Getting Great Music For Your Wedding in Baltimore!

The core experience of weddings is the spiritual and emotional beauty of two people joining their lives together. Couples honor and embrace that experience by creating a beautiful environment, and using sacred and secular rituals. The idea is to create something special and memorable, infused with beauty in every possible way.

A lot of what couples think about as they plan their wedding centers around visual beauty. That’s a good and important thing to do, to be sure. But imagine a wedding ceremony and reception in complete silence, without a sound being heard. There would be an element of beauty missing, one that deserves as much attention as color, form, and texture. 

Adding music to the experience changes everything. The sound of music conveys joy and wonder and emotion like no other medium. 

And when the music is performed live, its impact is exponentially increased.

Why Live Music Matters
Live music brings a wonderful sense of presence, authenticity, and immediacy to a wedding, and that’s especially true for your ceremony. The quality of sound, the custom timing and precise cueing, and the look and feel, create an exquisite and even majestic experience. 

And setting aside being in the audience at large-venue concerts, most people don’t see live music—especially up close—on a regular basis. It’s special. 

Obstacles (Overcome!)
Why don’t more couples use live music for their wedding ceremonies? They think they can’t afford it! Here’s a secret: the cost of live music is actually one of the great bargains of the wedding world! Instrumental or vocal soloists can be had for as little as a few hundred dollars. For many wedding budgets, that’s a pittance. And if you want to think about it in terms of return on investment, the return is very high!

Beyond the perception of high cost, the challenges of finding available and competent musicians are often what keep couples from using live music. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are always people among your chosen wedding professionals to help you connect with professional wedding musicians. We’ll talk about all of this in detail a little later on. 

Ceremony Music
The prelude, processional, interlude, recessional, and postlude — which is to say the music played during gathering, the wedding party walking in, in the middle of the ceremony, the wedding party walking out, and the guests departing (or mingling and talking) — are all great opportunities for live music. 

If your ceremony and reception are both at the same venue, it makes a lot of sense to keep the musicians playing through your cocktail and hors d’oeuvres time, too, and even into dinner. And if you’ve engaged a band, (part or all of whom played for your ceremony), then you’ve got dancing covered, too!

So Much Choice!

Because you’re engaging live musicians, you can get exactly what you want. The sky is the limit for musical possibilities! Between the choice of available instruments and performers and their collective musical repertoire, you can create exactly the feeling that you want for your wedding. From classical to contemporary, it’s all available. 

A lot of ceremony music is performed by solo musicians. Violin, guitar, cello, or harp, and if you’re in a church, organ or piano, are frequently heard. I also love hammered dulcimer and brass. But don’t feel limited! We had a great ceremonial procession at Chase Court, the wedding venue I own in Baltimore, that was led by djembe (an African hand drum)!

If you’re a wearer of the kilt, there is no better choice for leading your procession than the bagpipes! We’ve also used them at Chase Court to welcome guests (while doing our best not to annoy the neighbors) by stationing them at the entrance gate while guests are arriving. 

Expanding The Repertoire
Solo musicians are fabulous, but moving up to groups brings more depth and complexity of sound. Duos, trios, and quartets add a distinct richness to the music, as well as a much larger repertoire. If you’re looking for contemporary music arranged for classical instruments, a group is the best way to go.

High Value
By the way, live music in general and groups in particular give you outstanding bang for your wedding budget buck. Getting great music for your wedding in Baltimore costs less than you’d think. Among all the things you’ll buy for your wedding, live music offers some of the best value.

Back to the music. I asked violinist Chelle Fulk of Music by Anthem about musical combos. Chelle said, “I love violin and guitar because it’s very versatile.  We also do a lot with violin and cello. Two violins are also nice. And flute with any of these combos works well, too.”

We’ve had a violin, viola, and cello trio as well as a quartet consisting of two violins, a cello, and an upright bass at Chase Court. Both groups sounded fantastic!

Another consideration is vocalists, either solo or with accompaniment. They’re especially effective for mid-ceremony, and with bands during dinner and dancing. 

Live music can be part of what makes your wedding meaningful and unforgettable. The value is high, the cost is low, and the experience is magnificent!

But that’s not the only way to have music at your wedding, as I’m sure you know.

DJs
DJs bring a different vibe to weddings, which can range from a subtle, laid-back approach, to an out-front, lots-of-flash presence. So it’s important to know the vibe you want for your wedding, or at least to be aware of the differences as you shop for DJs.

