Musically Inclined

I come from a very musical family. Two of my uncles and my youngest brother are incredible guitar players, and Mr. Blue Moon's brother has a great voice. I've lived in three amazing places for music: Nashville, Macon, Georgia, a mecca for southern rock, and the Mississippi Delta for the blues. You would think that by now I would have at least made some time to learn to play an instrument with some proficiency or something. I guess it's just not to be.

Brother S and my two uncles jamming last Christmas. Personal Photo

That said, I LOVE music even if I can't really make it. Choosing music for both our wedding ceremony and the important dances at the reception was a lot more difficult than I anticipated, so I thought I would share some of my process for whoever is struggling with this like I did.

For the ceremony, I started by thinking about what I DON'T want. Blue Mom was all for having everything stay very traditional. Canon in D, Wagner's Bridal Chorus, and pretty much everything she had in her wedding. All of these ideas would make a beautiful wedding ceremony, but I considered how we might be able to personalize some of the music to who we are as a couple.

With that goal in mind, Mr. Blue Moon and I picked a couple of songs from movies that we love or songs that have an important meaning to us to be played instrumentally as part of the ceremony.

I have dozens of songs I love from movie soundtracks, so we decided that the ceremony would be a good way to sneak them in without having an overtly wizard, Disney, or classic film themed wedding. Both being massive Harry Potter nerds, but not wanting it to take over our wedding day, we decided to use a song from one of the movies, Neville's Waltz, as our prelude song immediately before the ceremony begins. I also chose an instrumental version of Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany's for the wedding processional, when our groomsmen, bridesmaids and flower girl will process down the aisle.

For the bridal processional, I chose the title song from Tuck Everlasting, a movie I adored as a kid. Mr. Blue Moon is putting his foot down on any over-the-top Disney references, but this one will be subtle. Even after I grew out of the movie (sort of), I always seem to have the melody stuck in my head. It sounds so romantic, and it's also nice and short- since our aisle is seriously only going to take like fifteen seconds for Daddy Blue Moon and I to walk down, it didn't make sense to pick a piece that won't even really be started by the time we reach Mr. Blue Moon.

Mr. Blue Moon also suggested that we think about some songs that mean a lot to us lyrically. Even if our guests don't recognize them, they will still have a deep meaning for us. To that end, we chose our recessional song based off of one we have listened to many times on our long trips between each other's cities. Our wedding will truly be a homecoming after so many years of long-distance living!

How I'm going to feel when we finally live together. Image via PetMountain.com

For the seating of the grandmothers and mothers, I decided to compromise with Blue Mom on something more classic. We will also have one hymn sung a capella during the ceremony itself.

The final breakdown looks something like this:

Prelude: Neville's Waltz by Patrick Doyle
Seating of the Family: Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel
Wedding Processional: Moon River (Instrumental) by Henry Mancini
Bridal Processional: Main Title by William Ross
Hymn: The Greatest Command
Recessional: Home (Instrumental) by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

We've hired Mockingbird Musicians, a piano and violin duo, for our ceremony music, and I know they'll do an amazing job! They are charging us a little more to arrange some of the lesser-used selections on our list, but I think it's worth it to have exactly what I had in mind.

How are you choosing your ceremony music? Do you like the traditional sound, or are you stepping a little bit outside of the box?