Manor House Music String Quartet Weblog

Booking a string quartet for just the wedding ceremony.

On the whole, quite a large proportion of string quartets have a ‘minimum booking period’ of at least 2 or 3 hours, particularly for peak Saturdays over the summer months. This is simply because in the busiest and best string quartets, all four musicians will not only be in demand for the quartet itself, but [...]

Hiring a string quartet? Getting value for money

The next few blog entries are going to be a series of articles about various ways of keeping costs within budget and also gaining the maximum impact from hiring a professional string quartet for a wedding.
Overall, if clients are looking for quality, the cost of a string quartet can be a significant chunk of a wedding [...]

Wedding at the Swiss Gardens

On Friday we returned once more to the Swiss Gardens at Old Warden in Bedfordshire to play for a wedding. Whereas our concert in June was for a full string quartet, this time we played as a string duo. In many ways, the little rustic cottage on the hill where the weddings take place is [...]

Music to walk up the aisle….

One of the main services we provide for weddings and civil partnerships is playing music for the ‘processional’ (walking up the aisle).  Very often, couples have a firm idea of what they’d like playing, even before they book a string quartet or duo and there are certainly some popular pieces which can make a wedding seem [...]

Which classical pieces to choose for a wedding ceremony?

Very often clients book us for weddings and functions with a clear idea of what they’d like playing. Many people enjoy spending hours looking through the repertoire choices on our playlist page and constructing lists of favourite pieces,  including the order in which they’d like them played on the day. There are other couples who give [...]

Wedding at Highgate House

This Saturday we were pleased once again to return to Highgate House - a wedding venue very near to Northampton where we play several times a year.
Although we’ve played many times at Highgate as a full string quartet, this particular wedding was a more intimate gathering of around 70 guests and a string duo was [...]

Pachelbels Canon in D for Weddings

No matter how large the size of a string quartets repertoire, or how many other music choices there are on offer - it’s probably true to say that 99% of brides who book a string quartet choose to walk up the aisle to Pachelbel’s Canon in D.
So this week - in response to popular demand, we have recorded and [...]

Playing for outdoor weddings and events

Just had another busy weekend where we played for two weddings and a birthday party. Despite the weather being a bit unsettled, we still managed to play outdoors on Friday when we returned for another wedding at Notley Abbey near Aylesbury.
Although the wedding ceremony was outdoors, by law the registration process (signing the register etc) has to be conducted under a [...]

A busy bank holiday weekend….and a day in the life of a string quartet

It’s been a busy bank holiday weekend for us with three weddings, one was a wedding at Loseley Park near Guildford, the second wedding was at the Elvetham in Hampshire and a third (much nearer to home), was a wedding at Stowe House in Buckinghamshire.
All three had unique requests and in the case of the first two, [...]

Hymns for String Quartet

 Some of the more unexpected side effects of the ‘financial crisis’ are the inventive ways in which couples getting married save money on their wedding plans and find ways to get the most out of all their wedding suppliers.
 One such example would be a recent trend to get the best value out of the string quartet [...]