And while live musicians can be remarkably versatile in repertoire, DJs can play virtually anything that’s ever been recorded for your ceremony, cocktail and hors d’oeuvres time, and reception. 

Ceremony Sound
Many DJs can also provide sound reinforcement for your ceremony, which is to say microphones and amplification for your officiant, readers, and sometimes even for you, for your vows.

Quality Matters Most
Whether using live musicians or DJs or both, the most important consideration is this: How good are they at what they do? If they aren’t able to do the job at least as well as you expect, nothing else matters. 

Finding Great Professionals
So where do you go to find them, and how can you tell good—or great—from bad? 

Recommendations from the wedding professionals with whom you’re already working is a great place to start. 

Ask Your Other Wedding Professionals
As a wedding venue owner, I exercise great care in choosing which wedding professionals I recommend to my clients. I like to think that most other venue owners and managers take the same care, as do other wedding professionals who make recommendations to their clients. All of us want to work with people who do great work. I want my clients to be delighted with my own work and that of everyone I recommend.

While I can’t guarantee that every venue takes the same amount of care, there are few venues that want substandard professionals working at their venue.

So ask your venue and your caterer and every wedding professional whom you hire, and consider hiring who they recommend. Chances are that you’ll hear some names over and over. That’s a good sign! Take a look at those professionals. 

Look At Their Websites
Most wedding professionals worth considering have a web presence, whether it is a freestanding website, a Facebook page, Instagram, or all three. Give all of that a good look. See how it feels. Is there a lot of information about what they do? Does it leave you feeling confident that they can do the job for you? If so, get in touch and see how your first contact goes. 

Do They Listen To You?
While I like building relationships with a phone call and then an in-person meeting, everyone does it differently. The important thing is that they are responsive, competent, and that you’re comfortable working together. 

The best wedding professionals will listen to you, understand what you do and don’t want, and give you good, informed guidance.

By the way, I’ve written a lot more about how to hire wedding professionals on this blog post.

Wedding Shows
Another place to look is wedding shows, from convention center-sized affairs down to much smaller shows and open houses held at wedding venues. For the former, the ability to pay the booth fee is often all that’s needed in order to participate. Open houses at venues usually draw exhibitors from their own lists of approved and recommended professionals. I think of those as a more reliable source of quality wedding professional.

Google Is (Sometimes) Your Friend
And of course, a simple web search will bring up lots of possibilities. You’ll find tons of individual professionals and companies. There are also large and small wedding-focused websites that wedding professionals use, either free or for a fee, to promote their services. Many of these websites have reviews that will help you make good choices, and sometimes feature endorsements from other wedding industry professionals. But bear in mind that these are paid listings, and what you see and what you read should be taken with a grain of salt.

Individual reviews mean much less to me than seeing mostly positive reviews. Look at the reviews from couples, and also consider the endorsement of other wedding professionals, who frequently experience the work of a given professional many times.

Where Not To Look
Where shouldn’t you look? The brother-in-law of the person in your office is likely to not be a good choice. Relatives, friends, and colleagues, either themselves or once (or twice) removed who work as wedding professionals, get chosen for weddings because of the familial relationship much more often than on the merits of their work. Not only does this have the potential of making a hash of your wedding, your ability to relate to them as professionals before, during, and after your wedding is compromised because of the relationships involved.

Students
Another category to avoid is music students. The very last thing that you want at your wedding is someone who does not have professional competence. 

Bar Band Bingo
If you’re hiring a band, you should be looking for one that has played weddings (like The Swingin’ Swamis!) and that understands how weddings work. Your favorite bar band might be great to listen to, but when they decide to take a 20-minute break at your wedding after a 40-minute set, you’re going to be really unhappy. 

Price Vs. Quality
Remember, what’s convenient or easy is not always what’s good. While a discount offer at a wedding show can be tempting, buying alone on price is often the road to ruin. Careful consideration of their work will serve you far better than saving what usually turns out to be a small fraction of your wedding budget.

Case In Point
Here is a powerful, penny wise, pound foolishstory about a bride who made a wedding planning decision that she came to regret.

