Solid Steel- the ideal band for your wedding

We have married our steel band to weddings!

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 British society regarded that as being quite a ‘posh’ thing to do. These Trinidadian musicians took their steel drums or ‘pans’ mostly to the wedding receptions of the ‘well-to-do’. There they played calypsos and songs that Harry Belafonte was making popular at that time.

It may be hard to imagine, but in this era these musicians acquired minor celebrity within the upper class set! This was largely due to the novelty of these steel drum instruments at weddings. Some of our steel band’s players are the second generation to those steel bands’ musicians. So even in their youth they played in a steel band for weddings. This was even earlier than Solid Steel’s inception 35 years ago!

A compact and punctual steel band for your wedding

We can be single pan players if you book us as an all-acoustic steel band for your wedding. In this circumstance, we can need as little as 1m x 1m for each musician and his/her drum at your wedding. As a result of our steel band requiring so little staging space, we can set up in less than 5 minutes. Additionally, if you require vocals we always arrive 10 minutes earlier to set up our battery-powered PA system. In these smaller formats our steel band is mobile so that we can re-position our steel drums at your wedding. We can even 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 you require us 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.  So you’d like us to play lively background music at your outdoor wedding drinks reception? We will always make the following recommendation. 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. These line-ups don’t constitute a band as such and are more limited musically as live acts. However, we will be happy to supply you our best players regardless, subject to availability.

We will always respect your choice of steel drum entertainment. Nevertheless, 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 steel drum 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, for instance. Then our steel band could play some ‘modern’ popular music and include some Bob Marley and UB40 reggae classics. 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. Hence, they often work together with them at the same weddings.

Steel drummers with sensitive musicianship

Our volume in an all-acoustic format is ideal for the ‘background’ level you require. This is the case whether it’s during a champagne and drinks reception or a wedding breakfast. String quartets can often be too quiet and inaudible above the ‘chatter’ of a wedding party. Conversely, louder, brassier wedding bands or amplified groups are often too loud and intrusive in a drinks reception. One must remember that many of the guests need to chat and have a lot of ‘catching up’ to do! We should know. Remember our steel band plays at a lot of corporate drinks receptions too, where being too loud might compromise the discussion of a deal that’s worth millions!

Steel drum wedding music choices for family members of all ages

We are highly skilled at playing ‘traditional’ Caribbean and calypso music. However, 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 wedding tunes that we’ve played on our steel drums in the past. Furthermore, the following steel drum wedding music was played during ceremony entrances and exits by our steel band, historically:-

• “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 drum wedding music and song requests

With over 20 years experience using only the best musicians, we will always try and cater to your specific needs. We take specific steel drum wedding music requests, particularly if you require us to play for your wedding service itself. Our steel band will always prepare itself properly to play your requisite wedding music on our steel drums.

Flexible scheduling for weddings

Weddings don’t always run on schedule and we’re always happy to be as helpful as possible. That means we tend to ‘go with the flow’ during the engagement of our steel band. Consequently, we will strive to keep our steel drums at your wedding set up for as long as possible. However, we may have another performance booked in later elsewhere. It’s not always easy for us to change our scheduled leaving time, but we will always try!

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 will costume ourselves 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. There are no palm trees and girls in grass skirts. We can, of course, accommodate that theme on request. But, left to our own devices we are more likely to choose alternative dress themes often borrowed from Africa. These 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 musical 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 reluctantly admit. However, we are working on that! We consider it very important that we have more gender diversity within our steel band for weddings, in the future!

Finally, it’s important to note that our steel drums will always look stylish at your wedding!

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. The occasional couple within the Caribbean community will hire a community steel band to play steel drums for their wedding reception. However most are just as likely to hire Solid Steel as their steel drum wedding music band for an Indian wedding. Or 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 want to go abroad to marry in romantic Caribbean beach setting. They also want to give British guests a taste of Caribbean musical sunshine at a wedding reception on their return. What better way to do this than to hire our timelessly ‘cool’ live steel band to play steel drums for them?