How to eliminate awkward long silences at your wedding ceremony

When it comes time to sign the register at your wedding ceremony, be sure to have enough music to cover the time it will actually take.  Various wedding celebrants have tricks to cut down the time it will take to complete this formality, but you should plan for 7 to 8 minutes worth of music, at least.

You won’t take quite that long, although I have seen it done in under five minutes, and at least one wedding went longer than ten.

Whenever I am part of the ceremony service, I either extend the chosen track so it’s well over ten minutes long (just in case!) or I have 2 songs mixed together.  It’s not that silence is a terrible thing, but wouldn’t you rather the music didn’t fade out while you’re still completing the signing process?

If you have a live musician playing, they probably know how to extend the song if they’re playing instruments.  If you have someone singing over a backing track, have another song ready to go.  The other side of that though is to ensure they know how to wrap the song up early, on the fly.

Overall it’s better to have too much music than not enough, which would have it fade out to silence.  Especially if you’re only half-way down the aisle – right?

Key points:

  • Have your music extended, or have a 2nd or 3rd backup song ready just in case.
  • Ensure your live musician is skilled enough to wrap up their song early.