I've just performed for the biggest wedding I've ever performed for! But I should start from the top.
This wedding couple is very nice, we first met in March, and he simply decided that he would hire
STRIIIINGS there and then. He said that my earnestness made a great impression, which is very kind of him. And unthinkably, I agreed to arrange nearly thirty songs for him, the majority of them being trumpet tunes, for he was a trumpet buff.
At the very last minute, he called on STRIIIINGS to perform for his wedding ceremony at Wesley Methodist Church on the 31st of July as well, to accompany the trumpeter he had hired. Apparently, he wanted two trumpeters, but they were not free, so he decided to hire the string quartet instead. When I attended their rehearsal a week earlier, I found the grand piano in the church too enticing, and I persuaded them to take the piano trio instead. They agreed whole-heartedly too, after hearing me fill the church with the piano playing during the rehearsal!
The church ceremony was rather interesting, I was supposed to perform Mouret's Rondeau for the entrance of the flower-girls and page-boys, followed immediately by Purcell's trumpet tune for the entrance of the bride. After everything, we were allowed to have lunch with all the guests, and the groom kindly invited me to their suite at the Ritz, though I declined. He's of my age. :)
Tonight's wedding was huge. 90 tables in the Ritz Carlton. I was called on to perform on both the piano and the cello, which meant that the full repertoire was open to the quartet, which we took advantage of immediately. From tangos, to jazz, to classical, to the trumpet tunes that the groom liked so much, to sweet piano music underscoring the speech that the groom made, and the rapturous applause to my dramatic increase in volume during poignant points in the speech. It was exhilirating.
Even more exhilirating, the groom had hired a professional sound crew to support us with amplifiers, microphones and reverb machines. For the first time, my group had the ability to sound like the Bond Girls or Kitaro or Vanessa Mae, and we DID! We performed my arrangement of David Foster's Winter Games, in place of the usual CD music that the waiters usually walk in during the entrance of the first course. It was a real blast, to finally be able to provide music THROUGHOUT the evening!
