Weddingbee

When it came time to choose the music I walk down the aisle to, the task wasn’t easy. I looked at the usual bride entrance songs and there wasn’t anything that I truly loved… they just weren’t me. Plus, I wanted to choose a song that both Mr. Flamingo and I loved. It’s a really special moment and having a song we love will make it even more special

After an endless amount of searching, I finally found it. I will be walking down the aisle to Forest Gump’s (Feather Theme) by Alan Silvestri. Mr. Flamingo is the one that had introduced me this song. He would listen to it all the time so I thought it would be perfect. I love this song so much and just listening to it makes me all teary eyed.

Here is the song:

Is anyone else incorporating music from movies into their weddings?

We put off picking processional music till the very last minute of planning!  I’d always wanted a musician to play an instrumental version of our first dance song for my walk down the aisle, but I couldn’t bear to sink another few hundred bucks into a musician to play for less than an hour, so we opted to choose music for our DJ to play as we walked down the aisle.  Because of this, I gave up the instrumental aisle song.

BUT! Lo and behold! Itunes carries a huge selection of Karaoke music! Some songs sound pretty electronic, but I lucked out and our first dance song, “Only Hope,” by Switchfoot, was on the list…and not only was it on the list, but it sounds beautiful! The song is very long and boring, so I edited down the music to a little over a minute and left all the juicy parts in. Amazingly, it’s not the slightest bit cheesy at all! Have a listen…

Itunes Album: “Karaoke: Sing a Greater Hope”
Song Title: “Only Hope”

What is your walk down the aisle song and why did you pick it?

Thanks for all your kind comments on our iPod disaster, everyone! As long as I mentioned my much-obsessed-over playlists, here they are. If they can help anyone else’s song-choice process, maybe they’ll serve some purpose!

But first a story/tip. By now, most everyone knows the standard music advice like “pay attention to the lyrics” (some seemingly romantic songs are actually quite depressing when you listen to the words), and “choose short songs” (you don’t want to be dancing for ever … and ever … and ever). But one that’s often overlooked is to pay special attention to the START of each song.

This is particularly true for key songs like processionals, recessionals, and the first dance. People respond best if the song catches their attention from the start. For example, for our recessional, we considered “So Happy Together,” by the Turtles. But there’s a whole verse before it hits the happy, uplifting chorus. By then we would have been down the short aisle and gone.
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In light of Miss Pineapple’s recent post on iPod wedding music, it’s time to share the tale of our biggest wedding disaster:

Because we had a budget wedding, and because I’m so picky about music that I couldn’t leave our playlist in anyone else’s hands, an iPod wedding sounded perfect. We had only around 50 guests, so we didn’t anticipate any trouble broadcasting to the dancefloor with a good set of speakers. (For a fancier sound-system set-up, check here.) I separated our pre-ceremony, cocktail hour, and dance playlists and set them to run in order so there would be no worry about choosing songs. We asked Mr T’s brother to serve as emcee so there’d be someone to provide introductions and transitions and move things along when necessary. And, in addition to loading the playlists on my iPod, I burned copies on CD and we loaded extra copies onto Mr T’s computer. Just in case!

(Mr T tries desperately to fix the iPod)
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Unlike the uber-hip-and-fabulous Miss Penguin, I’m not so much into Top 40 music. To be honest, I shut my radio off and stopped buying moderns cds six or seven years ago! I listen to jazz, and *weird music* (as my sister, a hip-hop-lovah, likes to call it), but mostly I love to listen to instrumental and classical music.
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Mr. Pineapple and I decide to join the bandwagon and have an iPod/Macbook set-up for our wedding. The main driver, like with many people, for us was cost. I feel that the DJ can make or break the reception. I have been to both a wedding with a good DJ and one with an embarrassing DJ. Often good DJs come with a hefty price tag. So, if we were going to take a risk with going cheap, we figured we would go ahead and take the plunge to DIY our music.
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After much consideration, we’ve decided to go with a live musician for the ceremony & cocktail hour. Due to the acoustics of the Chinese Rotunda, it makes the most sense to go with a musician as opposed to having a sound system in that space.
We’ll have our dj from 6:30pm until the end of the evening, but from 4:30pm-6:30pm, Christopher Dunn will be playing classical guitar (samples can be heard on his website). He has agreed to write an arrangement of “The Wind” by Cat Stevens for my processional, which I’ve always imagined going down the aisle to. Here’s a layout of the ceremony music:

The prelude (it’s up to him what he plays)
The wedding party’s processional (In my Life -The Beatles)
The bride’s processional (The Wind - Cat Stevens)
The interlude (it’s up to him)
The recessional (Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles)
The postlude (it’s up to him)
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To the shame and embarrassment of some of my “cultured” friends, I’m ridiculously into Top 40 music.  If Ryan Seacrest likes it, so do I.  It took the power of 10 horses for me not to add Miley Cyrus to my wedding playlist.  I think my bridesmaid Jess would vomit all over my white dress.

There. I said it. I love Miley Cyrus. Don’t hate.

That being said, I spent the last two days compiling a “Regular Playlist for a Regular Bride,” and I hope some of you will be able to benefit from it. I separated the songs into categories, Beginning with “key songs”, then cocktail/dinner songs, and finally, reception songs divided by tempo. It’s about 7 hours worth of music!

Key Songs:

mother/son dance song TBA (Yeah, that’s right Mr. Penguin, get on it).
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My favourite wedding planning book is “Bridal Bargains” by Denise and Alan Fields. One cost saving tip that I’ve used is considering students over professional vendors. For example, they suggest using local horticulture schools for flower arrangements or culinary schools for catering and cake.

We didn’t go with either of those options, but we did contact graduate students in the music department at our local university. The department actually had a list of their students who are looking for gigs on their website. I wrote to all eight that said they did weddings and heard back from two, so the non-responders really helped me narrow down my choices.

image source

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We asked Mr. Penguin’s brother Paul for a little help picking out some songs with an “Italian-American” vibe to play during dinner at our reception, since the winery we’re getting married at has a Tuscan theme.  We thought Paul would be the expert to turn to since he has both a love for music, and a love for Italy. It didn’t all have to be sung by Italian Americans, but we wanted the music to all fall in the same genre.  Rather than shove a couple ideas our way, he sat down and made this amazing comprehensive list (with notes!) and I thought I’d share it with all of you in case you’re looking for similar music…because even if you’re not getting married at a Tuscan winery, Sinatra is always in vogue!

Funiculi Funicula- There’s a 3 Tenors version of this, or at least Pavorotti that’s good, a must have
Tu Vuo’ Fa L’Americano- The “Talented Mr. Ripley” version is by Adriano Celentano, who’s huge in Italy now, but I think the original is by Renato Carosone
Bella Notte-This is the song from Lady & The Tramp when they eat spaghetti
Eh Cumpari- Julius LaRosa, this one still gets the little kids in Italy going
Swinging On a Star-Bing Crosby, probably Bing’s best, swingingest song
Play A Simple Melody-Bing Crosby
I’m not sure he’s Italian, but Bobby Darin-Beyond the Sea,
and Mack the Knife are great
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