Music Monday 09 - Wedding Ceremony Songs

On Friday all the interested parties met to makes plans for my upcoming wedding. It was a good meeting and we talked about the wedding and a lot of important factors like date and size. It was fun to talk about the wedding and everything that goes into a wedding. I never sat and planned out my wedding as a little boy; I was too busy having He-Man fight my Ninja Turtles. But, after sitting and talking about the wedding, it is a fun process to think about what that day might look like. The issue of music was brought up and, having thought about music before, I thought that I’d just pick a playlist and tell whatever DJ to play those songs. Apparently I have a narrow view of what music at a wedding means, though, because others seemed far more concerned with music during the ceremony. I hadn’t really thought about music during the ceremony, apart from playing the music from the throne room scene at the end of the original Star Wars as my new wife and I walked back down the aisle. (That idea has since been nixed and I’m just starting to get over it). But what about music during the ceremony?

I’ve been to a lot of weddings and heard music done in different ways. At a lot of weddings the music during the ceremony was played off an iPod or some other recording. The couple picked different music to be played before the ceremony as the family was being seated, as bridesmaids walked down the aisle and as the bride walked down the aisle. Most of these songs are usually some classical composition that no one can identify yet everyone knows. That’s not a bad way to do music. If the right music is selected, it can be classy and not that much can go wrong, unless someone doesn’t know how to push “Play.”

I’ve also been to weddings that had live music during the ceremony. At my sister’s wedding there was a full band playing the music during the ceremony. My sister and her husband sat down with the band as they were planning the wedding and chose all the songs for the ceremony. If I was leading a band during a wedding ceremony, I would be tempted to Rickroll the bride and play “Never Gonna Give You Up” as she walked down the aisle. I was also in a wedding that had a live string quartet playing all the music before and during the ceremony. That was super classy and it was fun to watch everyone’s bows moving in synchronization. Honestly, though, I don’t know if I’m that classy. I’m not really a quartet of strings guy, I’m much more a quartet of banjo, spoons, cider jug and washboard.

I’ve been to plenty of weddings but I obviously don’t know everything that is out there. So, if you have any suggestions for how to do music during a ceremony, please share them with me. You can suggest whatever you want but, if it involves country music in any way, know that Rascal Flats and Keith Urban will not be making any appearances at my wedding. Carrie Underwood can make an appearance, but only if it’s an actual physical appearance. And you can suggest something like the YouTube video that The Office copied, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to play a Chris Brown song at a wedding.

What have you heard at weddings as far as music during the ceremony and how did you like it?