Booking string quartets for weddings

We often hear questions like: Where can I get a string quartet for my wedding ; find a String Quartet for my drinks reception. This can be daunting for many people have become used to going on to Amazon selecting what they want, getting it delivered the next day. Regrettably, string quartet musicians are not stocked by Amazon and are not housed in their thousands in warehouses in Holland ready for delivery by courier. So how close to the Amazon experience can you get when you're looking for a string quartet? The answer is, that in some respects, you can get quite close to that experience by going to the Midsummer music agency website.

The products, (the string quartets), that you might be interested in hiring are laid out for you logically in the virtual warehouse, in racks labelled by counties and towns. There are even shelves for all female string quartets and wedding string quartets. You can browse through the virtual warehouse and look at the product manuals, i.e. sample repertoire lists. You can even watch product test videos in many cases, i.e. videos of the string quartet performing, sometimes at a wedding ceremony or a wedding reception, but more often recorded in a studio of some sort that it's very difficult to do sound and video recordings at a live event because of the background chatter of people, because not wanting a cameraman wandering around during the ceremony or waiters tripping over the cameraman as they serve the wedding breakfast.

Rather like as with Amazon, you can buy the product online by completing simple for and paying deposit with credit or debit card, again all online. Once you have booked the string quartet, you will receive acknowledgement of the booking, just as with Amazon. Instead of the string quartet being delivered by courier to your door, they are a self delivering product that deliver themselves, (in their own car, not fire a TNT career), to your church wedding ceremony or hotel venue reception.

The string quartet product is also self installing. Point the string quartet to the chairs you have prepared for them and they will install themselves, their musical instruments, their music stands, music and lights without you having to read any installation manuals or lift a finger.

You may have a pre-selected playlist installed with the quartet, (i.e. you might have found discussed the music you would like the ceremony or more likely you've discussed this via email, a much better way to communicate with a string quartet the phone.) If the playlist is pre-installed in this way, then they will time this to fit in with the brides entrance, the signing of the register and with the exiting of the bride and groom at the end of the wedding ceremony. If it is a drinks reception wedding breakfast the string quartet playing at, then they may have a random selection program for music, (i.e. they decide on the day what is most appropriate to play for you, depending on what is happening at the time and the mood that is appropriate.)

Finally, the string quartet product is self recycling. You don't have to carry them to the dustbin, or worse still can't in the back of your car at the local rubbish dump, they clear themselves up, get into their car and go, ready to be recycled for the next wedding. So the string quartet is the ultimate perfect product, as is a barn dance band or jazz band, though they are likely to consume quantities of beer or similar during their performance, where string quartets normally run on water or fruit juice. String quartets are normally fairly low on calorie intake, though they will need something to eat if there with you for a long time, perhaps for the whole of the ceremony and the wedding breakfast. Jazz bands and ceilidh bands are somewhat higher in calorie intake, in that they are expending significant quantities of energy playing fast and furious music, and if it's a ceilidh or barn dance band of the lively energetic type, they will also be burning calories by leaping around the stage. But at least it's all good organic and environmentally friendly fuel that they using, so the CO2 emissions should at least be balanced in the same way as biodiesel.

Request: Specialist wedding string quartets;  this is significant request and shows understanding of music groups. Not all string quartets are adept at playing for wedding ceremonies, drink receptions, military banquet and the like. Some string quartets, though the minority, surely do concert clubs, CDs and major concerts. This kind of string quartet doesn't perform at weddings and because of their fame, would be prohibitively expensive. At the other extreme are string quartets who play for fun, give small concerts in church halls for fundraising and so on. Such quartets may be extremely good, indeed many are, but unless they have actually played for wedding ceremonies or drinks receptions, they are likely to have the experience needed to be able to coordinate the timing of entrance, signing of the registry, and exit of a wedding or handle the logistics of getting themselves set up at a wedding breakfast without upsetting the hotel staff, or deftly moving from place to place during the drinks reception as the fickle photographer wafts guests and bride and groom outside, and then hurries them indoors for some other great photo shots. A string quartet player gets apprenticed to this sort of life by first of all playing in an established and experienced quartet at such events. Only when they have served their apprenticeship in this way are they experienced enough to lead a string quartet of their own at an important event, whether it is vitally important wedding ceremony or more laid-back wedding anniversary dinner. The string quartets in the Midsummer music agency website are experienced in this way.     

Requests: I want a String Quartet that is based in my local area;  string quartet;   I want to string quartets that doesn't have to travel far; wherever possible we offer string quartets that are relatively close to your venue, (be it corporate event, anniversary dinner or wedding reception). There is no earthly point in having a string quartet driving from one into the country to the other when there may be, almost certainly will be, an equally good and appropriate string quartet within half an hour to an hour's driving distance from you, and sometimes even closer if only you knew it. Not only is it expensive for you to have them driving around the country instead of playing for you, they don't really like driving, they prefer to be playing music, and its environmentally unfriendly to burn fuel and increase global warming, when there is absolutely no need to do so. The only time that we would offer you a string quartet that had to travel long way is if you leave hiring the string quartet until the last minute, and have to book the string quartet at very short notice.

If you do this, either through lack of planning or because of some unforeseen event, then we will offer you the closest available string quartet, but remember not only made be that all the local quartets are already booked, but some musicians may have taken holidays thinking that they had a free weekend without a booking, (a rare thing for many string quartet musicians, so they make the most of it when they can), although you may have commitments for other musical events, (many string quartet musicians play in orchestras, are members of county music service teaching staff who are maybe running youth orchestras at the weekend and have to arrange to be away for a string quartet gig several months in advance.) So, if you want to hire a string quartet that is based in your local area, or if you want to book a string quartet that doesn't have to travel far, your best way of doing this is to visit the Midsummer music agency website six months to a year before your wedding day, send us an enquiry and then get on book a string quartet quickly. Don't leave it till the last minute.

Request: wedding march string quartet;   the first thing to bear in mind is that there are many compositions titled 'wedding march' . There is the Wagner version of the wedding march, the Mendelssohn's version from Shakespeare's Midsummer nights dream, and many other lesser-known compositions. So check which one you are looking for. Also bear in mind that when you hear these wedding marches on a CD, they are invariably played by a full symphony orchestra of eighty or more people, or on a large organ such as the organ of St Paul's Cathedral, which has enough volume if all the stops are pulled out to vibrate the average wedding venue to the ground. You're not going to get this mega sound volume from the four musicians of a string quartet. What you do get is a beautifully intimate rendition of the wedding march, which for most weddings, whether it's a church wedding or civil ceremony at a wedding venue, is normally much more appropriate.

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