So it's about time I caught this here blog up with everything wedding related, I think. I've been a busy little bee (excuse the pun) writing as Miss Jaguar at the Weddingbee blog, but I realise I've completely neglected to keep YOU, my lovely blog friends, up to date with all things wedding.
Along with travel recaps & general life happenings, expect to be seeing a whole lot of wedding related goodness popping up in your readers over the coming weeks. It's time to get this blog moving again, so let's get to it!
So. Wedding stuff. One of the hardest things that I've learned to come to grips with when it comes our ceremony, is the lack of freedom. A Catholic ceremony, while beautiful and traditional in its own right, is very rigid in terms of how it works. It's still a wedding celebration, and it's still about the couple, but it's based on the principles of the church - so you work within their guidelines to enjoy your ceremony.
There are still a whole stack of ceremony details we haven't gotten into yet & won't be tackling for a few months yet. You'll hear me talk about more in depth ceremony details later on down the line, but for now? It's all about the music. Now that's something I can research without being there in person.. fabulous!
I would've loved to walk down the aisle to something I picked myself - a church appropriate song, of course.. no busting it out to Akon's 'Sexy Chick' as one of my bridesmaids is longing to do! All of our music choices need to be approved by the church though, so we're not left with a great deal of choice. That means that my dreams of walking down the aisle to 'Everything' by Lifehouse, aka: the band that brought us together, was out the window.
One option, if the church & priest agree, is to find an instrumental version of a modern song that we love and see how that goes. I've been scouring You Tube and online for covers of songs, whether by piano or by guitar/strings, and there are loads out there. Unfortunately, none has jumped up and screamed 'I'm the one!' - except I did find a guitar instrumental of 'Everything' that is a pretty big contender.
The more common option is to go with classical music, which is what I'm leaning towards right now. I'm pretty sure I'm going to choose 'Canon in D'. {Click for link} It's classical, but not quite so obvious as Wagner's 'Bridal Chorus'. Also, I could listen to it for hours on repeat, it's just so beautiful, so that's a good sign. I love how it builds up - from soft at the beginning, to more pronounced as it goes on. I think that would work really well with our Catholic ceremony, since the church I'm using prefers you to use only one piece of music for the entire procession.
The next step is to try and figure out how we'll get the music played on the day: if my budgeting goes well, my dream would be to have a string trio playing in person before, during and after our ceremony. I'm already swooning at the thought of how beautiful that would sound in our cosy little church. That's not a necessity though, as much as I'd love it to be one, so next up will be getting everything onto audio copy and seeing how that works in the church's facilities.
Any other church-friendly music suggestions out there? Spill the beans!
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9 comments:
Hi,
My girls and I had the 'feather music' from Forest Gump.
We had Catholic Church ceremony too and the Priests ONLY rule with music is that we had to enter to a 'church' song or instrumental. (I was devistated, I had dreamed of walking down the aisle to Everlong, Foo Fighters acoustic. Strange thing is he didnt care about the rest of the ceremony.
We were meant to sign the register to Ronan Keating? This I promise you, and walk out to Everlong, but our 'music man' forgot to press play on the CD when we were signing so we walked out to this I promise you.
This was definitely one of the downsides to having a Catholic ceremony. My church was very strict and we could pick from very classical selections.
We had one person play the piano and one person sing and I thought it sounded great. You could always find someone to do a piano and maybe a violin? I would recommend someone to sing so that people can follow along.
Could you attempt to find an instrumental version of Everything (perhaps by Vitamin C Quartet?) Worth a try?
I walked down the aisle to Canon in D and my bridesmaids walked to the Sleeping Beauty Waltz, both by a string quartet. I felt like I was in a movie ;) Your plans sound beautiful!
I got vetoed on the Canon by my husband, mother and organist. Sigh. So we ended up with lots of pieces from Handel's Water Music, which was fine.
I actually ended up not really paying attention to the music after all - the music I really remember was our first dance.
I got married in a chapel in Vegas (since I live here, it was the easiest choice) and we didn't get much input in our ceremony other than which chapel and which flowers we wanted as part of the package. The package we got included music, which was the Bridal March - the only choice we had on that was "yes" or "no".
I'm glad we did it the way we did, though, because I don't think I could have handled the stress of planning every little detail.
We had a string trio for just our ceremony and it stretched our budget a bit but to me it was worth it because music is so important to me. However, a lot of times an organist/pianist is at the church and is just a little extra fee for them to play.
We didn't get married in a Catholic church, but we had double clergy (the minister, and then a Catholic deacon), so we had some restrictions as well.
Canon in D is lovely. My bridesmaids walked down the aisle to Jesus Joy of Man's Desiring, and I walked down the aisle to Air. (Both by Bach).
Regardless of what you choose, I would fight for at least two different songs - you should have something you think is absolutely beautiful and IMO you should have your own song - it's a day about you and Jase!
I love the idea of using an acoustic/instrumental version of a song you love. People will here it, not immediately recognize it, then place it and smile at the meaning it has for the two of you.
I had a civil ceremony at a historical house in Campbelltown, so I wasn't too limited in music choice - all the venue asked is for us not to have any profanities in our music choice, which was fine by me!
Originally I was going to be totally traditional and go with the Wedding March but then I decided to go with Canon in D since it's one of my favorite pieces of music.
It certainly is a hard choice but do you have any hymns or psalms that you particularly like that would be appropriate for a wedding arrival?
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