St George’s Hall and Hope Street Hotel in Liverpool | 23rd May 2015

I was very fortunate to be invited to play guitar for a wedding at St George’s Hall in Liverpool on Saturday. St George’s Hall is right in the heart of Liverpool City Centre. It’s a beautiful neoclassical building which plays host to a couple of incredible concert venues. I was booked to play in the ‘Concert Room‘.

With this performance being in the heart of Liverpool city centre at the start of a bank holiday weekend, I set off with plenty of time to spare. As it happened there was absolutely no traffic whatsoever and I was able to get into Liverpool pretty quickly. I used the extra time to enjoy the acoustics in the concert room and make sure everything was perfectly set up.

Unfortunately there was no parking available at the venue so I had to park at a multi storey car park and lug my equipment to the venue. It wasn’t a great distance, but it’s not something you want to be doing in the scorching sunshine wearing a suit. After setting up I decided to take a breather rather than head outside to take photographs. This might explain why there are only photos of the concert room to accompany this blog post!

CEREMONY

There was a temptation to set up on the stage of the concert room. It was lit beautifully and I would have loved to play up there, however I didn’t feel like I should be front and centre. It’s not my big day after all. I decided to set up to the side as I usually do. Being in an elevated position, I had a good view of the bride as she made her entrance. This made it much easier to time the music for the processional.

I played ‘Yellow’ by Coldplay for the processional. I sent a few audio examples to the bride before the wedding to help her to make her choice of music. She decided to go for ‘Yellow’ as long as there was an introduction so she could take “a few extra deep breaths”. I thought that was sweet and duly obliged by making up an introduction for her entrance. It all worked out perfectly. I began playing the melody of the song just as she entered the room. It couldn’t have been timed better, well done Hayley!

For the signing of the register I played ‘Wonderful Tonight’ by Eric Clapton and a little bit of ‘A Thousand Years’ by Cristina Perri. The bride had chosen 3 songs however I only had time for one and a half. It sometimes works out like that. You can never know for sure how long it will take when it comes to the signing of the register.

I really enjoyed playing guitar in the Concert Room at St George’s Hall in Liverpool. I hope I’ll be able to return one day for another wedding or perhaps even a concert. Definitely one of the finest concert venues in Merseyside.

DRINKS RECEPTION

For the drinks reception I had to relocate to another Liverpool city centre venue. The drinks reception was being held at Hope Street Hotel about a mile away. I was again surprised by the lack of traffic on this bank holiday weekend. I made it there in good time and even beat the London bus carrying the wedding guests.

I performed songs from my pop/rock set for the drinks reception. I made sure to include ‘A Thousand Years’ and ‘Use Somebody’ as I didn’t have chance to play these during the signing of the register.

Having exchanged many emails with the bride prior to the wedding, I knew that she was a fan of Bryan Adams. His songs had been vetoed for the ceremony by the groom as they were “too cheesy”, however I made a promise to the bride to include some of his music during the drinks reception. Who doesn’t like a bit of Bryan Adams at a wedding? It’s practically compulsory!

This wedding was not the only one I played this bank holiday weekend. I performed the next day at Billesley Manor in Warwickshire. Make sure to read about that one too as it was fantastic!

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