To continue with our Royal Wedding Week, the lovely Miranda Dickinson, author of Welcome to My World and Fairytale of New York, kindly offered to write us an article of her experience as a Wedding Singer! You may not know that Miranda is also an accomplished singer as well as an author, so enjoy the read about Miranda’s “other job”!

 

“As I watch the Royal Wedding this week, my thoughts will probably be with the people working behind the scenes to make the big day happen.

I’ve been singing with my best friends in a wedding band since 2005 and during that time I’ve seen everything from weddings that take your breath away to the most outrageous celebrations you can imagine.

Working at a wedding gives you a unique fly-on-the wall view of other people’s weddings. And sometimes it’s quite a view! From our vantage point we can see all the relationships, friendships and rivalries playing out: the bridesmaids fending off the amorous advances of middle-aged uncles; the mothers of the brides who usually are either in tears or busy organising everyone else - or, on one occasion, jealously eyeing her daughter who was stealing her limelight; the fathers of the brides getting drunk and launching into strenuous bouts of seriously odd ‘Dad-dancing’ on the dance floor; together with the random collective of guests that come with each wedding celebration.

One wedding we played at was held at a very expensive manor hotel and must have cost in the region of £20,000. The bride and groom had Beckham-style thrones, were covered in tattoos and all the kids seemed to have mullets. The venue’s wedding co-ordinator was at her wits end because the best men and ushers had been found in the foyer smoking the biggest spliffs she had ever seen, while the bridesmaids (and mother of the bride) had been caught doing lines of cocaine in the Ladies’ loos. From the wedding band’s point of view, it was quite a scary gig as the guests were getting rowdier and rowdier on the dance floor and we were expecting fights to break out any minute…

Song choices are always interesting, too. First dance songs range from lovely Michael Bublé-inspired The Way You Look Tonight to the stranger choice of the theme tune from Shrek (made more bizarre by the fact that the groom bore a striking resemblance to ogre himself). The oddest requested song by far was Kings of Leon’s Sex on Fire. It was very weird to see two grannies bopping enthusiastically and singing along…

But for every crazy wedding, there’s a fantastic one, too. It’s the greatest privilege to sing a first dance song for a couple who are clearly in love – and more than a little nerve-wracking because you know that this moment can’t be repeated, so it has to be perfect. Quite a few times I’ve had to swallow back emotion when I’m singing because when everything comes together it’s a truly magical moment.

I wanted to share this unique view of other people’s weddings so the main character in my new novel, It Started With a Kiss, is a singer in a wedding band. Some of the weddings in the book are based on my real-life experiences, while others are stories my musician friends in other bands have shared with me – you really won’t believe some of the things that people choose for their weddings!

So what about William and Kate’s reception, I wonder? I’d love to think that, after all the pomp and ceremony of the day, the whole wedding party will cut loose and boogie their hearts out. I reckon the Queen and Prince Philip will be up there with the rest of the guests singing their hearts out to 9 to 5 and bopping around to Love Shack…”

©Miranda Dickinson 2011

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