I recently had the pleasure to perform at our first same sex / gay wedding reception and had a blast! Oddly enough, this was my second solo piano show in a row – and they gave me a great piano setup 🙂
The Piano Room
The wedding was hosted at a mansion in Winnetka Il, owned by the grooms Aunt and Uncle (Someone get me in that family!). The house was absolutely beautiful and decorated for the wedding. My room was to be immediately to the left of the main entrance, in a room furnished with a perfect Yamaha grand piano. When 99% of our shows are performed with keyboards, being given a pristine piano to play on is a treat (though 4 hours really starts to hurt Fingers’ fingers!).
I was hired to provide music for cocktails and dinner, sound for the introductions and first dances, and entertainment throughout the evening for anyone who didn’t want to party in the basement with the DJ.
Background Jazz to start
Per Felix and Fingers tradition, I had the pleasure of performing background jazz music during cocktails and dinner. While the wedding guests filed in and made their way through the house, many ended up in my room listening to jazz and starting the requests early. I was happy to hear most of the younger guests were all in music school together, so it wasn’t unusual to have people singing along to Sinatra or the old show tune standards like “A Foggy Day” or “Hello Dolly”.
Intros and a Grand Entrance
Staircase for Intros
I was responsible for providing the sound equipment for the introductions and speeches. My clients had requested that their friend act as MC for the evening and I was happy to oblige her with a wireless mic while I manned the sound board. The wedding itself was not at the house, so I guess I still haven’t officially seen a gay wedding, this part of the night was simply for the introductions and toasts. The guests were then released for dinner while I continued on with taking requests and playing background jazz /show tunes.
Singing the Night Out
After dinner and first dances, I started the party with a lot of rock and roll / swing standards. The nice thing about a gay wedding is that people are a bit more willing to dance, and many more know how! Once I saw people start swing dancing to my first couple tunes, I kept the energy going with a few more as the guests all danced in the grand entrance way on the marble floors. The dancing started to fade as people broke off towards the bar, food, and DJ downstairs (after all, they were literally dancing in a different room than I was playing in). The rest of the night was relatively relaxed and having a DJ for dance music thinned out the piano bar crowd upstairs.
Though I expected a long night of show tunes and cabaret singalongs, I ended up entertaining with a range of requests across all decades an genres. From the older guests looking for me to carry on with Sinatra, to the younger cousins coming buy requesting Disney’s “Frozen”, I covered just about ever tune imaginable. And in true piano bar fashion, the Grooms and a group of friends gathered around the piano for the last song of the night to sing “Don’t Stop Believing”. I was actually already packing up at that time, but after hearing one of their friends trying to play the song, I just couldn’t resist but play one more tune before calling it a night! It was a gay old time 🙂
Gay weddings…check!
Now that we have our first gay wedding under our belts, we’re all set for yours! Don’t hesitate to look up out reviews on GayWeddings.com, powered by weddingwire.com, or contact us directly through our contact page. Felix and Fingers is the busiest dueling pianos company in the midwest for weddings – just read any of our 50+ reviews!
And if you’re looking for input on your wedding planning, be sure to check out our recommended song lists here, or contact me directly for a copy of our itinerary!
Cheers 🙂
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