There are wedding days which follow the conventional formula rather precisely. Ceremony, drinks, meal, speeches, dancing, taxis. Everyone moves in roughly the same direction at roughly the same time and, from a musician’s point of view, you can generally put the piano somewhere sensible and remain there until somebody decides it is time for pudding.
Felicity and Dan’s wedding at Sandon Manor was rather different.
Their wedding on 1 September 2026 was carefully divided into three distinct parts, giving us the opportunity to provide live cello and piano music for the ceremony in the courtyard, an intimate wedding breakfast inside the Manor House and then a return to the courtyard later in the afternoon as the remaining guests arrived for welcome drinks.
This meant several changes of location, a certain amount of strategic piano transportation and, most importantly, a wedding day which gradually expanded from a wonderfully intimate gathering of just 14 people to a full celebration of around 70 guests.
And, naturally, we brought the JAM Duo grand piano shell with us. Because if you are going to move a piano around a Hertfordshire country estate several times in one afternoon, you might as well make it look magnificent while doing so.
A Wedding Ceremony in the Courtyard at Sandon Manor
The ceremony began at midday in the courtyard, which is conveniently close to the parking and provides a lovely enclosed setting for an outdoor wedding ceremony.
Outdoor weddings are always particularly enjoyable for us. Cello and piano work beautifully outside, provided there is suitable shelter and the British weather has not decided to recreate the final twenty minutes of The Wizard of Oz.
Fortunately, Sandon Manor has useful covered areas around the courtyard, meaning we could position ourselves sensibly while still being very much part of the ceremony.
Felicity and Dan had also chosen a rather more interesting collection of pre-ceremony music than the average wedding playlist.
Their selections included Red Hot Chili Peppers, Queens of the Stone Age, Maverick Sabre, Foals and Sleep Token. This is precisely the sort of musical brief we enjoy because it demonstrates just how far live cello and piano wedding music can travel beyond the traditional collection of classical pieces people sometimes expect.
Among the pre-ceremony requests were:
- Under The Bridge – Red Hot Chili Peppers
- Sat By The Ocean – Queens of the Stone Age
- I Need – Maverick Sabre
- Mountain At My Gates – Foals
- Infinite Baths – Sleep Token
Sleep Token was specifically requested as the final piece before Felicity made her entrance, which gave the build-up to the ceremony a wonderfully personal feel.
There were no bridesmaids and therefore no complicated procession involving seven people walking at dramatically different speeds while somebody at the back suddenly discovers their shoe has become attached to the aisle runner.
Instead, there was one entrance.
Felicity walked into the courtyard to Enchanted by Taylor Swift.
One of the greatest advantages of live musicians for a bridal entrance is that the music follows the bride rather than the bride having to follow the recording. We can extend, shorten or resolve the arrangement naturally so that the final chord arrives exactly when it needs to.
No stopwatch required.
No panicked wedding coordinator attempting to communicate with the musicians using elaborate hand gestures from behind a flower arrangement.
Just live music adapting to the moment.
Music for the Ceremony
During the signing, Felicity and Dan chose another wonderfully varied selection:
Baby I’m Yours – Arctic Monkeys
If I Ain’t Got You – Alicia Keys
Make It Wit Chu – Queens of the Stone Age
Again, this was a very good example of what we particularly enjoy about modern wedding music. None of these songs were originally written for cello and piano, but that is precisely the point.
Our job is not simply to reproduce a recording without the singer.
We create arrangements which make sense for our instruments, allowing Anne-Marie’s cello to take the melodic lines while the piano provides the harmony, rhythm and structure underneath.
The ceremony concluded with You To Me Are Everything by The Real Thing, sending everyone out of the courtyard in suitably cheerful fashion.
And then things became considerably more intimate.
An Intimate Wedding Breakfast for Fourteen
Following the ceremony we relocated from the courtyard into the Manor House.
The wedding breakfast was initially just for 14 guests, with the rest of the wedding party arriving later in the afternoon. It gave the first part of the day a particularly personal atmosphere and meant the wedding breakfast felt more like an elegant private dinner than a conventional large wedding reception.
We set up inside the Manor House, positioned so our music could carry through into the dining room without dominating the meal.
This is where live music during a wedding breakfast works particularly well.
It should never feel as though somebody has unexpectedly installed a concert platform beside the roast potatoes.
The music needs to sit underneath conversation, creating atmosphere without demanding attention. Guests will occasionally recognise something and look across with the expression of somebody who has just solved a small musical crossword puzzle, which is exactly what Felicity and Dan wanted.
Their musical tastes gave us plenty to work with.
They mentioned artists including Queens of the Stone Age, Taylor Swift, Maverick Sabre, Olivia Dean, Biffy Clyro, Teddy Swims, Sleep Token, Alicia Keys, Arctic Monkeys, Thee Sacred Souls, The Teskey Brothers, Muse and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
It is difficult to imagine a Spotify algorithm looking at that collection without experiencing some sort of minor nervous breakdown.
For us, however, it was perfect.
