Music: The Forgotten but All-Important Wedding Accessory

Victor Hugo once wrote, “Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” And when it comes to weddings, no truer words have been written or spoken.

While many brides have a laser focus on picking out a custom Azazie wedding dress, choosing venues for the ceremony and the reception, or ordering wedding bouquets and table decorations, music is often the last item to be checked off the wedding to-do list. This is unfortunate because there are many aspects of your wedding that can be enhanced by well-chosen music- music that adds to the overall aesthetic and emotional impact of your wedding choices, tells your story, and complements the visual details of your wedding.

Here we’ve compiled some suggestions and some caveats for choosing music for your very special day.

The wedding ceremony. Your wedding ceremony music is critical to telling your story and reflecting who you are as a couple. Remember that the processional is a song that not only introduces the bride with her groom but also sets the tone for the bride to enter the room and be seen by her guests for the first time.

While many traditional brides may choose to use a classic, timeless wedding processional song like Pachelbel’s Canon in D or Wagner’s Here Comes the Bride Chorus, other brides may want a more contemporary song that reflects both who they are and what they want their guests to understand about the couple. Songs like Vandross and Carey’s Endless Love or Colbie Caillat’s Fallin’ for You are choices that a more modern bride may choose. There are many processional songs in every genre, including instrumental, Disney-inspired, country, and even alternative music that presents a specific aesthetic.

While the processional can create a dramatic entrance, there is often music throughout a ceremony. Many religious ceremonies include traditional music appropriate to the particular denomination. Ceremonies that are non-denominational or secular may opt to include a song somewhere in the middle of the ceremony. These are love songs with lyrics that share a part of your story that may be unknown to the guests.

Recessional songs are usually upbeat as the exit from the ceremony is usually quick and are a segue to the reception to follow. They follow that first, happy husband-and-wife kiss, so songs like Stevie Wonder’s Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours) or Sinatra’s The Best is Yet to Come are appropriate and popular choices. Like the processional, there are recessional songs for the country bride, the traditional bride, and the contemporary bride alike.

The wedding reception. The wedding reception is a time when a wide range of music should be played. Most brides and grooms invite a diverse group of guests that span ages, backgrounds, musical knowledge, and overall musical tastes. While a couple might be inclined to play music that they and their group of friends love, it is important to remember the other folks in the room.

Keeping everyone happy means the party is more likely to continue throughout the evening and get people on the dance floor. That’s the purpose, after all! Make sure that the person you hire has a list of songs to play that change things up from fast to slow, from old to new, from line dancing to other forms of dancing.

While you might not be inclined to play all of the cheesy wedding songs most people expect, Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline and Kool & the Gang’s Celebration are sure to get everyone on their feet, so be sure to include some of the best wedding reception songs across genres and time!

The wedding video. Many people who marry choose to have their wedding videotaped, often professionally. After the initial taping, many turn it into a wedding video keepsake. Choosing a song from your wedding is always a great way to underscore the emotion of the day and simulate the memories, but you may decide instead to choose one or more songs that you love that you were not able to include in the ceremony. Before you make any decisions about wedding video songs, there is a caveat!

Unfortunately, many people do not realize that if you want to have Bruno Mars Marry You in your wedding video, you will need to pay to license it. While it’s hard to understand and even harder to accept, even though you may have paid for a song on iTunes, you cannot simply add it to your wedding video. Wedding videos are considered commercial projects that are not automatically covered by a personal use license. Commercial copyright law means that if you want to use someone else’s work for something other than casual listening on your iPod, you will likely need to discuss intellectual property and copyright law with someone like lawyer Aaron Kelly.

If you intend to upload your video to YouTube or Facebook to share it with friends and relatives, you can be pretty certain that your wedding video will be flagged. Keep in mind that if a record company finds your video with their music attached (without proper licensing), they are well within their rights to sue you. Even if you don’t intend to utilize it on social media and intend to keep it for personal use only, keep in mind that it is still both illegal and unethical to do so.

To avoid this problem, you may want to have music generated by a family member or friend who is a piano player. The music created for you will create lasting memories.

What musical choices are you exploring for your wedding?

-- ZylaCourtney - 05 Apr 2018