You’re Engaged! Congratulations!
You’ve probably already booked your wedding venue, bought your wedding dress/outfit, sorted out your food and wedding cake and decided on your wedding transport. Then, eventually, you’ll get to organising your wedding entertainment. But is this the right order in which to book your wedding suppliers? Extensive research on music and memory shows that booking your wedding band or entertainment is better placed at the top of your list.
Think forward to the bitter-sweet moment when the last of the guests have wobbled happily away, the caterers have packed up and the wedding dress has been put safely back into its cover. What remains in that moment is your new happy marriage and countless unforgettable memories. And that’s where your wedding music comes in. It’s music that has the incredible power to take you back to a specific moment in time and make you experience it all over again as if you were actually there - no amount of photographs, wedding gifts or even guests’ recollections of your big day can do the same.
Remembering the memorable
Memory building on your special day is critical. I remember the day before my wedding our vicar gave us a crucial bit of advice - he told us to take just one moment during the ceremony to stop and look around. To try and commit to memory everything that was going on: our loved ones, our flowers, each other and the expressions on our faces. I remember thinking this was a very strange bit of advice - it’s our wedding day, of course, we’ll remember each and every detail. After all, we spent months organising every little thing, right? I stood corrected.
Your wedding day is an assault on your senses: the overwhelming emotions, the beautiful outfits, decorations, the delicious smells, sounds of laughter, the taste of the champagne, wine, food - all of which you’ve lived and breathed while you were planning your perfect wedding. Remembering it all as you bob through the day trying to talk to everyone and enjoy it to the fullest is a challenge. And so you need a memory anchor. Your wedding band and the music they play can serve as a grounding mechanism, to help you make your day truly unforgettable, in every sense of the word.
What’s Music got to do With Memory?
Scientific research, including but not limited to the field of neuroscience, has proven that music and memory are inextricably linked. Think about it; at school you memorised your ABC’s through song; you probably used music to help you study or concentrate at some point in your life and I bet you can still remember the majority of the nursery rhymes you heard as a toddler not to mention the annoying fact that you’ll no doubt be able to recite most of the lyrics from your first ever album (but can’t remember where you put your keys yesterday.)
Music helps with your memory through a process called chunking - where individual pieces of information are grouped together to make it easier for you to memorise them. This is particularly crucial when you consider the fact that your short term memory can only deal with seven elements of information at a time.
Those parts of your brain responsible for storing information, process masses of it every minute so tapping into that storeroom and locating a particular memory can be difficult. Music helps us do this by providing breadcrumbs back to that specific memory through the rhythm, the tune, the lyrics and the corresponding images that they draw out.
Music - The Emotional Trigger
Most importantly of all however, music is capable of triggering powerful emotions. If you think about it, music is the go-to for almost all of your happy, sad, stressful or calm times. Look at the amount of Mood playlists on Spotify - you’ll find one or more for every way you might be feeling. Hearing the first few chords of a familiar song or a recognisable rhythm might transport you to a whole different place or time, much like a time machine. You might remember the excitement of your first holiday without your parents when you danced through the night or the sadness of your first breakup. You don’t even have to like the song - Las Ketchup has never fallen into my list of favourite artists, yet the Las Ketchup Song never fails to bring back happy memories of my first school trip where we played it on repeat in the stuffy bus, chomping on sour skittles which still make my tastebuds react violently - see, music can even trigger taste memories! So powerful is music as a mnemonic tool, it's being used to help treat Alzheimer's, Dementia, traumatic brain injuries, depression, anxiety and a whole host of other psychological ailments.
Music As a Social Lubricant
Music then, is fantastic at summoning memories we didn’t even know we had but let’s return to how music can help you form those memories in the first place. Consider every wedding you’ve ever been to - what was your favourite part of it? Did it involve music in general or the band specifically? I would be willing to bet that it did. Now think about how your wedding day would go without a great band leading the festivities.
Music is a great social lubricant that brings people of all ages, personalities and interests together to dance the night away. Without it, after the excitement of the ceremony, the fabulous food and free-flowing drink, people might start flagging, the younger guests might get bored and - unless all of your guests know each other extremely well and are the best of friends - conversation might start to dwindle, with people peeling off before the cake cutting. With a great wedding band, who know how to energise the crowd, these become non issues as your guests hit the dance floor - and stay on it - until the wee small hours.
To top it all, of all the wedding themes you’ll come up with, your musical choices will reflect your personality and the tone of the day, better than anything else. Be it Rock and Roll, Country, Cheesy Pop or Heavy Metal, music is a great way of introducing you and your tastes as a newly married couple into the social circle of your friends and family (just try not to get the playlist wrong - a song-based confessional may not work out in your favour when your guests don’t quite see eye to eye with your choice to play exclusively Dubstep all night long.)
A wedding band can make or break your day; you could be the trend-setters who others use as inspiration for their wedding or event or the cautionary tale if the band didn’t know how to make the celebration yours and tailor it to your specific requirements. So no pressure!
So you need a Scottish Wedding Band?
Before you start panicking, Music For Scotland have you covered. We won’t leave you stranded among a sea of conflicting decisions, controversial or inflexible playlists, overtired bands or exorbitant bills, comprised of things you didn't know you had to pay for. We’ll work with you and guide you through the process start to finish. We’ll make sure you’re fully informed each step of the way, so that you get exactly what you’re after for your wedding or special occasion.
At Music For Scotland, we’re best placed to match you and your event to the perfect Scottish Wedding band, who will reflect the unique personality and requirements of your occasion. We hand pick the most talented musicians and over 10 years Music For Scotland has grown into one of the largest suppliers of live entertainment across Scotland for every type of event - both personal and corporate. We’re musicians first and foremost, so we are experts at what we do and can offer you experience-based advice on how to select your band and ensure that they help you create unforgettable memories during your wedding, corporate event or private party wherever you are in Scotland.
Whether you’re in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, the Highlands or the Lowlands we’ve got the definitive list of music bands in Scotland so let us help you make your occasion one you’ll always remember.
Check out our selection of fantastic Wedding Bands or contact us direct to see how we can help.