Rather than asking us to play a rigid list in a predetermined order, Felicity and Dan gave us plenty of guidance about the music they love while trusting us to decide what would work best for cello and piano during the meal.
That freedom is something we always appreciate.
A wedding breakfast has its own natural rhythm. Some pieces suit the beginning of the meal, others work better once everyone has settled down, and occasionally something slightly unexpected is exactly what is required.
Our aim is always to read the room rather than simply read a list.
Back to the Courtyard
Once the wedding breakfast was complete, we moved everything back outside again.
This was the third musical setting of the day and marked the transition from the intimate earlier celebration to the larger wedding party.
At around 4pm approximately another 56 guests began arriving at Sandon Manor, bringing the total number of guests to around 70.
We provided live music in the courtyard during these welcome drinks, with Felicity and Dan joining everyone a little later following their confetti moment.
Their request for this part of the day summed up our preferred approach rather nicely.
They wanted recognisable songs, but also wanted us to surprise their guests.
They specifically mentioned pieces such as Starlight by Muse, Scar Tissue by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Easy by The Commodores and Let’s Stay Together by Al Green.
Felicity and Dan told us that when they attend weddings themselves, they enjoy hearing the first few notes of a piece and trying to work out what song is being played.
That is something we see quite often while performing.
There will be a brief pause in a conversation.
Someone turns towards us.
Another guest starts mouthing the melody.
And then comes the little look of triumph when they realise that the song being played on cello and piano is something they last heard involving several electric guitars and a drummer.
It is one of the reasons we have built such a broad repertoire.
Wedding music does not have to consist entirely of pieces which already sound obvious on piano and cello.
In fact, some of the most enjoyable arrangements are the ones which absolutely should not work.
And then somehow do.
The JAM Duo Piano Shell at Sandon Manor
For Felicity and Dan’s wedding we also used our gloss black grand piano shell.
Inside it sits our stage piano, giving us the reliability and flexibility of a professional digital instrument while creating the visual appearance of a traditional grand piano.
For a venue such as Sandon Manor it works particularly well.
The instrument looks entirely at home against the backdrop of the courtyard and Manor House, while still being portable enough for us to relocate during the day.
Portable, of course, is a relative term.
A violin is portable.
A flute is portable.
A grand piano shell is portable in approximately the same sense that a small wardrobe is portable.
Nevertheless, over the course of the wedding we successfully moved from courtyard to Manor House and then back to the courtyard again, allowing the live music to follow the changing shape of the day.
A Note About Live Music at Sandon Manor
For couples considering JAM Duo for a future wedding at Sandon Manor, there is one important practical consideration regarding where amplified musicians can perform.
At the time of Felicity and Dan’s wedding, we were able to provide our usual amplified cello and piano setup in:
- The courtyard
- The Manor House
However, amplified music is not permitted in the barn, where Felicity and Dan later held their evening food and celebrations.
The barn is restricted to acoustic music only.
Because both our electric cello and stage piano require amplification, JAM Duo cannot currently perform inside the barn.
This is not a problem when planning daytime wedding music at Sandon Manor, as the courtyard and Manor House provide excellent alternatives, but it is something worth knowing when deciding where musicians will perform during different parts of the day.
Venue restrictions can occasionally change, so we would always confirm the latest arrangements with Sandon Manor when planning a future wedding.
Daytime Wedding Music That Changes With the Day
What we particularly enjoyed about Felicity and Dan’s wedding was the way the atmosphere changed naturally throughout the afternoon.
The ceremony felt personal and relaxed.
The wedding breakfast was deliberately small and intimate.
Then, later in the afternoon, the courtyard filled with friends and family and the wedding moved into its larger celebration.
Live music accompanied each stage without needing to remain the same.
The ceremony arrangements were chosen carefully around specific moments. The wedding breakfast music drew heavily on Felicity and Dan’s favourite artists. Then the welcome drinks became broader and more playful, with recognisable songs designed to catch guests by surprise.
That flexibility is one of the biggest advantages of booking live musicians across several parts of a wedding day.
You do not need exactly the same atmosphere for every section.
Nor should you.
Thank You Felicity and Dan
A huge thank you to Felicity and Dan for choosing JAM Duo to provide the daytime music for their wedding at Sandon Manor.
We particularly loved the musical brief. Any wedding which manages to include Taylor Swift, Arctic Monkeys, Alicia Keys, Sleep Token, Muse, Queens of the Stone Age, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Al Green and The Commodores during the same afternoon is doing something rather well.
Thank you also to the team at Sandon Manor for looking after us and helping everything run smoothly as we relocated between the courtyard and Manor House throughout the day.
Felicity and Dan created a wedding which felt genuinely personal rather than simply following a standard template, and we thoroughly enjoyed being part of it.
From an intimate ceremony and lunch for 14 through to welcome drinks for 70 guests later that afternoon, the day demonstrated exactly why live cello and piano can work so well across several different parts of a wedding.
Even if it does occasionally involve carrying a grand piano across a courtyard twice.
But then nobody became a wedding pianist because they wanted an easy life.
