Your Wedding

More and more traditional and non-traditional wedding couples are choosing to celebrate their Celtic heritage with a kilted bagpiper on their wedding day. A wedding complete with an experienced wedding bagpiper in full-kilted regalia is as beautiful to see as to hear. The ancient sound of the bagpipes helps to accentuate the sacred institution of marriage, giving your wedding guests an experience to remember and cherish.

There are no steadfast rules to gracing a wedding with the bagpipes, and as a result the bride and groom have the freedom to choose a unique arrangement for their wedding day. With this in mind, I offer the the bride and groom a choice of kilt tartans and kilt jackets to select from, as well as a wonderful medley of ceremony music to choose from to grace your wedding processional, prelude and postlude.

Adding Your Piper to Your Wedding Program

• Guests Arrive to the Ceremony: As your guests begin to arrive before your ceremony, a bagpiper performs to greet them at the entrance to the wedding site/church, serving to draw the wedding guests to the wedding site. The seated guests within the wedding site are also entertained as they await the beginning of the ceremony, and listen to the majestic bagpipes in the distance.
• Prelude: The bagpiper can perform ceremony music within the church or wedding site, or from outside. Performing very ceremonial songs like "Ode to Joy", "Highland Cathedral", of ""The Minstrel Boy" serve to alert the guests that the ceremony has begun. Some popular wedding ceremony songs are: Mairi's Wedding, Ode To Joy, The Bridal March or "Here Comes the Bride", Highland Cathedral, The Minstrel Song, The Flower of Scotland, Green Hills of Tyrol, or Irish Eyes are Smiling
• Processional: The mothers of the bride and groom, the bridal party, and the flower girl proceed down the isle to the ceremony music.
• Bridal Processional: The bagpiper performs "Mairi's Wedding", or a song that the bride enjoys most. I will send you a CD sample of ceremony music on the bagpipes from which you can choose. I often suggest "Mairi's Wedding", as it is a little different than the rest of the ceremony music, and serves to set the bride apart from the bridal party during her processional.
• Unity Candles: The bagpiper may perform a selection of slower, reflective music, which accentuates the lighting of the Unity Candles.
• Recessional: After the newlyweds are introduced to the guests following the kiss, the bagpipes strike up with a festive and rejoicing song (often "Scotland the Brave", for Scottish wedding couples, or "The Rakes of Mallow", for Irish couples). The bagpiper may lead the newly married couple up the isle at this time, may follow the newly married couple up the isle behind them, or can remain stationary.
• Postlude: Often the bagpiper leads the guests out of the wedding site along with the newly married couple, and ends up outside the wedding site in front of the guests. This serves to draw the guests outside the wedding site, where they will be entertained with lively traditional music as they await the newly married couple's first appearance from the wedding site, or for the receiving line.
• Reception: The bagpiper may lead the newly married couple into the reception, which makes a great impact. You may also have the bagpiper forego this introduction, instead simply having him perform for our guests as they enjoy their cocktail hour.

Again, there are no rules, allowing you to express your individuality on your wedding day. Call or e-mail me and we can discuss how to grace your wedding in more detail (303-988-5448, scott@coloradobagpiper.com).