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.
Since I’m still abroad at the moment, it’s made the DIY part of wedding planning more than a little tricky! As soon as we’re back in Sydney in early 2011, we’ll be having lots of meetings with the church and with our priest (who happens to be Mr. Jaguar’s first cousin!) and I’ll admit, I’ll be learning a lot as I go. I’m sure you’ll hear me talk about the 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!” Although, 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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