Weddingbee Blog

One of my favorite things about Los Angeles is the radio station KROQ. I love this station for two reasons: first, it broadcasts Loveline. I used to listen to this program every single night in college. Second, like me, KROQ seems to be musically stuck in the 90s. On my drive home the other day, I heard a collection of Stone Temple Pilots, REM, Harvey Danger (?!), Offspring, and Smashing Pumpkins songs.*** I was pretty pumped.

I am only a tiny bit embarrassed to admit that the evolution of my music tastes stalled somewhere between my junior and senior year of high school. What this means for our wedding, though, is that I am relying heavily on Mr. Mole to create our ceremony and reception playlists. He is much more musical, both in terms of his ear for good songs and his ability to play instruments and sing.

Since our ceremony is going to be relatively short, we were only faced with the task of picking a song for our processional and our recessional. The “our” in front of “processional” is purposeful: Mr. Mole is also going to be processing down the aisle with his mother! It only seemed fair that he also have a grand entrance.

We ended up deciding on Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” for the processional. After some debate, we picked Aretha Franklin’s cover of the song. It’s just so beautiful and classic, and we love the way that her voice conveys the meaning behind of the lyrics. It’s a bit longer than the original, but we think it will edit down well.

Mr. Mole suggested for the recessional that we use Bob Dylan’s “Tonight I’ll be Staying Here with You.” (Mr. Mole is a huge Dylan fan.) I wasn’t very familiar with that song, but I was 100% on board as soon as I heard the song and read the lyrics. I couldn’t find a studio version of the song on YouTube, but I found a good cover of it by Tina Turner.

In terms of the dinner reception, there are some songs that are on my very small “should-play” list:

• Wilco, “I’m Always in Love”
• Lucinda Williams, “Passionate Kisses”
• Gaslight Anthem, “Casanova, Baby” and “The Spirit of Jazz”
• Mike Doughty, “Unsingable Name”
• Counting Crows, “Rain King”
• Smashing Pumpkins, “Tonight, Tonight”
• Vampire Weekend, “A Punk”
• Madonna, “Cherish”
• Regina Spektor, “Fidelity”
• Rolling Stones, “Beast of Burden”
• Proclaimers, “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”

How did you decide on the music that would play on your wedding day? What songs are on your “must-play” list?

***Listening to KROQ that day also reminded me of one of my favorite “wedding” songs, although it doesn’t exactly convey the correct tone for our day. Ha. Here’s a video of Dramarama’s “Anything Anything” (1985).

Any other KROQ fans out there?