Pipers at weddings

[Meggers]

I guess I'm not quite sure where this goes so I put it here. Mods can feel free to move it to a better place if they see fit.

So, I was looking back at the Meghan's wedding planning thread and was sad to see it was closed because I AM getting married, God willing, in December 2013 and was wondering what you guys know about Celtic music and/or hiring pipers for weddings. What did you do if you had a piper at your wedding?

[EagleJCS]

As a piper who has played a couple of weddings (and other gigs), I can make a few suggestions:
--> Decide how much music you want the piper to play: any prelude, the processional (including the bridesmaids - with a different tune? - or just YOUR processional), anything during the service, the recessional, anything at the reception, etc.
--> Start researching tunes NOW. Popular tunes, in general, will not fit the bagpipe scale. Some can be 'fudged', but may turn out to be unrecognizable. Slow airs, slow marches, etc. are good for processionals. Recessionals are a bit more lively and upbeat, so 6/8 marches, hornpipes, or jigs/reels could be employed.
--> Start looking for a piper soon. Book them ASAP. There should be several within reasonable distance of your location. You're in the MidWest Pipe Band Association's (MWPBA) area of influence, so that would be a place to start. Local pipe bands may also serve as a contact point for soloists.
--> Make sure there's a place for the piper to tune up* that: 1) has about the same environment as the location where the wedding service will be taking place and 2) isn't a 15-minute walk away through different conditions (that affects the tuning). If the piper's going to be a surprise, then this tuning location also needs to be out of earshot of the guests.
--> Will the piper be playing as a soloist, or with another instrument (pipe organ, etc.)? If they're playing with another instrument, there may be issues with tuning and/or volume. The Great Highland pipes have one volume - you can't 'blow softer' to be quieter. It's also difficult for the pipes to match the same pitch as other instruments (so they sound nice playing together). I don't what kind of musical background you have, so I don't want to get into the whole pitch/key/tone discussion.
--> Make sure the piper is paid in full under the agreed-upon terms. (Some pipers prefer being paid up front, some are OK waiting until after the service, some want a down payment, etc.).

I'm sure OC Richard (if he checks in here) will have more suggestions.

* Yes, bagpipes can - and SHOULD be - tuned. If a piper you contact doesn't ask about a tuning location, find another piper.

[Dangerdean]

We have a friend who plays in a pipe band, so we just asked him. We're also lucky to be in an area with no dearth of pipers. I'm sure our downstairs neighbour could have done it for us.

We asked what tunes he recommended (we figured MacPherson's Lament wouldn't be appropriate!) and he made some suggestions, which we checked out. He piped us in as we processed to the clearing, then piped us out when the ceremony was done. People who do this regularly will have rates up front, but our friend just asked us to feed him and pay for his gas.

[KD Burke]

Tune suggestions:

Highland Cathedral

Mairi's Wedding

[OC Richard]

I'm a piper who has been playing at weddings for over 30 years. I've done hundreds of them... at one point, around 15 to 20 years ago, I was averaging around 30 or 40 weddings a year.

I think it's important to keep in mind that there's no "right way" or "traditional way" to use a piper... it's whatever YOU want.

When people ask me what the "usual" way to use a piper is, I tell them

I've played at weddings where I've played:

outside the venue prior to the service only
inside the venue prior to the service only
for the seating of the mothers only
for the arrival of the groomsmen only
for the arrival of the Best Man only
for the bridesmaids' processional only
for the Maid of Honour's processional only
for the Bride's processional only
for incidental music during the service only (candlelighting, Sand Ceremony (don't ask), Communion, etc etc)
for the recessional only
for postservice music inside the venue only
for postservice music outside the venue only

and for every possible combination of the above. Have I forgot anything?

About tunes, I must say that it's very annoying to be a piper with a very large repertoire, who has heard neary every piping album which has come along, who has a large library of pipe music, and who has decades of experience playing at hundreds of weddings, to have clients who have heard almost no pipe music, out of ignorance, choose inappropriate tunes for the piper to play.

What it is, I think, is that you get a person who needs to micro-manage everything, but who when it comes to hiring a piper for their wedding has to confront the fact that they're in an area that they know nothing about. They can't let go, and allow the piper to play music that would make the wedding very nice.

One Bride told me once, when we were discussing her upcoming wedding, that she wanted to choose all the tunes I would play, but that she had never heard any piping and didn't know any pipe tunes. What she would do, she told me, was that she would go down to a local records store, buy whatever piping album they happened to have, and pick all of her wedding music off it. This is so ridiculous that I don't know where to begin, but suffice it to say that, in her effort to "be in charge", would actually be putting the choosing of her wedding music in the hands of a number of people she had never met (the buyer at the record store, the distributor, the people who run the record label, etc etc.)

