Carols by candlelight
Candlelight changes what a carol service can do. It slows the room down, it makes people quieter than they would otherwise be, and it turns a programme that would read as a concert into something closer to a vigil. It also brings a set of practical constraints that catch people out, most of them to do with whether your singers can see the music.
What candlelight actually does to a service
A church at four in the afternoon in December is already half dark. Turning the electric light off and lighting candles does two things at once: it removes most of what the audience can see, and it removes most of what they can read. Both are the point, and both need planning around.
People behave differently in low light. They talk less on the way in, they applaud less between items, and they hold still for longer. A programme that would feel slow under strip lighting works at candlelight, which is why quiet repertoire belongs here and brisk repertoire often does not.
The practical cost is that nobody can read an order of service. If the congregation is meant to sing, they will be singing from memory, and you should choose the carols accordingly.
Choosing the carols
Split the programme into what the room sings and what the choir sings, then apply one test to the first group: could someone sing this without the words in front of them? In practice that is a short list, and it is the right list.
Silent Night, Away in a Manger, O Come, All Ye Faithful and Hark! The Herald Angels Sing are the carols most of a British congregation can manage from memory, at least for the first verse. Once in Royal David’s City works because the opening is a solo and the room only joins later.
For the choir, candlelight suits the quiet end of the repertoire. The Coventry Carol, Praetorius’s Es ist ein Ros, Boris Ord’s Adam Lay Ybounden, Howells’s A Spotless Rose, and Darke’s In the Bleak Midwinter all belong in this setting more than they belong in a bright hall. Our carols guide covers the wider repertoire.
What to avoid: anything fast enough that the singers need to watch a beat closely, and anything with an entry the choir has to find from silence in the dark.
How the singers see the music
This is the question every candlelit service turns on, and the one most organisers have not thought about until we ask.
Choir stall lights are the best answer where the building has them, because they light the copy and not the room. Failing that, small clip-on music lights work, though they read as a row of little white dots from the nave, which some clients mind and some do not.
The other option is to programme around it: the choir sings from memory. That is a real constraint on repertoire and it needs saying at the point of booking rather than in the week before, because a piece learned from memory has to be chosen months out.
The usual compromise is a lit choir and a dark nave. The congregation experiences candlelight; the singers can see. If your building has a chancel that can be lit separately from the body of the church, that is what to ask the verger about.
Real candles, and what most venues will allow
Church policy on naked flame varies and is not negotiable by you on the night. Ask the incumbent or the verger early, in writing, and ask specifically about handheld candles for the congregation, which is the part most often refused.
Where handheld candles are allowed, drip protectors are usually a condition, and someone has to be responsible for lighting and extinguishing them. Where they are not, candles in the windows and on the sills give most of the effect with none of the argument.
Hotels, livery halls and corporate venues almost always say no to naked flame, and their fire officer has the final word. Battery candles have improved and at ten paces in a dark room the difference is not the thing anyone remembers about the evening.
A running order that works
An hour is right, and the shape below is one we have used many times. Adjust the readings to suit whether the service is liturgical.
- The room in darkness; a single treble or soprano begins Once in Royal David’s City unaccompanied.
- Candles lit through the first verse; choir joins for the second; congregation for the third.
- A bidding prayer or a welcome.
- Reading, then a choir carol.
- Congregational carol.
- Reading, then a choir carol.
- Congregational carol.
- Reading, then the quietest thing in the programme.
- Silent Night, sung by everyone.
- Blessing or closing words, then O Come, All Ye Faithful with the lights up.
Bringing the electric light up for the last carol is worth doing on purpose. It sends people out at a different temperature from the one they have been sitting in, and it means the final carol can be the loud one.
Service sheets people cannot read
Print them anyway, and hand them out at the door while the lights are still up. People read the running order on the way in, then stop reading once it goes dark, which is the right way round.
Set the type larger than you would for a daytime service. Anything under twelve point is decorative rather than useful in a church lit by candles, and an older congregation will not thank you for eleven.
Put the words to the congregational carols on facing pages rather than spread across a turn. A page turn in the dark, in unison, produces a noise that lasts longer than you would think.
Corporate and charity candlelit services
Companies and charities book candlelit services in hired churches more often than parishes do, because the setting does the work that a function room cannot. The format transfers with two changes: the readings become secular, and the appeal or the chief executive’s words go where the sermon would have been.
For a charity, the appeal belongs before the last carol rather than at the very end, so the evening finishes on singing rather than on asking. Our guide to planning a charity carol concert covers the fundraising side.
For a company, candlelight solves the problem that a carol service in a bright hall can feel like a meeting with singing. It also sets a limit on how much of the evening can be speeches, which most event managers find useful when the invitation list starts growing.
Christmas Eve
Most people picturing carols by candlelight are picturing Christmas Eve, and that date behaves differently from the rest of December. We do sing on both the 24th and 25th, and those two dates carry a premium of around 25 per cent, confirmed in the written quote before you commit to anything.
They are also the first dates to go. If Christmas Eve is what you want, ask in the summer, not in November. Our guide on when to book Christmas entertainment covers how the month fills.
Heating, and other things about a dark church in December
Churches are cold, and a congregation sitting still in low light gets colder than one standing and singing. Ask the verger what the heating costs to run and how long before the service it needs to go on; the answer is usually longer than you expect and the cost sometimes lands on you.
Singers need to be able to feel their hands to turn pages, and cold air changes how voices work. We ask for somewhere warm to wait before and between, which is a request about sound quality as much as comfort.
Light the way in. A dark path from the door to the pews produces exactly the problem you would expect, particularly with an older congregation.
What we provide
Four voices will carry a candlelit church seating up to about 200; eight will carry one seating 400. Because a candlelit programme leans on quiet repertoire, the room needs to be quiet, which in practice means the singing has to be good enough to hold silence rather than fill it.
Where the building has an organ, an organist covers the congregational carols and plays before and after, at £225 on top of the choir. Where it does not, the choir sings the whole service unaccompanied, which suits this repertoire.
A Small Choir of four is £1,150 and a Full Choir of eight is £2,000, inclusive of taxes, fees and travel within Greater London.
Frequently asked questions
How do the singers read music by candlelight?
Choir stall lights are the usual answer, or small clip-on music lights. The common arrangement is a lit chancel and a dark nave, so the congregation experiences candlelight while the singers can see. Singing from memory is possible but has to be agreed when you book.
Which carols suit a candlelit service?
For the congregation, carols people can sing without reading: Silent Night, Away in a Manger, O Come All Ye Faithful. For the choir, the quiet end of the repertoire, such as the Coventry Carol, Praetorius's Es ist ein Ros, and Darke's In the Bleak Midwinter.
Are real candles allowed in most venues?
Churches vary, and the decision rests with the incumbent or verger. Handheld candles for the congregation are the part most often refused. Hotels and livery halls almost always require battery candles, and their fire officer has the final word.
Do you sing carols by candlelight on Christmas Eve?
Yes, on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Those two dates carry a premium of around 25 per cent, confirmed in your written quote before you commit. They are the first dates to go each year, so ask early.
We sing candlelit carol services in churches across London and the rest of the UK, and we will talk to the verger about lighting and rehearsal access rather than leaving you to broker it.
Talk to us about your carol service
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