Traditional vs. Contemporary Wedding Music
I’ve been to a lot of weddings, and pretty much all the music I’ve heard during all those ceremonies falls into one of two categories: Old Reliables and Oh My Gods.
You know the Old Reliables: Mendelssohn’s wedding march, Wagner’s wedding march, from “Lohengrin,” I think, Pachelbel’s Canon in D, Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” and the unfortunately titled “Air on a G String,” and “Ave Maria,” primarily.
Once in a great while you’ll get a slight variation on those . For instance, the wedding march from Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro.”
At one wedding I attended, the bride walked in to the tune of “Pomp and Circumstance,” which was a tad incongruous except for the fact that they’d both graduated from
college earlier in the day. At another, the bride walked in to “Spring” from Vivaldi’s “Wedding Party Songs“ Four Seasons,” which would’ve been fine except that it was about 18 degrees outside.
One nonclassical work that has wedged its way into the Old Reliables is “The Wedding Songs” written by Noel Paul Stookey of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary. The Baby Boomers got into it because it was written by one of their own, and the Baby Boomers’ parents didn’t object because at least some of the lyrics are biblically derived. Either that or Stookey bribed an awful lot of wedding planners.
But in the modern era, straying beyond Stookey’s opus is likely to lead you quickly into the land of “Oh My God.” These are the selections that cause you to cringe, slump in your seat, blush for the happy couple, think, “What were they thinking?” and try desperately not to make eye contact with any other guest lest you both burst out laughing.
There was the wedding where the bride marched in to John Denver’s “Annie’s Song.” No, her name was not Annie.
There was the bride who came in to “I Can Only Imagine,” which, arguably, would make more sense at a funeral. I don’t know how many weddings I went to in my teens and early 20s that featured the Carpenters’ “We’ve Only Just Begun,” which struck me as wholly appropriate for the wedding of a couple who’d lived together for three years.
After that, it was Bryan Adams’s “Everything I Do,” from the execrable Kevin Costner version of “Robin Hood.” More recently, I’ve watched a dad walk his daughter in to “Butterfly Kisses,” and maybe I’m just weird but that struck me as a bit strange.
My recommendation? For the songs for lighting of the unity candle, stick with the classics unless bride or groom has enough musical background to venture confidently beyond the Old Reliables without engendering the standard Oh My God reaction in guests.
You can be more adventurous at the reception. I should know. The song my wife picked for our first dance was Dave Edmunds’s “I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock and Roll).”
None of my friends blushed.