Last Saturday I played the harp for Sharon and Seng’s wedding at Everingham Park. It was about a forty-five minute drive from where I live in York, so a relatively local gig for me.

Everingham Park itself is an ideal wedding venue. It has an onsite Chapel for Wedding Ceremonies, then just a stone’s throw away is a building next to a large pond. This is where the Drinks Reception and Wedding Breakfast take place. Parking was easy and the venue is easy to find. I hadn’t played there before and it was really lovely.

On this occasion I was booked to play for the Drinks Reception and Wedding Breakfast. This was the room where the Wedding Breakfast was. I really liked the flowers and the pop of colour from the red napkins.

I always like to have a peep at the cake too, even though I attend a lot of weddings, I’m usually all finished and on my way home by the time the cake is being cut.

Considering the fact that this was an October wedding, the weather was absolutely gorgeous. Guests were enjoying mingling outside for most of the afternoon.

My A string above middle C snapped just as I was ready to begin playing. Luckily I always keep my spare strings with me, so I was able to whip another string on and quickly tune it up before I started.

Lovely bride Sharon had requested that I play anything that I think would suit the occasion, so I played my usual mix of light classical, pop, Disney, and film/show tunes. A few of the guests were big Disney fans, so I made sure to include plenty of that. Another guest requested anything by Vivaldi or Bach, so I played an arrangement of Spring from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Sheep May Safely Graze by J.S. Bach.

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Stirk House Hotel is a venue that I hadn’t played in until this last weekend. As I live in York it is quite a scenic drive over the A59 to Clitheroe, but on this occasion it was an absolutely beautiful drive. That being said, I did arrive in torrential rain.

Upon arrival I was greeted by lovely staff and Dave – Master of Ceremonies. Dave quickly became my favourite person as he showed me around the venue and talked through timings and the best route for getting the harp from the Ceremony room through to the Wedding Breakfast. Not only that, he brought me a cappuccino completely unprompted. We like Dave.

After unpacking my harp and popping the covers back in the car, it was time to change into my dress, tune, and warm up.

I learned quite a few songs especially for this wedding that weren’t on my list before, so I was keen to have a final play through. This is the song that Lucy walked down the aisle to, I didn’t know it before but it’s so lovely. I challenge you to listen without tearing up just a little bit:

The Wedding

The Ceremony was lovely and really personal to the couple. I love hearing all about how my couples meet and how their relationship has brought them to this moment. The Ceremony was taken by Pink and Ginger Ceremonies – who were completely fabulous as their name suggests.

After the Ceremony I moved my harp to the Wedding Breakfast room – which was a bit of a challenge in my floor-length dress on a windy day! Then there was about an hour and a half before I was needed again. I had brought some sandwiches and my book as well as the Saturday paper. I settled down in an armchair (by the fire – in August), had another cappuccino, and enjoyed some quiet time.

With a six-month-old at home I’m sure you can imagine I don’t often get the chance to sit for over an hour and just drink coffee and read. I was in heaven!

Soon enough, it was time for the Wedding Breakfast. I had a list from Lucy and Luke to work my way through, and it ended up being the perfect length to fill the time. A few guests came up to chat, which I always love. The gorgeous couple also gave me this cute little gift bag filled with chocolates and sweets to help me get through the day. I saved them until I got home and (somewhat reluctantly) shared them with my husband.

The Playlist at Stirk House Hotel

I learned a lot of songs especially for this beautiful couple, here are a few of my favourites:

• Jurassic Park Main Theme
• My Heart Will Go On from Titanic
• How Far I’ll Go from Moana
• Test Drive from How To Train Your Dragon
• Star Wars Main Theme
• Don’t Want To Miss A Thing by Aerosmith

These are now all added to my song list, ready to play at future weddings. If you’d like to enquire about booking me as your Wedding Harpist, click here.

Today’s blog post is looking back at a recent wedding in Bradford. I have been getting a lot of last minute enquiries lately, which is exciting! This particular gig was an Indian wedding. My job was to play for the welcome drinks. The request was to make the playlist 50% Bollywood, and 50% a mix of classical, pop and Disney. So I was ready to be a Bollywood Harpist for the day.

Learning Bollywood Music on the harp

In all honesty I hadn’t played a lot of Bollywood before, so I spent plenty of time before the big day downloading the music and learning it. I found Bollypiano to be a really good resource of Bollywood arrangements. They had most of the songs I was looking for. I also like to hear the music I’m learning, so I made a playlist on Spotify and Youtube. This helped so much to give me a flavour of these tunes. Now I feel much more prepared just in case I’m asked to play Bollywood at future weddings. ‘Bollywood harpist’ seems like a good extra string to my bow if you’ll pardon the musical pun.

This was a much larger wedding than any I’ve played for recently – over 200 guests!

The venue was the Walton View Hotel in Bradford and it was an absolutely stunning day, really warm and sunny.

One of the things I love about my job is how varied it is. I get to see all different sorts of weddings and I love feeling like I’m helping to set the atmosphere of a couple’s special day.

If you’d like to enquire about having me as your wedding harpist, click here. The couple for this wedding just wanted background music for the Drinks Reception, but I also have packages available for your Wedding Ceremony or Wedding Breakfast, click here to have a look at the different options.

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