Hiring a string quartet for the wedding ceremony

Request: find a string quartet to play for my  processional; we've had a similar request above, and as before, if you're hiring the string quartet to play for your processional then you will also be getting them to play for the recessional and during the signing of the register, to get full value for your money. And if it's a relatively short ceremony, as is typically the case for civil wedding ceremonies or civil partnerships, then you should get them to play at your drinks reception as well. Most string quartets have a minimum charge for up to, let us say two hours, it's a bit like the callout fee for a television repair person, they'll charge the same price whether they are with you for an hour or just five minutes, as they found that the fuse in the thirteen amp plug had blown and you haven't had the foresight to check yourself. So if you have booked a string quartet and paid the equivalent of the minimum callout fee, the sensible thing is to get the full time and full value out of.           

 Request local string quartets;   we have covered this aspect of string quartets above, so please refer to that.                     

 Request: find a String Quartet to play during the wedding photographs; this has to be treated with some care and planning. If the wedding photographs are happening in doors, perhaps photographs that are taken by the official photographer during the signing of the register, or if you're in a large venue or your wedding is in the winter or during bad weather, the photographs of the bride, groom and guests, then it's fairly straightforward. As long as chairs are set up in whatever room or hallway photographs of being taken in the string quartet have to play, then they can move from location to location quite easily.

Where planning has to be done is if you're expecting the string quartet to play outdoors, perhaps on patio with the gardens. First of all they can only go outdoors if there is good weather on the day, and if it's very hot they have to have shade to play in otherwise it damages the varnish on their instruments and could cost them many thousands of pounds in repair bills. Normally there are shade from trees or from parts of the building that are adjoining the patio, but if the sun direction is wrong and there is full song onto the side of the building where photographs have been taken, then there are problems. Another issue is whether the photographer is taking the photographs in just one small area of the gardens, or are they taking bride, groom and wedding guests on a guided tour of the estates, traipsing through woods, through the parkland, posing by the lake and then marching around every side of the stately home wedding venue? If this is the case, don't expect a string quartet to up sticks and traipse around after everybody. There are limits to what they can do!

Another consideration is whether the wedding photographer wants music to be played during the photographs. Many of the modern wedding photographers are adept at taking photographs in an informal manner, without having to regiment the bride and the groom and the wedding guests into parade formation. If this is the kind of photographer that you have, then the string quartet can play background music without a problem. However if you have militaristic type wedding photographer, who comes complete with step ladders to climb onto and megaphone to order guests around, then the kind of photographer wants complete silence so that is orders can ring out without interruption. In this situation, the string quartet either has to stop playing while he or she is shouting their commands, or else they have to stop playing until after the photographs have been completed.

And of recent years there is an additional hazard from wedding photographers, the dreaded photographic groan. Does the photographer have a pilot's licence for a drone? Are they competent to fly at? Is the drone a suitably high-tech model that will avoid crashing into people and has it been serviced and charged properly so that it doesn't just drop out of the sky. Whereas wedding guests have some chance of seeing a rogue drone coming at them in diving for cover, a string quartet who are concentrating on playing beautiful music are unlikely to see it coming and being hit by marauding drone is no joking matter.

Request: find a string quartet for my civil ceremony; when we get a request for a string quartet to play at a church wedding ceremony, then at least within the UK, one knows that this request can be fulfilled quite easily. (In some countries, such as Spain, some churches are perched on such high peaks and inaccessible places, often with a long winding path with the stations of the cross going up to it, that it's hard enough for an unencumbered person to reach the church alive, so for a string quartet carrying instruments, music and music stands, possibly at 38°C on the lovely Spanish summers day, would be totally impractical. In such situations one would be into hiring a donkey or a mule to cart all the equipment up to the church in all its splendour on top of a mountain, or hanging on the side of a cliff. Perhaps this is why during a recent holiday in Spain, where we witnessed many weddings – we would therefore a couple of months –, there were relatively few music groups playing at the church is. Perhaps this is an opportunity for the Midsummer music to expand into Spain and bring the wonderful live music that is so much a part of the traditional British wedding ceremony the Spanish. But on second thoughts, as we are heading towards Brexit, it might not be such a good idea!) 

Question: how much does a String Quartet for a wedding cost;   the answer to most people is a lot less than you think, though some people think that a fiver each will do the job. String quartets are probably the lowest cost live music group per head of performer per hour of performance, of any kind of music. This might seem strange as one is probably getting the most highly trained musicians of any kind of music group. String quartet players have often spent years of music college going through formal training, whereas the majority of ceilidh band or barn dance band players, some jazz musicians and a lot of pop group musicians have not gone through formal college training (though some classical musicians will have converted.))

As explained earlier in these ramblings, the price of a string quartet is dependent on several factors, some of which you have control over, such as booking well before your wedding or other event, some of which you don't have any control over. To get your first idea gone to the mid-summer music website, select string quartets then select the county in which the wedding venue is located. To the right hand side of the page against each string quartet entry, you will see a price range. This is only approximate but includes travel costs, the range being because it is for the quartet to be with you for varying amounts of time. As different string quartets will offer different timeslots, (e.g. some string quartets will do a minimum time of one hour whilst other string quartets will only do a minimum time of two hours. Other string quartets will play up to 5 hours on-site, whereas others will only do a maximum of three hours), therefore one cannot directly compare prices, but it does give an indication of what you might be paying. To get an accurate cost you need to send us an enquiry, by the enquiry form of the Midsummer music website.

 Question: Where can I hire a string Quartet for my wedding ; well the obvious answer is the Midsummer music agency website, and if you're reading this then either you are actually on our website, or else this text has been stolen by another website in breach of copyright and they are using it without our permission. If this the case please navigate to our website at http://www.msmusic.co.uk/  i.e. the Midsummer music agency website and send us first of all an email from the site telling us where you found this text, and then have a look at the string quartets that are available for hire on our website and send us an enquiry so that we can send you a quotation and hopefully tempt you to book one of our amazing string quartets.                     

 Request: wedding string quartet music; wedding string quartet music tends to be different to formal string quartet music. Although string quartet will often play a single movement from a Joseph Haydn string quartet, perhaps a movement of a complete Mozart string quartet, most the music that is played by wedding string quartets as arrangements of orchestral pieces, very often baroque and classical as this is the most suitable for the four piece are many of us are quartet made of two violins viola and cello: also there are arrangements of music from the shows, that is the American Broadway shows right up to the current shows of Lloyd Webber and similar. Some string quartets will play film music, the theme tunes of Walt Disney films is particularly popular and really very good, and some though not all string quartets will play arrangements of those pop covers which are tuneful enough to work well with the string quartet.  

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