Wedding Singer, The

I am a wedding singer, but not the type you might think. I am not Adam Sandler, and I do not sing with a band. I sing with either a piano or organ, because I sing in the church during the wedding ceremony.

I do not work all the time, which is good. I do not advertise, but I get a lot of work. People hear my voice and I recommend it to others, and so I get my concerts. I feel good about it because it shows that people appreciate what I can bring to their marriage.

Like everything else, there are some misconceptions about those of us who sing in churches. Some are minor, some not so minor. Let's talk about minor things first.

We are not necessarily religious. I'm not religious at all. I sang at probably 100 or more churches over the years, but I'm not going to church all that regularly. If it were not for weddings or funerals, I'll never be in a church. I always sang at home, and I rarely used a microphone. I do not have a multitude of songs in my repertoire that I can pull for people to listen, although I do have some. tastes are different, so I prefer that people give me an indication of what they want to hear.

There really is no standard for a song to sing at a wedding, just as you style it. I sang the wedding songs that are rock songs, but changed so it was appropriate for the wedding. I tweaked the lyrics so they are also appropriate. Not one couple has already noticed when I changed a lyric, but I'm sure someone in the congregation probably has. Couples almost never listen to what you sing, but there are still critical in the congregation to this day, they were very kind to me.

The great misconception is that I do is just sing a song, so I do not need to be paid so well. People tend to forget that I am a professional, and I practice and rehearse how much. Each song gets at least 3-5 hours of rehearsal. If I'm playing the piano at the ceremony, fired at least one hour on that. Even songs that I made before I practice. The real life of a musician is that most of the work is done in practice, as it is in sport.

And the music is not my job full time, which means I use a lot of my personal time to stop the practice whenever I have a wedding coming up. I do weddings because I want to be paid, but I can really belt a song because of its beautiful churches, and I get a kick out of it. But I want to be paid, and they deserve because of the time I put into it. No one ever comes away short-changed.

So next time you have been to a wedding and the singer has performed well, go and thank that person and let them know you appreciate their talent. There are lots of bad singers out there, praise the good.