A Winter Wedding

The White Lake Quartet enjoyed playing for an early afternoon wedding on February 6, 2010, at the Union League Club in downtown Chicago. The bride and groom had planned a small, intimate ceremony enhanced by the shimmering décor and soft lighting of the room where the ceremony was held. In keeping with the meditative, romantic atmosphere, we were requested to play selections from Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti, Bach’s “Air on the G String”, Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”, the “Prelude” movement from Bach’s Suite No. 1 for Solo Cello, and other similar pieces during the prelude. The bride chose Pachelbel’s popular “Canon in D” for the entrance of her sister and herself. At the conclusion of the short ceremony, we livened things up with Vivaldi’s “Spring” and “Autumn” as the happy couple were received by their guests.

Elizabeth-Ryan Wedding

On a cold but snowless day at the beginning of December, our quartet played at the wedding of Elizabeth and Ryan. It was a beautiful Nuptial Mass in a little town on the outskirts of Chicago. Elizabeth did all the planning herself and kept everything organized, which definitely helped things go smoothly on her wedding day! Elizabeth looked beautiful and both bride and groom looked happy.

Elizabeth’s church requested that her music be classically based, so she was not able to have all her original requests including “All You Need Is Love”. She did pick some very good alternate music selections, though:

The three pieces marked with an asterisk are the pieces we put together with Erin, one of the church musicians, before the ceremony. She sang and led us in accompaniment through the program. We love working with other musicians and Erin was just great! If you are new to the wedding music scene, it is important to note that not all weddings have this much music during the ceremony (so don’t worry if you were not planning as much music as listed above). At many weddings, we play one or two pieces during the ceremony for something like the Unity Candle, but we do welcome ceremonies with more selections as well. Our quartet finished with a few Christmas carols, per Elizabeth’s request, giving everyone that warm, Christmasy feeling.

I know I wished I had never decided to plan my own wedding last June due to the vast number of details involved, so I’m quite impressed with all that went into Elizabeth’s and Ryan’s special day. I will not ignore the fact that there are people out there who really thrive on planning their own weddings but as for me, I think I’ll just stick with helping others plan the music.

Christine (viola)