Music to Marry To: Part 4

Now that I've shared all the music we planned to play at our wedding, it's time to get real here ya'll. Things did not go totally as planned, but hopefully you can learn from my mistakes!

First off ... the things that worked well.

• The last-minute decision to use two songs for the processional instead of just one. Once we were at our rehearsal and saw how long it would take to get all our family down the aisle, I was glad I had already set aside a second song. I still didn't want to walk in to my own song since our aisle was so short, so the bridesmaids walked in to the same song I did.
• The recessional to the "Throne Room" song from Star Wars. This was a BIG hit. Our guests got a laugh out of it and our bridal party spent the whole rehearsal practicing their Darth Vader and wookie impersonations in anticipation. It was awesome.
• Having a few group dances and songs people like to sing loudly to. Even if they seem cliché. They're cliché for a reason: everyone knows them!
• iTunes playlists in general. I loved putting them together, I loved the music we chose, and I loved having control over everything. Hee hee.

Things I would have done differently:

• When we decided to include communion in our ceremony, our pastor wanted it to be "all or nothing" — if we were going to include it, everyone would have the chance to receive it. I was not expecting very many people to participate due to some religious variances in our family, so I was flabbergasted when the bulk of our guests came forward to receive the sacrament. When "Your Love" ended, there was no other music to switch to simply because I hadn't anticipated that so many people would want to share with us. So "Your Love" played twice. I should have picked a second song just in case.
• When I was planning, I wanted our wedding to feel like a giant cocktail party. I absolutely accomplished that feel, but I think maybe it was silly of me to expect the social cocktail party to turn into a wild dance party just because dance music was playing. Don't get me wrong, people danced when they wanted to, and we still had a good time, but it never turned into the dance party I was expecting.

Now that part I know you're all curious about. Logistics.

• If you're going to DIY your music, get someone to help you. Get a friend or DOC to be in control, so that in the event of needing to stop the music, skip around or WHATEVER, you'll have someone to deal with it. While I noticed little issues with the music, there wasn't much I could do about it at any point in time. Our friendor DOC was invaluable.
• Sometimes important people leave wedding receptions early. Such is life. If it is important to you that these people experience an "event," you may wind up bumping it up a little earlier than planned. We ended up jumping around in the playlist a lot. We bumped up both the cake cutting and the tosses by about 30 minutes apiece. Some of the music didn't get played. That was okay. Even though our "event" music was scheduled into the rest of the playlist, it wasn't a problem since our DOC could click around in the playlist. 
• We did have a few instances in which we needed to pause the playlist and wait for people to gather on the dance floor, including for the tosses and the anniversary dance. No music is not the end of the world, but if that would bug you then maybe pad your events with extra songs.

And finally, because I know you want to know whether or not this was a massive train-wreck ... our self-emceeing.

• It didn't work. But not for the reasons ya'll predicted and warned me about! Honestly, I don't think anyone even noticed we had self-emceed, because we had some sound system issues at the reception. If the volume got too loud, the sound would just cut out. (We think we accidentally overloaded the generator? or something by plugging in the caterers' equipment in the sound booth since there was no kitchen space.) The music cut out several times, and at the beginning of the reception, you could barely hear the music, much less our emceeing. Our voices just weren't loud or persistent enough, so our DOC or family members stepped up to the mic whenever it was necessary.
• One of the things ya'll were concerned about was us missing the music cues. We had our DOC give us a heads up about 10 minutes before each "event." She also made suggestions mid-reception regarding the playlist skipping, so we had a pretty good idea of when things were coming up and could plan to be on the floor accordingly.

There you go! I hope this is helpful to ya'll, and if you have any other questions, leave a comment or PM me!

Did anything about your wedding surprise you?

Music to Marry To: Part 3

Catch up on the music for the ceremony and the cocktail hour, and then join us for our dance playlist!

