Coldplay, Justin Bieber, Alex Warren, Olivia Dean, ABBA and selections from our more upbeat repertoire.
That mixture worked particularly well for the relaxed atmosphere of the afternoon.
Drinks-reception music should never feel like a concert which everyone is obliged to watch. Guests want to talk, catch up, find a glass of something cold and discuss the ceremony they have just witnessed. Our job is to provide the soundtrack around all of that: sufficiently present to create atmosphere, but never so intrusive that people have to compete with it.
That balance becomes even more important at smaller weddings. With 24 guests, there is nowhere for excessively loud music to hide.
Making Way for the Chinese Tea Ceremony
At 4pm the wedding moved into another important part of the day as Sabrina and Myles held their Chinese Tea Ceremony.
They had specifically asked for no music during this, so we stopped playing while it took place.
For us, that also created the ideal opportunity to begin the next bit of logistics.
While the Tea Ceremony was happening, we moved our instruments back inside and prepared the room for the wedding breakfast. We had already used the venue piano for the ceremony, but for the meal we chose to use our own instruments, giving us complete control over our sound and positioning.
This sort of transition is an important part of daytime wedding music which guests rarely see. Moving a professional piano setup and cello equipment around a historic venue is not quite the same as carrying a Bluetooth speaker through a doorway. But with sensible planning, the whole operation can happen without disrupting the natural flow of the day.
By the time guests came in for the wedding breakfast, we were ready to play again.
Creating the Right Atmosphere During the Wedding Breakfast
The wedding breakfast is one of our favourite parts of a wedding day to play.
It is also one of the easiest to get wrong.
Too quiet, and the musicians might as well not be there. Too loud, and the person sitting opposite you spends three courses attempting to communicate through a sequence of increasingly desperate facial expressions.
The aim is to create energy in the room while allowing conversation to continue completely naturally.
Sabrina had particularly lovely feedback for us afterwards, saying that during the meal we created a fantastic vibe and achieved the perfect balance with the music.
That, for us, is exactly what wedding breakfast music should do.
It should alter how the room feels without taking ownership of it.
For Sabrina and Myles, the meal choices included Lana Del Rey’s Video Games, Say Yes to Heaven and Born to Die, along with I See the Light from Tangled, McFly, James Blunt, Adele and music from our wider contemporary repertoire.
Once again, there was no attempt to squeeze the music into a particular wedding category. It was simply music they liked.
And that tends to produce the best result.
As the meal develops, we can also respond to the atmosphere in the room. Earlier in the meal, the music might be gentler while everyone settles down. Later, as conversation becomes livelier and glasses are refilled, the repertoire can lift with it.
That ability to judge the room is one of the biggest advantages of genuinely live music.
A Small Wedding with Plenty of Personality
With only 24 guests, Sabrina and Myles’ wedding was intimate by modern standards, but nothing about it felt sparse.
If anything, smaller weddings often allow the individual details to become more noticeable.
The dusty blue styling looked particularly elegant against the warm stone of The Priests House. Candles, flowers and long-table dining created an atmosphere which felt both relaxed and beautifully considered.
Musically, the day reflected that same sense of personality. Star Wars before the ceremony. Lana Del Rey for the entrance. Fleetwood Mac for the exit. Taylor Swift on the lawn. Contemporary cello and piano during dinner.
And a Chinese Tea Ceremony sitting naturally within the middle of it all.
There was no need for every part of the day to conform to one theme. It simply needed to feel like Sabrina and Myles’ wedding.
Wedding Music at The Priests House, Skipton
Having played at The Priests House before, it is a venue we know well and one where live cello and piano can work particularly effectively.
The grand piano provides a lovely option for indoor ceremonies, while the surrounding outdoor space means we can create a completely different atmosphere for a drinks reception when the weather allows. Being able to switch between the venue piano and our own Nord Stage setup also means we can adapt throughout the wedding without compromising the sound.
And, as Sabrina and Myles’ wedding demonstrated, the music does not need to remain in one place all day.
We can play indoors for the ceremony, relocate outside for drinks, then move back inside for the wedding breakfast — all while tailoring the repertoire to each part of the day.
For couples planning a wedding at The Priests House, or elsewhere around Skipton and North Yorkshire, this flexibility can make an enormous difference.
Rather than having separate entertainment for different sections of the day, live cello and piano can provide a continuous musical thread from the moment guests arrive through to the wedding breakfast.
And with more than 2,000 songs in our repertoire — from classical and film music to Taylor Swift, Coldplay, ABBA and contemporary chart music — it certainly does not have to sound like traditional wedding music either.
Sabrina and Myles created a particularly personal day at The Priests House, and we thoroughly enjoyed providing the soundtrack to it.
A grand piano, an electric cello, sunshine on the lawn, a Chinese Tea Ceremony and a playlist which somehow managed to accommodate both John Williams and Boney M.
That is our sort of wedding.
