Your Wedding Day is probably the one special day in your life where you don’t want anything to go wrong. After all those months (or years) of meticulous preparation, it would be a pity if your Wedding Reception would be remembered as a humorous piece of gossip by relatives and friends.

It is very important that during the planning of this event, the bridal couple seeks Wedding Service providers who they feel they can entrust completely with their Special Day.

If you happen to meet Michael Manduca at the Weddings Fair next weekend you will immediately realise that you are talking to a person who has a certain amount of experience in the field of Wedding Reception Music. “I have been playing at Wedding Receptions for a number of years now, and this gives me great satisfaction.”

To ensure that on your Special Day nothing will go wrong on his part, Michael has a complete back-up system to this effect. “I made sure that every piece of equipment I have is backed up with a double, and this includes a spare keyboard and amplifier. You cannot allow anything to go wrong at a Wedding Reception as this day will never come again,” he says. Michael turns up at the reception venue with ample time to set himself up, and is usually ready to start playing long before the first guests arrive. “Just imagine what it would be like if I arrive after the bride,” Michael says with a laugh.

Michael can play the grand piano or provide his own electronic keyboard. At the mention of this, some clients might imagine a lot of fancy electronic sound effects, but you can use these only if you decide to. At weddings Michael does not use any sound effects at all but uses only about eight musical sounds in all and they are very faithful to the natural instrument sound.

He usually plays relaxing background music, which creates the atmosphere at a wedding, obviously to the tastes of the bridal couple. “I keep the sound level to the barest minimum whilst making sure that I can be heard by all the people at the reception. At the weddings I play, people do not shout at each other in order to be heard”

Michael always invites prospective clients to listen to him play. He generally establishes a good, friendly rapport with them, and they finally end up by treating him as one of the family. “It is important for me to get to know the bridal couple personally, as this enables me to choose the music according to character.”

He derives the greatest satisfaction when he sees that the couple is satisfied. “The mood is set by the bridal couple and the guests, and I do my best to go along with the mood they create, playing tunes which are appropriate to the occasion.”

Michael plays regularly at hotels and clubs three to four times a week. This keeps him very busy as most of his weekends are taken up by weddings.

If you are interested in hearing Michael Manduca play, you can do so at the Weddings Fair 2000, Hall B, Stand 11, where the baby grand piano he plays is sponsored by Brincat’s Piano Centre of Pieta’.