Emily Whelan – Original Singer Song Writer
I was sooooo nervous about writing my first original wedding song, so many thought’s running through my mind.
Would there be a market for this service and how would I find people that would be interested in writing an original song for their wedding? Even if I managed to find a couple, they may not even like it! But one thing I’ve learned in life, is that you cannot allow your fears to hold you back, I knew I really, really wanted to achieve this goal, and that I just needed to step outside of my comfort zone and trust in my abilities.
It’s funny how the universe can bring the people and thing’s you need, when you are truly ready to take action. I happened to be reading a magazine with a lovely article in it about a very popular wedding planner called Sharon McMeel based in Limerick. It got me thinking, sure I don’t actually physically need to meet people in person to write their wedding song, it can all be done over phone, Skype and email. So I decided to give her a call and talk to her about my new service to see if she might have any couples that might be interested. She loved the idea, and said she thought she might have a couple that would be interested. A few days later I received an email telling me she had found a couple from Limerick that would love to learn more about me service. I got in contact immediately and talked to a lovely girl called Ciara O’Shaughnessy, who was soon to marry Seanie Ryan. She seemed to be really excited to have the opportunity to write their own wedding Song. This was mid July and their wedding was the beginning of Sept, so time was of the essence as we only had a few short weeks to complete the song!
We spoke for a while over the phone, she was a very warm and friendly person with a bubbly personality. I had my pen and paper to hand so that I could capture every detail of our conversations, and began to get an idea of her personality. I then sent them both a questionnaire to be completed and sent back to me, which they decided to fill out separately. When I received the filled out questionnaire’s a few days later I couldn’t believe how similar they were. For instance when I asked them what words described their Ceremony they both came back with practically the same answer…
Ciara wanted a romantic, fun but quirky ceremony
Seanie wanting a fun, relaxed and quirky ceremony
When I asked them give me an idea of the feel they would like their song to have, their answers were….
Ciara: Fun, uplifting, a bit of romance
Seanie: A good song to get people in the mood to dance. Fast-ish, that is also funny.
Taking everything into consideration and absorbing myself in their words and personality I was able to start the writing process. Every song is unique and sometimes this can be a slow process that can take weeks, other times it will take a few day, but it can also be done in a matter of hours if you are feeling particularly inspired and connected to the essence of what you are trying to portray. In this case it took me 3 days to complete the writing of the lyrics and melody for their song. What I had hoped I had achieved was a song that expressed their unique love as a couple and the lives they share together. After carefully immersing myself in their personality there song was born. A song that would capture their quirky, romantic, uplifting, fun & upbeat personality that also had a splash of humor in it.
Although I was extremely excited, and happy with my creation I was very nervous about sending them their first demo. I set up a recording mic and recorded a demo of the song for them to listen to, and emailed it to them as an MP3. I waited nervously for their feedback. Then I received a text message from Ciara saying….
“Emily we are actually at a wedding today with Sharon McMeel and the four of us ran outside before the food arrived for a listen. We absolutely love it, the lads said it could be a no.1 on the radio. Absolutely blown away with the song, you are so talented and have the most amazing voice. After listening to it once, we all found ourselves humming along to it, very catchy. Thank you so so much!”
I never expected to get such an amazing reaction, I was absolutely over the moon, and practically jumping with joy. From that moment on I knew that I was on the right path, and that this was a special gift that I wanted to peruse and share with the world. In the coming days I recorded the song in my home studio, I then produced the overall sound and feel of the song, mixed all the instrumentation and finally sent it off to be Mastered, the final polish to make it my first master piece of many more to come. I then emailed them the final Master of their song which was called “Hello Sunshine” and sent them of a physical copy on CD with their lyrics. The recording process for this particular song took about a week to complete. So all in all the whole process from beginning to end took around 2 – 3 weeks if I add it all together.
What was very surprising to me was that I never expected to feel so connected to them as a couple, even thought we never met in person I felt so honored to be a part of their special day.
Here is Ciara’s and Seanie’s testimonial…
Our amazing wedding song
From the moment we heard about Emily from our wedding planner Sharon McMeel we were excited about having a personalised song created for us. We had never heard of anything like it before, very original and we knew straight away it was something we wanted to do. We knew it would be very special and something we would have forever.
From our first chat with Emily we found her to be such a lovely person, very warm and bubbly personality, an absolute pleasure to talk to and you can see how much she loves doing what she does. She showed so much enthusiasm. We gave her our story and a few weeks later we received the first draft from her. We were absolutely blown away by what she had created for us. She really got us as a couple and this really came through in the song. We wanted a fun upbeat romantic song and she delivered on that beyond our expectations. She is incredibly talented and has the most amazing unique voice that you just want to listen to over and over again. It was so brilliant that we didn’t want any changes made to it, it was perfect. After listening to it the first few times we found ourselves humming along to it all the time.
The song went down a hit with all our family and friends, they thought it was a real “us song” some even said it sounded like it could be a No. 1 hit on the radio.
We would highly recommend for any couples getting married to contact Emily. It would make such a special and personal surprise gift from a bride to groom or vice versa. I know we will always listen to our song with the fondest of memories of our wedding. Thank you so much Emily, we will treasure it forever, Ciara & Seanie
