This was the first of two performances I’ve been booked for in Cheshire this week.  Yesterday I played classical guitar at Louise and Adam’s wedding ceremony at the Hilltop Country House in the Macclesfield area of Cheshire.  The venue is a lovely well kept country house, hidden away out of sight of the main roads.  I was met at the venue by Martin, who I believe runs the Hilltop Country House and also doubles as the wedding photographer.  I enjoy working with family run businesses as their passion for their work really comes across.  We had a quick informal chat before the wedding ceremony and I posed for a few photographs seeing as we both had time to pass.

Louise had requested that I play ‘Here Comes The Bride’ as she makes her entrance from the bottom of the garden (see picture on right).  Louise’s brief for this song was “beautiful, not boring”, so I took it upon myself to write my own classical guitar arrangement for her.  I have another arrangement in the key of C Major but it does sound a little plain.  With this in mind I decided to arrange the tune myself in the key of D Major as this particular key is very rich on my guitar, which produces a lot of beautiful overtones which I hoped Louise would appreciate.  It was nice to play ‘Here Comes The Bride’ as it is an often overlooked piece of music which I think sounds fantastic on the classical guitar.  A lot of bride’s tend to ask for something more contemporary or one of the currently trending pieces of music (such as ‘Canon in D’ for instance), however it was nice to perform a beautiful rendition of this classic tune for Louise.  The wedding ceremony was held outside on the patio, with beautiful views of the picturesque garden.  Being positioned at the back it was a little bit difficult to hear the registrar, but I’ve been to enough weddings now to be able to take my musical cues from just watching the registrar conduct the ceremony even if I can’t hear every word.  As Louise and Adam signed the register I played a personally commissioned guitar arrangement of ‘Across The Stars’.  Louise had requested that I prepare a guitar version of this John Williams theme to play during the signing of the register and also for the recessional at the end of the ceremony.  The tune translates well onto the guitar and I was pleased with my arrangement of this piece of music.  I’ll be happy to play it again at future weddings now that it’s in my repertoire.

The drinks reception took place down on the garden so instead of relocating I simply turned my amplifier to face the garden, turned the volume up a notch and continued playing.  I figured this way there would be no delays and people could carry on enjoying the music straight after the wedding ceremony.  I performed pieces from my Pop/Rock set during the drinks ceremony.  A lot of these pieces have been arranged by other musicians however I did notice that quite a few of them were arranged by me.  Before today I hadn’t realised quite how many classical guitar arrangements I’d written.  All of those requests soon add up!

I’ve fallen into something of a tradition of finishing the day with my classical guitar arrangement of ‘Wonderful Tonight’ by Eric Clapton.  In a bid to mix it up a bit today I had actually planned to finish with ‘Yesterday’ by the Beatles (arranged by my favourite Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu), however as luck would have it I ran out of time and just as I’d started playing ‘Wonderful Tonight’, guests began making their way to the evening reception venue.  My tradition of finishing with this song continues, despite my best intentions to change it!

Congratulations to Louise and Adam, I wish you both the very best for the future.

Are you getting married?  If so be sure to have a look at the various wedding music packages I offer.