Our steel band and weddings are happily married!

Back in the 50s only the British upper classes would book a live steel band for weddings (please let’s not call them ‘steel drum bands’- it’s an unfortunate Americanism!) from London for their weddings. For many years that was seen as being quite a ‘posh’ thing to do. These Trinidadian musicians took their steel drums or ‘pans’ to wedding receptions and played mostly songs that Harry Belafonte was making popular at that time. It may be hard to imagine it, but in this era the musicians were regarded as minor celebrities! This was largely due to the novelty of these steel drum instruments. Some of our steel band’s players are the second generation to those steel bands’ musicians and in their youth played in a steel band for weddings. This was even before Solid Steel was founded 35 years ago!

A compact and punctual steel band

We can be single pan players if we are booked as an all-acoustic steel band for weddings. Thereby, we can need as little as 1m x 1m for each musician, so our steel band takes up very little staging space and can set up in no longer than 5 minutes. If vocals are required we would always add on a further 10 minutes of set up time for our battery-powered Bose S1 PA system. In these smaller formats our steel band is mobile so that we can be re-positioned or circulate throughout our engagement if you require that. As a larger band with mains powered amplification we will need more time to set up. So we will arrive at least an hour before we’re required to start playing to achieve that.

A steel band with versatile wedding musicians

This depends on what role you’d like the steel band at your wedding to play. Generally, each wedding musician playing steel pan will have no more than 2 steel drums, but more will be needed if your wedding reception is long and you require a steel drum workshop for your younger guests.  If you’d like us to play lively background music at your outdoor wedding drinks reception, we will always recommend that you book us as a minimum-sized trio- an all-acoustic, unplugged 3-piece. You may be on a tighter budget and/or have seen steel band musicians playing as solo players or in duos. Whilst these line-ups don’t constitute a band as such and are more limited musically as live acts, we will be happy to supply you our best players regardless, subject to availability.
Whilst we will always respect your choices, sometimes we will advise you to book a bigger and perhaps amplified band including other instruments.
Sometimes clients have unrealistic expectations when it comes to live wedding music. For example, they may want to have our steel band trio play late on in the wedding reception for dancing. Ideally, they should hire us as a bigger amplified steel band for weddings like this. One that would include a drummer and vocals and could play some ‘modern’ popular music and include some Bob Marley and UB40 reggae classics, for instance. We can play this kind of wedding music very authentically, but only with a larger wedding function band. So, please take a look at We Be Jammin’! who share several of its band’s wedding musicians with Solid Steel’s and often work together with them at the same weddings.

Sensitive musicianship

Our volume in an all-acoustic format is ideal for the ‘background’ during a champagne and drinks reception or a wedding breakfast. Many have found that string quartets can often be too quiet to be heard above the ‘chatter’ of a wedding party and that louder, brassier wedding bands or amplified groups are often too loud and intrusive in a situation when many guests are either just meeting or have a lot of ‘catching up’ to do! Remember our steel band plays at a lot of corporate drinks receptions too where being too loud might compromise a deal being discussed that’s worth millions!

Song choices for family members of all ages

Whilst very capable of playing ‘traditional’ Caribbean and calypso music many wedding clients now also expect contemporary music and, in particular, pop and reggae hits. Solid Steel’s repertoire is the most extensive in the business and can be found in the answers to the FAQs on Our Music page here. We actively encourage our clients to browse our playlist, and are happy to take special requests. We’ve got the best sound files online of any professional steel band online. There’s a very simple reason for this. We use the best musicians. Our music is represented by those musicians going into a recording studio and playing the songs ‘live’ as we did for our CD titled “Three”. So our tracks are honest representations of what we’ll produce in performance.

A steel band for wedding entrances and exits

Yes, here are some traditional and not-at-all traditional tunes that we’ve played played during ceremony entrances and exits by our steel band for weddings:-

“Bridal Chorus” from the opera Lohengrin, by Richard Wagner

“Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major

“The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba”, by George F. Handel

“You’re So Cool” from the film ‘True Romance’, by Hans Zimmer

“Wedding March from a Midsummer Night’s Dream” — Mendelssohn

“Ode to Joy” – Beethoven

“One Love” – Bob Marley & The Wailers

“Signed, Sealed, Delivered”, by Stevie Wonder

Steel band wedding song requests

With over 20 years experience using only the best musicians, we will always try and cater to your specific needs. We often get specific wedding song requests, particularly if we’re required to play for the wedding service itself. The steel band for your wedding will be properly prepared to play the music agreed upon.

Understanding wedding schedules

Weddings don’t always run on schedule and we’re always happy to be as helpful as possible and go with the flow during the engagement of our steel band for weddings. However, if we have another performance booked in later elsewhere, it’s not always easy for us to change our scheduled leaving time.

Our steel band ‘look’

We understand how important it is that we look great for your wedding photos. Our steel band’s ‘look’ is like our sound- authentic, colourful and full of sunshine for your perfect day! We’ll look the part for you and we’ll be costumed accordingly. We favour wearing black or white trousers and a colourful ‘tropical-themed’ shirt or waistcoat. Unlike Hawaii, the Caribbean islands do not have a national costumed identity that involves palm trees and girls in grass skirts. We can accommodate that theme on request, but left to our own devices we are more likely to choose alternative dress themes often borrowed from Africa or India that would make us stand out from the ‘English tourist’ costume ideas of Caribbean themed event guests in the UK.

However, please feel free to identify any specific outfit you might particularly like us to wear for your wedding.

There is an element of our look that we can’t change, of course. We are a small extended family- several of which are Cherries- which spans 3 generations. Unsurprisingly we do look a lot like a cross-section of the very racially-mixed Trinidadian society- some older, some younger, some darker skinned, some lighter skinned. Disproportionately male we would have to admit- but we’re working on more gender diversity within our steel band for weddings!

A steel band that embraces diversity

Ours does! Solid Steel is very popular and has a broad appeal across the full social diversity evident in modern Britain today. Whilst some community steel bands may only be hired as wedding music bands for wedding receptions within their own Caribbean community, Solid Steel is just as likely to be hired for an Indian wedding, a Jewish wedding or a gay wedding. Another very recent trend also is to choose our steel band as the live wedding band for post-wedding receptions. Many couples now go abroad to marry in romantic Caribbean beach settings and want to give their wedding guests back home in the UK a taste of Caribbean musical sunshine at their receptions. What better way to do this than to hire our timelessly ‘cool’ live steel band?