When playing at a wedding...

Just a few days ago another couple stepped into new waters. Marriage. Maybe a reason for happiness, maybe not, because some doubts started to come to me. Why do I see tears at every wedding?

At the end of the last month, I attended a solemn wedding ceremony (in the role of a musician) and witnessed how the brothers of the groom, visibly touched and with tears in their eyes, gave a final speech about their brother who is now getting married. While sharing the memories from their childhood, everyone got emotional. The same thing happened with the bride's sisters, they all had their speech, and it was all accompanied by tears. How powerful. I could feel how their voices shook while they were saying the best about their siblings.

And now again. It happened last Thursday when I was booked (with two singers and a violinist, who happened to be my son) to play at a wedding ceremony. A small modern-style church, family members of the bride and groom, the priest, the musicians and photographers. While looking at her future husband, the bride's voice first trembled. And her voice was shaking more and more, which was accompanied by quick intakes of air because the tears were there, trying to take away her peace and sobriety. Emotions ran high. It was a mutual promise, to love each other and walk together through every difficult situation.

Tears. Is it perhaps a sad situation? Could it be that our playing was that bad and that it bothered their hearing and their soul so much? 😂

Let's hope that all these touching moments, the shaking voices and the tears in the eyes came from the positive excitement. It is not every day that a daughter, son, brother or sister is getting married. A new family is born, and that just walks its first steps when the ceremony is over. Also, the presence of the whole family, reunited, makes the moment more solemn and important.

Expressing your emotions in front of everyone is not so easy and carries its weight. You know that feeling, when sharing such intimate thoughts is suddenly available to all the people around you. I'm not only thinking about that promise between the newlyweds but also the feelings that the other members of the family are sharing. Sometimes family relationships are complicated, or even if they aren't, maybe the expression of feelings is a bit sidelined. In these moments, when everyone is somehow disarmed in front of this situation, it is no wonder that I see tears.

Well, let's leave the tears aside now. As I said, both times I went in the role of a musician, so my professional attitude should not be questioned. I played the best I could, making a musical carpet with my fellow musicians.

Location?

The wedding was held in a place called Villa Gadea. It is located in a small coastal Spanish town, Altea. The venue is already familiar, as in the old villa, there is a chapel, used for small concerts. A few months ago my son and his friends had a concert here, as a part of a series of concerts held in this town. In this Villa Gadea complex, there is also a huge hotel and a church, where the ceremony took place.

On the other side of the old villa, you can take the stairs and go directly to the seashore. The views from there, towards the Mediterranean sea:

The little church inside is not really like the old, heavily decorated baroque-style churches we can still see around. This one was simple, maybe I can classify it as a minimalistic style? Not so many ornaments (well, none). I liked a lot the simple combination of concrete and wood (ceiling and benches). There were two huge sliding doors that occupied almost one whole wall of the building. Those were open, to allow the air to come in.

Music?

We played what we usually play in the wedding ceremonies. More or less. One piece from Heandel for the entrance of the groom that my son and I performed. The bride asked for the famous Canon in D composed by Pachelbel, again, performed by the two of us. Later, with the two singers, we played the parts of the Mass by Charles Gounod, Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, the famous Ave Maria by Schubert and for the end, a Spanish song called Hasta mi final (the possible Spanish peaking readers of this post will perfectly know which song it is). It came out lovely in our performance in piano, violin and my two singer friends.

I didn't check whether there were tears in the eyes of the family members or not.
They slowly walked out, facing their new future, accompanied by our musical contribution. I hope that when playing at a wedding we can bring some happy moments (and not sad ones) with the sounds we provide. I really hope so!

{what if I am wrong? 😂}