The best wedding reception songs

Choosing the best wedding reception songs is a tricky one to call as everyone is different, but of course we’re only human here at Apollo Strings and we do have our favourites!

The first rule of thumb when choosing your wedding reception music is to ensure you choose music that will suit you and your wedding venue. Most client’s choose a handful of favourites and then let Apollo Strings choose suitable pieces to bulk out the time but if you would rather choose every piece that’s played then head on over to our music page and choose enough pieces for your reception. As a guide treat every piece as a 3-minute selection, meaning for a 45 minute set you need to choose 15 pieces of music. It may be that there’s not time to play all of your selections so do make sure you flag up any must hears!

Now, on to our favourites –  here are ten pieces that we would choose every time:

1. All You Need is Love, The Beatles

This piece says it all in the title – what better piece to set the mood for your reception and make sure love is in the air all day long?

2. Alleluja from Exultate Jubilate, Mozart

This is a piece that is both great fun to play and to listen to. It’s joyous and uplifting which is exactly what you want to feel following that all-important wedding ceremony!

3. Viva la Vida, Coldplay

Ok, so this isn’t exactly a latest hit anymore but it still goes down a storm as everyone recognises this happy, upbeat tune.

4. Sleeping Beauty Waltz, Tchaikovsky

Don’t dismiss this for being a cheese ball option – it’s not just a Disney theme! It was used in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty film but it was composed a long, long time before that and was meant originally to accompany Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet.

5. Happy, Pharrell

We should hold a competition here at Apollo to see whether anyone can play this with a straight face. I don’t think anyone would win though – it just makes us so… HAPPY!

6. Minuet from String Quintet no.11, Boccherini

A slightly more refined choice but a lovely, gentle, rolling melody that’s perfect for that countryside garden you’ll be sipping bubbles in post-ceremony.

7. Stand By Me, King

What better phrase to remind people of when you’ve only been married an hour. This is the beginning of a wonderful journey and although you may be racing around trying to talk to all your guests independently, you’ll be standing by each other from this day forward.

8. La Rejouissance, Handel

Written to accompany a Royal fireworks display no less and if you want the full history lesson; Handel wrote this piece to celebrate the end of the War of the Austrian Succession and the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748!

9. Marry You, Bruno Mars

This has been one of our most requested pieces, which is great as it’s one of our favourites too!

10. Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Bach

You can’t listen to this and not feel uplifting in our opinion and it’s a fantastically fun piece to play too.

That’s our top 10 wedding reception choices today… although they may very well be different if you ask us again in a month!