October has turned out to be a great month for weddings!  I have booked 5 weddings for this month alone, which I am extremely excited about.

For the first weekend in October I played two weddings (one on Saturday and one on Sunday).  The Saturday one was an outdoor wedding in Newton, MA.  The weather was beautiful and the ceremony was set for dusk.  They placed me under a beautiful pavilion which resonated the bellowing sound effortlessly with every stroke of the bow .  It was the perfect spot to amplify across to the wedding ceremony which took place down below in an uncovered space.

The second wedding was on October 2nd.  I was called to play this wedding literally a couple of days beforehand.  My boyfriend was so nice to drive me all the way to Meredith, NH for the gig.  Unfortunately, when we arrived, it was pouring rain and the temperature was in the 50s.  As luck would have it, it was still scheduled for outdoors.  The weather was so wet and gloomy that I was concerned both for the wedding party walking through muddy grass and for my violin which I cannot allow to get wet.  I was lucky enough to find a small space under a covered part of the Inn where I could still see everything.  I played for both the ceremony and the cocktail hour and the bride and groom, despite the weather, were in wonderful spirits.  They were very cheerful and so nice to talk to afterward.

Last weekend I played a quartet wedding with my best friend who also plays violin.  She and I played in a professional string quartet 5 years ago and she just recently moved to Boston and is also my roommate!  It was nice to perform with her again.  This one was outdoors in Brookline and the temperature was in the mid-80s!  I didn’t realize we would need sunscreen for a wedding in October…

When we arrived we realized that this was not the traditional wedding.  The couple had actually already been married and were re-affirming their vows.  This was so special – usually I get to see couples before the marriage even begins.  In this ceremony we witnessed a couple who were still so in love after years of being together and weathering the highs and lows of marriage.  We all felt honored to be a part of this ceremony.

When it was time to set up for the wedding I realized that the wind was incredibly strong – being right next to the water.  So I did my best to secure the music stand to the ground with my violin case and hold the music onto the stand with paper clips.  The music stand held (barely) – but my hair was plastered to my face the entire time. Needless to say, I decided to just play all of the music from memory –  closing my eyes rather than re-securing the music for each piece.  It was a great test for my memory!  The wedding went well though, and the bride was very complimentary and seemed pleased – always something I like to see : )

On the way home I stopped at IKEA to get some kitchen supplies – and I couldn’t resist the hotdogs at 50 cents each…making my total consumption of hotdogs for the day Four!  I think I will be eating salads exclusively for the next couple of days ~

Then, last weekend I played a wedding in Middletown, Rhode Island. It was at the Sweetberry Farm. I got to the wedding a couple of hours early and ate lunch at Flos near the water. Of course, this was the day before the Hurricane hit the coast so it was quite an adventure. The wedding was supposed to be outside, but because of the weather we had a tent over us. I was glad that I brought an amplifier with me because there were about 200 people there and being outside, it would have been hard to hear the one violin among that many people talking. After the wedding I made sure to pick some raspberries and eat those before leaving – all in all, it was a fun day and the bride and groom seemed to be having a great time.