When my daughter Nicola got married, choosing the songs was the easy part. She and Alex had picked every piece themselves: the processional, the signing of the register, the walk back up the aisle together.
The question that stayed with me in the last week was a different one. Not “is this the right song?” but “will it actually play?”
I have spent over twenty years working with Apple technology, and that was still the question that mattered. Wedding Player exists because of that ceremony. Readiness Reminders, new in Wedding Player 3.1, exist because of that last week.
The three things that go wrong on the day
Most wedding music problems are not found at home. They are found at the venue, with guests seated and no signal.
A track that was never downloaded. An Apple Music song can look perfectly fine in your playlist at home, where it streams over WiFi. At a venue with no signal, a song that was never downloaded for offline play has nothing to play from. The same goes for a local file that has gone missing from the device.
A moment left empty. Ceremonies change. A reading gets added, the order shifts, a moment is created as a placeholder “to fill in later”. Later arrives, and nobody filled it.
Apple Music access lost. A settings change, a new phone or an account change can leave the app unable to reach Apple Music. Everything looked ready last month; it is not ready now.
Each is easy to fix three weeks before the wedding and very hard to fix three minutes before it.
What Readiness Reminders do
Readiness Reminders tell you before the wedding if something in your ceremony needs attention, while there is still time to fix it. What you get depends on how you use Wedding Player.
Every couple gets a free wedding countdown: a reminder 30 days, 7 days and 1 day before your confirmed wedding date. No upgrade needed.
With Premium (a one-off £12.99, no subscription), Wedding Player adds four readiness reminders, based on the latest check of your wedding:
- Offline readiness: know if local files are missing or Apple Music tracks may still need downloading.
- Empty moments: a nudge to add music to any moment with an empty playlist.
- Apple Music access: a heads-up if Wedding Player can no longer access Apple Music.
- Day-before summary: one final summary of anything to check, or reassurance when the latest check finds no issues.
We wanted reminders that help rather than nag. You get at most one reminder a day, and if the same issue is still there, we normally wait seven days before mentioning it again. You choose which reminders you get, in Settings > Wedding Readiness Reminders.
Wedding professionals on Wedding Player Pro get one summary of every upcoming client wedding that needs attention, soonest first, which we cover below.
What they don’t do
It is worth being plain about this. Readiness Reminders are notifications on your device, based on the latest check of your wedding. Wedding Player does not check your music continuously, so opening the app now and then keeps that check up to date.
Notifications also depend on your phone’s settings. Focus modes and Scheduled Summary can silence or delay them, so it is worth allowing Wedding Player to show banners when it asks.
A one-week checklist, with or without the app
Whatever you use to play your ceremony music, these five steps in the final week will catch most problems before they reach the venue.
- Download everything. Make sure every track is stored on the device that will play it, not streaming. In Wedding Player, the Offline Readiness screen shows what is ready and what still needs downloading.
- Do an airplane-mode test. Switch the device to airplane mode and play the start of every track in order. If a song will not play with no connection at home, it will not play at a venue with no signal. See our guide to playing wedding music without WiFi or signal.
- Fill every moment. Walk through the running order from the first guest arriving to the last one leaving the room. Every moment should have its music, and every piece should be the version you chose.
- Charge the device. Charge it the night before, and bring a charger and cable on the day in case there is a delay.
- Name the person pressing play. Decide who is running the music, give them the device before the day, and let them rehearse once. A nervous friend who has practised is far better than a confident one who has not.
For celebrants and venues
If you run ceremony music for other people’s weddings, the problem multiplies. One couple’s processional that was never downloaded is a problem; across a full diary of weddings, it is much harder to spot without a way to see them all at once.
Wedding Player Pro gives you one summary of every upcoming client wedding that needs attention, soonest first, and you can look ahead up to 24 months. See Wedding Player for professionals for the details and the free month to start.
Get ready early
The best time to find out a song will not play is weeks before the wedding, at home, with a cup of tea. Download Wedding Player for free, set your wedding date, and let it remind you while there is still time to fix things. You can see how everything works on the Readiness Reminders page.
Readiness Reminders are on iPhone, iPad and Android.
I built Wedding Player for my daughter’s wedding. Now it’s available for yours.
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No account needed. Plays offline once your tracks are downloaded.
