Incredible ceremony musicians that are also a joy to work with? Sounds like music to our ears (literally)! The ladies of Luna Strings are masters at creating the perfect balance of traditonal and modern ceremony music for your big day. It was truly an honor getting to work with the Luna Strings team at The Big Fake Wedding Atlanta, and we’re thrilled to share more about them in today’s Vendor Highlight. Enjoy!
“Luna Strings takes the ceremony experience to the next level! They are fantastic at the traditional, but equally as good at the modern! I loved getting to work alongside Katerina and her team to create the perfect blend of old and new to meet the needs of any bride.” – The Big Fake Wedding Atlanta Team
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Tell us a little bit about the story of Luna Strings.
Luna Strings started in 2008 when my cellist friend and I were still in graduate school. We looked at each other one day and said “Okay, so when we graduate… then what do we do..?” We both really liked playing together and decided to ask a violinist to start a chamber music ensemble with us. Putting ourselves out there for weddings was the next logical step—brides were always contacting our music school looking for wedding musicians and we just started responding to as many ads as we could! We picked the name Luna Strings because we wanted something that would reflect feminine energy while still sounding professional and cool. We had (and still have) a lot of pride in the fact that we are a business totally dreamed up and run by self-employed women. Eight years later, here we are, having played hundreds of weddings at this point. We’ve worked with entire families, different generations, young clients, older clients, played for vow renewals, bat mitzvahs, weddings, funerals, retirement parties, birthday parties… we have been there for so many important moments in so many people’s lives!
What is your favorite thing about music?
My favorite things about music would be enough to fill a book, I think! J But specifically, my favorite thing about playing music for weddings is that it’s our chance to give a client that perfectly soundtracked “movie” moment. I think everybody sometimes has a score playing in their head, whether they recognize it or not, and everybody has some sort of association of music (a song, a melody, a sound effect) for some important moment in their life. Playing for an audience as special as a couple making a commitment to spend the rest of their lives together is huge because you get to take that indescribable feeling that they’re sharing and bring everyone else in to the moment to share the feeling in some small way. We get to give people the chance to feel like they’re in a movie for that moment, and while they might not remember what we played twenty or fifty years down the road, they will never forget the way it made them feel.
Describe a highlight or pivotal moment in your career.
A highlight for us as a group was the wedding we played backing up Edwin McCain last year! We had a client he was close friends with, so they asked him to come sing “I’ll Be” and “Walk With You” during their wedding ceremony. Being children of the 90s, we of course knew those songs and had actually played them for other ceremonies before, but it was a bit different to get his personal string parts from him, rehearse with him, and play those songs in a beautiful venue for a large and appreciative audience. It was a lot of fun!
Who or what inspires you?
We’re absolutely inspired by all other strong women in business, no matter the business. We’ve all had amazing teachers with incredible careers who have given us a lot to look up to! As far as me specifically, I’m inspired by my dad, who has a 45 year career as a self-employed Porsche mechanic and race car driver under his belt (and is still going strong.) My dad was the first one to teach me to just figure out what I wanted to do and then find someone to pay me for it. I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life, but nothing is as fulfilling as being a musician, waking up every day, and seeing where this work takes me.
What is your favorite part of The Big Fake Wedding experience?
We LOVED the ceremony itself at the Big Fake Wedding. It was a wonderful combination of being able to show your attendees what we could do and being able to honor Tinika and Ronnell at their 10-year vow renewal. The ceremony was really meaningful and poignant. We enjoyed using our creativity in a different way to pick music and craft a ceremony based on more abstract things like colors, fabrics, and the other categories on the inspiration board. Music can be just as important of a design element as things like flowers and lighting and it was really fun to get to explore that idea!
Photo Credits:
Angie Webb | Sterling Graves | Jason Hales Photography
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