Wedding music guides
These guides cover the music for a wedding ceremony, from hymns and organ pieces to choral anthems and pop songs arranged for a choir. Luca Wetherall, our Artistic Director, wrote them, and each one names the pieces and who sings or plays them. When you are ready to book singers, our page on wedding choir hire has the sizes and prices, and every fee is on our pricing page.
If you are starting from nothing, read the ceremony overview first: it takes a church wedding in order, from the prelude to the recessional, and points to the guide for each moment. If you already know the shape of the service, go to the group you need below. A civil ceremony in England and Wales must not include religious music, and our wedding choir page sets out what that leaves; the humanist guide in the last group lists the secular repertoire.
Planning the ceremony music
The overview takes the service in order. The others cover one part each: the order of service, the walk down the aisle, the church, the readings, and ideas beyond the usual running order.
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A complete guide to wedding ceremony music
Each moment from processional to recessional: what to choose, when it happens, and about how long it runs.
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Wedding order of service: where the music goes
A sheet to print and fill in: each point in a church wedding where music comes, with a line for your choice.
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Songs for walking down the aisle
Organ processionals, hymns the choir leads as you walk in, Parry’s I Was Glad, and choir arrangements of love songs.
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The best London churches for a wedding
St Barnabas, Ealing and other London churches as a musician sees them: the organ, the acoustic, and who may marry there.
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Pairing readings with music at your wedding
Which pieces follow which readings at a church or civil wedding, with pairings and timings.
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Wedding music ideas your guests will remember
Ideas beyond the standard formula: an unaccompanied opening, a singer in the gallery, one piece nobody expects.
Hiring a wedding choir or organist
How many singers your church needs, what each size costs, and what to ask before you book. The last guide covers taking a British choir to a wedding abroad.
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How to hire a wedding choir
Ensemble sizes, what a wedding choir sings, and how to book the right group for your ceremony.
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How much does wedding music cost?
What an organist and each size of choir cost, what the price covers, and what changes outside London.
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Comparing wedding choirs in London: what to look for
The training to look for, matching the choir to the church, what the fee should cover, and seven questions to ask.
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Hiring an organist for your wedding
Repertoire, fees, and how to find the right player for your church’s organ.
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Hiring a UK choir for a destination wedding
Lead times, work permits, and costs, and what changes when there is no organ and no stone building.
Wedding hymns
Most church weddings have two or three hymns. The first guide lists the ones couples choose and where each goes; the other three take a single hymn in depth.
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Wedding hymns: the most popular and how to choose
The hymns couples choose most, how many to have, and where each goes in a Church of England service.
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Why Be Thou My Vision is the best wedding hymn
Why the Irish hymn sung to Slane suits a wedding: the words, a tune everyone can sing, and where it goes in the service.
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Jerusalem: Blake’s poem, Parry’s hymn and singing it at a wedding
Blake’s words, Parry’s 1916 tune, where it fits in a wedding, and what to do if the minister says no.
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Love Divine, All Loves Excelling: words, tunes and where to sing it
Wesley’s words of 1747, the tunes Blaenwern and Hyfrydol, and where it sits in a wedding.
Choral pieces and organ music
The anthems a choir sings during the service and at the signing of the register, and the organ pieces for the entrance and the exit.
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The best choral pieces for a wedding
The standard anthems and solos for a wedding, from Schubert’s Ave Maria to Ubi Caritas, with dates and who sings them.
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Lesser-known choral pieces for a wedding
Beyond Ave Maria: Renaissance motets, English cathedral anthems, and modern choral works your guests are unlikely to have heard.
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Ubi Caritas at a wedding — Ola Gjeilo’s setting
Why Ola Gjeilo’s setting of the antiphon about love suits the signing of the register, how it differs from Duruflé’s, and how many singers it takes.
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Popular wedding organ music
The processionals, signing pieces and recessionals couples book most, plus rarer pieces to ask your organist for.
Pop songs for choir and organ
A song of your own can go almost anywhere in the service. These two guides say which songs work for voices and which on the organ.
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Pop songs for a wedding choir to sing
Pop songs arranged for four-part voices: modern love ballads, classic standards, and what a bespoke choral arrangement involves.
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Pop songs on the organ at your wedding
Pop, film, and musical theatre songs that work on a church organ, the ones that fall flat, and how to brief your organist.
Catholic and humanist weddings
A Nuptial Mass gives the choir more to sing, at Communion above all, and a humanist ceremony leaves out religious words. Each guide covers the repertoire that fits.
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Anima Christi at a Catholic wedding
Why Marco Frisina’s setting of the Latin prayer suits the Communion of a Nuptial Mass, why parishes accept it, who sings it, and the one line couples should know about first.
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Choral music for a humanist wedding
The secular choral repertoire for a celebrant-led ceremony: part-songs, folk arrangements, madrigals, and the King’s Singers close-harmony catalogue, plus the standards that turn out to be prayers.