Ceremony Songs and Celeb Song Choices

Ceremony Songs and Celeb Song Choices

December 18th, 2008 @ 5:55 pm by Mrs. Champagne

Remember the secret life of Miss Champagne? In a nutshell, I’ve always been involved in the arts and music has had a huge influence in my life. So through my music experiences, I’ve been so lucky to work with some seriously talented folks. One in particular is our pianist. She’s unbelievably talented and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her have to look at a sheet of music—she just plays… I get goosebumps just thinking about it! Anyway, she’s agreed to play during our ceremony and she directed me to a website that has wonderful guidance for prelude, processional, ceremony, and recessional songs. We’ll also have a violin, so I was looking for songs that would fit for piano and a violin.

The website is My Wedding Music and it’s run by two musicians, the O’Neill Brothers. This site is so helpful because it actually allows you to listen to each choice, and recommends songs for each section of your ceremony.

There’s one other thing I love about this site—the celebrity song choice section!

I’ll totally admit that I’m that girl who watches TMZ and flips through OK Magazine while I’m waiting in the grocery check outs. A complete waste of time, I know, but I like the occasional dose of celeb gossip.

Look at some of these celeb song choices. (All from My Wedding Music)

Ceremony music:
Courtney Cox & David Arquette: “Maybe I’m Amazed” (Paul McCartney)
Donald Trump & Melania Knauss: “Ave Maria”
Felicity Huffman & William H. Macy: “I Feel Good”
Pink & Carey Hart: “She’s Always a Woman” (Billy Joel)
Niki Taylor & Burney Lamar “Better Together” (Jack Johnson)

1st dance songs:
Britney Spears & KFed: “City by the Bay” (Journey)
Christopher Knight & Adrianne Curry: “The Music of the Night” (Phantom of the Opera)
Rob Thomas (Matchbox Twenty) & Marisol Maldonado: “I’ll Be” (Edwin McCain)
Tori Spelling & Dean McDermott: “Air” from Handel’s Water Music
Mariska Hargitay & Peter Hermann: “Amazed” (Lonestar)

Celeb Serenades:
Andrea Bocelli: sang for Katie Holmes & Tom Cruise’s wedding
Billy Joel: played for Donald & Melania Trump’s wedding
Christina Aguilera: serenaded her husband, Jordan Bratman, with Etta James’s “At Last”
Sting and Billy Joel: performed at Robert Downey Jr. & Susan Levin’s wedding
The Barenaked Ladies: played Jason Priestley & Naomi Lowde’s wedding reception

I was struggling with the prelude songs because although I love the elegance of all classical music, I would love to incorporate some recognizable songs for our guests to enjoy as they wait for the ceremony to start. Specifically, I thought it would be cool in include our first dance song “Bless the Broken Road” in an instrumental version before the ceremony. Is it too much to have it played twice?

How did you decide on your ceremony music? What will you walk down the aisle to?!

Tags: ceremony music, vail |

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8 Responses to “Ceremony Songs and Celeb Song Choices”

Guest

West Coast bride

It’s not too much! And I doubt that very many people will really notice that you’ve used two different renditions of the same song. It makes perfect sense to do so.

It’s also become very popular (as shown by some of the celeb songs) to have non-traditional ceremony music if you’re able. We’re using some Johnny Cash, Jason Mraz and Ben Harper in our ceremony!

12/18/08 @ 6:09 pm (reply)

Guest

Tabby

Thanks so much for sharing this site. I’ve been looking for instrumental versions of some songs I wanted to use as preludes but I’ve not been able to find them. But they had two of them I wanted and they also had “Kiss the Girl”(how cute it that).

Ceremony music has been one of our hardest decisions. He has what he likes and I have what I like. I’ve decided I’ll be walking down the aisle to ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love” and he’ll be picking the song we walk out to.

12/18/08 @ 8:03 pm (reply)

Hostess

driftslikesmoke (message) 1,220 posts, Bumble bee

My dream song to walk down the aisle to would be the aria from Life Is Beautiful that Guido plays for Dora in the concentration camp. The music and lyrics are so beautiful and romantic, and it’s our favorite movie. I just don’t know if our Catholic ceremony would allow it. :-/

12/18/08 @ 9:28 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Champagne (message) 1,068 posts, Bumble bee

@Tabby: aw I didn’t even see “kiss the girl”- that’s so cute!

@driftslikesmoke: find a priest that you know, and tell them how special it is to you- maybe it could work?! I dunno- probably a long shot:)

12/18/08 @ 10:26 pm (reply)

Guest

Kayla

If you like classical versions of easily recognizable songs you should look up the Vitamin String Quartet, they have tribute albums to almost any band you could want. Their music is easily recognizable but beautiful and appropriately classical for weddings

12/19/08 @ 12:55 am (reply)

Member

sugardre (message) 39 posts, Newbee

I walked down the aisle to “The Way I Am” by Ingrid Michaelson - jazzy and contemporary, yet cute. Our registry signing song was “All I Want Is You” (from Juno) by Barry Louis Polisar. We recessed to “D’yer Maker” by Led Zeppelin. I still loooooove our choices! I love that music can be used to really personalize your wedding

12/19/08 @ 8:15 am (reply)

Bee

Miss Taffy (message) 2,601 posts, Sugar bee

That’s a great website! We had no idea how to start looking for ceremony music. I don’t think it is too much to play a song twice- we use visual graphics more than once!

12/19/08 @ 9:15 am (reply)

Guest

Kicking Off the Dance Party » Weddingbee » The Wedding Blog

[...] (inspired by Mrs. Cookie and Love Actually) The Way I Am, Ingrid Michaelson (love this song, and so do other bees) 1963, Rachael Yamagata (not really wedding-esque, but a great song) Maybe I’m Amazed, [...]

2/23/09 @ 3:46 pm (reply)