Music is one of the most important components of your ceremony because it sets the mood for your special day. If walking down the aisle to “Here Comes the Bride” isn’t your style, choosing something more contemporary or personal is perfectly appropriate.

Personalizing your music selections is one of the ways you can make your ceremony your own.

Choosing your music:
The typical wedding ceremony has 5 main pieces for which music should be selected.

• Prelude: Played for 15-30 minutes before the ceremony, this music welcomes the guests and is the background by which they’re seated.  The length of prelude music is generally determined by the number of guests you are expecting and how early you anticipate that they will arrive.
• Procession: This music sets the pace for attendants walking down the aisle and typically begins after the parents and grandparents are seated for the ceremony.  Once the wedding party is in place there is a pause before the musicians play a fanfare (to alert the audience to stand) and segue into the music selection for the bride’s entrance.
• Interlude: Couples might designate music to be played at some point(s) in the ceremony, like before a reading or during the lighting of a unity candle.
• Recession: This music at the end of the ceremony should be powerful and joyous. It’s usually louder and quicker than the processional.
• Postlude: A continuation of upbeat and celebratory music that keeps the guests feeling they’re a part of the wedding until they have all filed out of the ceremony space.

If you’re having a nonreligious ceremony, your music options are open. You can add personal touches through your music selections to create a memorable wedding. If you’re having a religious ceremony in a house of worship, be sure to clear your music selections with your officiant; some houses of worship don’t allow secular music and have limited options for what can be played.
Give it some thoughtA few other things to keep in mind while choosing music:

• Try to keep the music within the framework of the style and formality of the wedding. Although a church wedding doesn’t dictate that all music must be religious, you want to be respectful of the location and the event taking place. Don’t forget to mention the titles of the songs and music on your program.
• Check with your music coordinator or musician(s) to discuss your vision and ideas for your wedding music.  Not all songs that you love will sound the same when they are converted to different instrumentation.  Your favorite rock band sounds amazing on a recording with layers of guitars, drums, and vocals but how will that translate to a string trio or a soloist?  Be sure to use the musicians’ expertise to guide you in your decision-making process.

Hello world of blogger-people!  How are you?  What are you?  I am a baby blogger (new to blogging, not a blogger about babies).

I’ve decided to join your world and see what this blogging business is all about.  It seems easy enough.  You do stuff.  You write about what you did, how it felt, what it looked like, how it smelled, how it tasted, what it sounded like, and who was there with you.  Something like that, eh?

I am learning what blogging is all about.  For now and for me, it is going to be about rambling on.  Sharing my thoughts and experiences and attempting to organize my ideas and goals.  I have so many.  And they are big.  So very big.

I am a professional violinist, violin teacher, business owner, recovering alcoholic, student of the cello and viola, lover of all things with four legs (and some things with more or less), wife, daughter, sister, aunt, friend, and…now a blogger.  I think that covers everything in a nutshell.

I am working diligently on branding my music business.  A little ditty I call “String Theory Music”.  My primary focus is booking myself as a violin soloist or alongside my best friend (and amazing cellist) Beth as a violin & cello duet to perform for weddings.  Our network of professional musicians is so large and expanding to offer a string trio and string quartet is something we have recently harnessed.  

We’ve been doing this for almost 20 years but I have decided to make this business my priority and my career.  My secondary career is that of sharing my gift and passion for music with those who want to learn.  I am a violin teacher at the Jacksonville School of Music where I spend 3 days a week teaching my (currently 25) students. There is nothing more fulfilling in life than watching another human soul feel music.  It is a gift that I love to give.  I get goose bumps just thinking about it.

I’ve always done well in the corporate world but there is nothing that I hate more than sitting in a cubicle under florescent lights for exactly 8 hours every Monday through Friday and being told what to do (usually something very uninspiring).  I prefer to sit in my home studio at my beat-up-side-of-the-road-find wooden desk, in my rickety early American style wooden chair, windows open, no lights other than that provided by the sun (or, if it’s rainy and dark, my Back to the Future inspired floor lamp that looks to be straight out of Doc Brown’s home from 1955), surrounded closely by my instruments, my music, and my loyal doggy companion, Apple.

I’ve always been told that “if you can dream it, you can have it”.  And here it is.
I am in my happy place.  This is where I am inspired.  This is where I make music and money.  This is where I learn and grow.  This is where I do yoga in the mornings, where I make lesson plans for my students, where I play my instruments, where I answer e-mails and book gigs,  and where I write in my journal and talk on the phone.  This is where I get stuff done.

All of that being said just for me to tell you that I am here to share my work and ideas.  To blog.
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From this little room I call my studio in Jacksonville Beach, Florida to you.