Wedding Blog

Music was a task that Mr. Canary took full ownership of, since he loves music and it’s his passion and hobby. He spends about three nights a week out checking out new or local bands. Initially we had considered a band, but after much thought, we decided to go with DJ Gaza after we had heard some of the mixes he sent us. It was like he raided our iPods and CDs because there wasn’t anything we didn’t like. And ultimately, we wanted to hear our favorite songs in their original arrangements and not as a cover by a band.

DJ Gaza was great to work with. We only met once and corresponded throughout the entire process by email. He made sure that the music would work with the flow of the entire event and had an uncanny knack for reading the crowd– which was important for a Sunday wedding.

When it came time to create our play list, as usual, we deferred to Google Docs and created a master spreadsheet with the following categories:

- When?
- Artist
- Song
- Notes

Whenever we thought of a song we wanted to include, we went to the document and added it to our list. In the end we probably had over ten hours of music! DJ Gaza told us to average 17 songs/hour. So after we had all the songs we could imagine, we preened it down to a couple of hours and went back and added “*” to our “Must Play” songs and noted “Do Not Play” songs. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds because there were a lot of negotiation as to what would be a “Must Play” song. In the end, we had a fairly eclectic mix to both our liking.

One of the easiest ways to start a list is to go through your iPod playlists and preen from there. We also went through DJ Gaza’s site and looked at some of the mix CD lists he had put together and selected from those. I’ve also included a PDF of our final picks in case anyone wants some inspiration, though I warn you, our music taste is all over the board!

wedding_playlist.pdf

The hardest part was selecting music for our ceremony, our first dance, and parent dances. Below is a “mix tape” of our final selections. We decided to go for more modern for the ceremony, and classic with the first and parent dances. Personally, I think the best decision I made was to go with a fairly obscure Sigur Ros song, Track 4 off “( )”, for the bride’s procession. No one really knew what to expect and it helped to set the tone for the moment.

How did you decide on songs for your playlist?