civil ceremony music

A staff member did ours. At a friend's civil wedding a staff member/registrar asked everyone to be seated and pressed play. Make sure it's set up correctly. Friend chose a Beatles track but due to an error they played "we all live in a yellow submarine" !

If they dont want to take responsibility for starting the music is it something the best man could do?

Might not be a good job for the best man because he will also be needed at the top for the rings. I don't see a problem with giving the job to a guest, but just remind them to fade down the volume instead of just cutting it off - sound so much better that way.

I'm unsure of how it works at our venue either, as our ceremony venue is basically unmanned & a bit DIY! I'm going to ask the registrar at our meeting in May, but I've lined up a guest to do it just in case as he also needs to be in charge of music at the reception! ?

We have to ask a guest to do ours. The venue will talk them through it on the day. I'm putting all of the music onto a CD, and onto playlists on my iPod and laptop as backups.

Thanks all for the replies. I'll certainly ask the registrar and the venue again but will probably have to get one of the grooms brothers to do it. I'm just glad to see this is not an unusual scenario.