Nowadays it's almost as bad, because people can surf the internet and find all sorts of bizarre things. I recently had a Bride who had found a YouTube video of a piper playing something, that she wanted me to play. When I looked at the video, it was a French piper playing a Central French bagpipe (cabrette). The sound, style, and music was completely unsuitable for a Scottish or Irish piper.

Or people will select the strangest, most inappropriate stuff from other idioms, for example a Bride called once and gave me a list of the tunes she wanted... they were all Baroque trumpet pieces!

I tried to get her to understand that you wouldn't hire an organist to play Mariachi music, or hire a Mariachi band to play Bach organ works, and that if she wanted an entire programme of Baroque trumpet-and-organ duets she should hire a trumpet player and an organist.

Just last weekend I did a wedding with an organist. In addition to the traditional Irish tunes I played on the uilleann pipes and the hymns I did on the Highland pipes, the people had requested a number of African-American spirituals. I told the organist that I could play them on the pipes but that they would sound un-idiomatic and strange, so she played them on the pipe organ. Well, they were pretty darn un-idiomatic and strange on the pipe organ too! They needed a Gospel choir to do those songs justice.

So with all these issues of people choosing strange and inappropriate tunes, I was still surprised to discover how common it is for musicians who play weddings for a living to simply refuse to play requests at all. I was talking to an organist I was doing a wedding with and he told me "sure I do requests. They're $50 each." At first this struck me as being unreasonable, but then I thought of the hundreds of hours I've spent over the years finding tunes and arranging them for the pipes, tunes people have requested for a wedding or funeral. (Bach, Andrews Sisters, Disney, Israeli, you name it, I've played it.)

Of course all of this stuff about inappropriate tune choices doesn't apply to people who are around the Scottish or Irish community and know the music of the pipes... these people make informed, reasonable choices.

One thing people often don't understand is that it's not what tune the piper plays, but how he plays it. The piper is the soundtrack for the wedding, so to speak, and as John Williams stated, the most important aspect to getting the music right for any scene in a movie is getting the tempo right. I can play the same tune as an elegant processional for Bridesmaids or Bride, or a lovely slow piece for a Candlelighting or Communion, or a sprightly recessional to cap off the wedding. I would never use the same tune more than once in this way, but it goes to show how music works.

[JohntheBiker]

My last wedding was a small church wedding with a dozen people (immediate family only) including minister and piper. The piper did both the processional and the recessional. In fact, we were such a small group that we processed as a group behind the piper.

We were fortunate that there was lots of choice for local pipers that do weddings. In the end, we went with a recommendation that we got from the church. Music choice was about suggestions from me and recommendations from him. After all, the piper knows his/her repertoire. In the end it was one of my choices and one of his.

Never regretted having a piper. Added a nice touch to the service and, yes, I was kilted (PC, fly plaid and all).

[David Thorpe]

Tune suggestions:

Highland Cathedral

Mairi's Wedding

I like both of those!

[dadgad]

Tune suggestions:

Highland Cathedral

Mairi's Wedding

Yup, that's what the piper played at our wedding. We processed in to Highland Cathedral (duet with organ), out to Love Divine all Love Excelling, and into the reception to Mairi's Wedding. Since we started late (40 minutes. My fault, I forgot the bulletins, programs, whatever), the piper, organist, and the guitar player took turns entertaining our guests.

[Iain Robb]

Well, my daughter had a request for the pipers for her processional: Pachelbel's Canon.

Fortunately, she and my son-in-law had the good fortune of being in a pipe band at the time of their wedding, and the pipe major and three others played it free of charge.

So if you want to make requests, and get pipes for less, I guess, join a pipe band!

[crew2447]

The bagpipes produce room filling sound. If your wedding is in a church or cathedral the pipes will sound wonderful. If you're getting married in a little chapel or at a bed and breakfast, your guests may get blasted out of the room. In that case consider having the piper play outdoors, for example piping the guests into the building.

If the wedding is to be outdoors, no problem. If you're renting the Astrodome (I've met someone who did this) consider hiring a whole pipe band.

One other thing -- the drones stick up to about 7 feet for a 6 foot tall piper. Processionals or recessionals that go through normal size doorways can be a problem for the piper.

If the venue is a small space you can also ask if the piper can play small pipes. The volume is much lower. Ask for a demonstration to see if you like the sound.

Best of luck,
Clyde