Dan Hawkins has been a full-time professional DJ for 38 years. His company, MusicMasters, provides DJs for all kinds of events. They regularly win awards for their work. They’re not cheap, starting at a thousand dollars, nor are they over-the-top expensive. Dan and the DJs who work for him are frequently seen at weddings and events all around Baltimore. I know Dan, like his work, and think the world of the guy. He’s kind, has integrity, and is very, very good at what he does.

Dan posted the following story on Facebook a few years ago, and he has given me permission to use it in its entirety.  

“As I was powering down from a really fun wedding at the Baltimore Museum of Industry last night, I saw a guest walking towards me from across the room. “You did a really good job” she said, but oddly, without a smile. I said “thank you,” a little confused as to why her affect didn’t match her compliment. “No, you did a really, really good job” she said again with a little more emphasis this time. I thanked her again, still a little bewildered as to why she had such a somber look on her face. “I got married two weeks ago” she said, pausing then slightly lowering her head. “My DJ sucked.” The look on her face can only be described as someone who was wishing that she could go back in time and do it all over again. “But he was cheap” she added with an obviously forced smile. It was clear that didn’t make her feel any better. I swear, at that moment, I wanted to give her a hug, snap my fingers and somehow grant her a redo. No bride should have to look back at her wedding celebration with regrets or remorse.”

There are lots of good ways to save money on your wedding. Compromising professional quality isn’t one of them. 

Deciding Factors
The bride in Dan’s story may have thought that all DJs are the same, or that price had no relationship to quality. Maybe she thought that it just didn’t matter how good they were. None of those things are true. And I can’t think of any category of wedding professional where the last one would be the case. Everything is important in wedding planning. 

DJs—and in other cases, bands—play a large part in creating your reception experience. As that bride discovered, they aren’t a commodity. The difference of a few hundred dollars in fee can represent a significant difference in performance. There is a lot of talent and skill required to do the job well, not to mention a pile of high quality (and expensive) equipment. 

Good Hardware Matters
Owning top quality equipment and knowing how to use it are two of the marks of a great DJ. Having heard hundreds of DJs at work in my own and other venues, I can tell you that their sound quality—that is, how well the music is reproduced—varies widely, from annoying to fantastic. Playing the best song in the world is useless if the sound quality makes it sound awful.

Paying Attention
Good DJs do a lot of work to be sure that you and your guests have a fantastic experience. They’ll honor your play and don’t-play lists, make recommendations, and create a minute-by-minute timeline for your wedding that they’ll synchronize with your caterer and other professionals. They will bring the equipment that sounds best in your venue. They’ll watch your guests closely, playing just the right music for the moment, with careful attention to matching one song to the next—which they can do seamlessly.

Best Choice For Small Budgets
If you need to save money, talk to the professionals whose work you like but cannot afford. Tell them exactly that, and ask who they recommend, either within their own company or elsewhere. There are always up-and-comers who are doing good work but aren’t yet commanding full professional fees. 

Will using an up-and-comer sacrifice some things? Sure, but you’ll be starting at the best possible place — performance quality — and have a much better shot at getting what you want, instead of the disaster that befell the bride in Dan’s story.

Sound Decisions
By the way, a lot of couples choose to use live music for their ceremony and sometimes their hors d’oeuvres and cocktail time, and use a DJ later on for dancing. They get the best of both worlds!

For other couples, who are more interested in background music than dancing, a duo or trio or a quartet of live musicians makes for a fantastic experience all the way through their wedding.

What To Play
You’ll notice that I haven’t talked about what music to play. Here again is a great reason to hire outstanding musicians and DJs. They can take your thoughts and feelings and ideas and run with them. They can make suggestions that will pull your wedding together musically in a way that those of us without their depth of musical knowledge and performance experience can’t imagine. 

Touch Their Hearts
The core experience of weddings is the spiritual and emotional beauty of two people joining their lives together. Music can make a big difference in bringing that experience to life. Getting great music for your wedding in Baltimore is easier than you think, and so worth it! Carefully and thoughtfully chosen and performed, the music for your wedding will touch the hearts and excite the spirit of everyone present.

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Chase Court owner David Egan has lived and breathed weddings for 22+ years! That means you get the knowledge, resources, and attention of a venue owner who has helped plan and execute over 900 weddings.

Call 410-727-1112 or write to schedule a tour of Chase Court!

Visit chasecourt.com and follow @ChaseCourtWeddingVenue on Instagram, and check out our videos on YouTube!