First Dance:
• "Smile" by Uncle Kracker

Dance:
• "I Gotta Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas
• "Club Can't Handle Me" by Flo Rida
• "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz
• "You Make My Dreams" by Hall and Oates
• "Twist and Shout" by the Beatles
• "The Way You Look Tonight" by Frank Sinatra
• "Bennie and The Jets" by Elton John
• "Shout" by The Isley Brothers
• "Boot Scootin' Boogie" by Brooks and Dunn

Anniversary Dance: Emceed by SIL Hyena
• "Remember When" by Alan Jackson

Dance, cont'd:
• "I Just Want to Dance With You" by George Strait
• "Chicken Fried" by Zac Brown Band
• "Love Your Love The Most" by Eric Church
• "Thriller" by Michael Jackson
• "SexyBack" by Justin Timberlake
• "Cupid Shuffle" by Cupid
• "Calabria 2007" by Enur
• "Sway" by Michael Bublé
• "I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)" by Pitbull
• "Cha Cha Slide" by Mr. C
• "Low" by Flo Rida feat. T-Pain
• "I Like It" by Enrique Iglesias feat. Pitbull
• "Firework" by Katy Perry

Cake Cutting:
• "Felt Good On My Lips" by Tim McGraw
• "Why Wait" by Rascal Flats
• "Sweet Thing" by Keith Urban

Dance, cont'd:
• "Right Round" by Flo Rida
• "DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love" by Usher
• "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" by Michael Jackson
• "You're The Inspiration" by Chicago
• "Livin' On A Prayer" by Bon Jovi
• "Shake It" by Metro Station
• "Hips Don't Lie" by Shakira feat. Wyclef Jean
• "Shake Yo Tailfeather" by Nelly, P. Diddy, Murphy Lee
• "Yeah!" by Usher
• "Forever" by Chris Brown
• "OMG" by Usher feat. will.i.am
• "Lost In This Moment" by Big and Rich
• "Friends in Low Places" by Garth Brooks
• "Party for Two" by Shania Twain and Billy Currington
• "Then" by Brad Paisley
• "Just Got Started Loving You" by James Otto
• "Kokomo" by The Beach Boys
• "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond

Bouquet Toss:
• "Man! I Feel Like A Woman" by Shania Twain

Garter Toss:
• "Rocky Theme" from the movie Rocky


Dance, cont'd:
• "Wonderful Tonight" by Eric Clapton
• "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey
• "Texas Aggie War Hymn" by Texas A&M Aggies
• "All My Tomorrows" by Frank Sinatra
• "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by The Proclaimers

Whew! That's a lot of music! All in all, including the cake cutting, tosses and other special events, this playlist was just under three and a half hours.

What's your favorite song to dance to?

Music to Marry To: Part 2

I shared the music we played during our ceremony, and then it was time to get the party started! We had our coordinator start our cocktail hour music right before people were set to arrive at Downtown 202. Here is the complete set list.

Cocktail Hour Music:
• "Hey, Soul Sister" by Train
• "1901" by Phoenix
• "Hey Beautiful (Theme from How I Met Your Mother)" by The Solids
• "1234" by Feist
• "Come On Get Higher" by Matt Nathanson
• "Just The Way You Are" by Bruno Mars
• "Stuttering" by Ben's Brother
• "Today Was a Fairytale" by Taylor Swift
• "God Gave Me You" by Dave Barnes
• "I'd Rather Be With You" by Joshua Radin
• "I've Got You Under My Skin" by Frank Sinatra
• "After an Afternoon" by Jason Mraz
• "Falling In Love At A Coffee Shop" by Landon Pigg
• "Say Hey (I Love You)" by Michael Franti and Spearhead
• "Rhythm of Love" by Plain White T's
• "All I Want Is You" by Barry Louis Polisar
• "You're So True" by Joseph Arthur
• "Witchcraft" by Frank Sinatra
• "Somebody's Me" by Enrique Iglesias
• "White Dress" by Ben Rector
• "I've Just Seen A Face" by Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe soundtrack)
• "We Weren't Crazy" by Josh Gracin
• "Come Fly With Me" by Frank Sinatra

You may notice that I have a lot of songs that are from commercials, movies and TV shows. I get all my best music inspiration from those!

Where do you find music inspiration? What are you playing during your cocktail hour?

Music to Marry To, Part 1

Since we rocked an iTunes playlist for our music instead of a DJ, I wanted to share with ya'll the complete music sets for our wedding. At the end of the series, I'll let you know what worked, what didn't, and if we would have done anything different in retrospect. I'll also talk about logistics and the details of our self-emceeing!

But to get there, we have to start at the beginning. The ceremony music.

Pre-ceremony music: We started this playlist about 30 minutes before the ceremony began, so our guests would have music to listen to as they waited. Remember, all the ceremony music needed to be "fitting of a Christian worship ceremony."
• "Praise to the Lord, The Almighty" by David Nevue
• "Simple Gifts" by Jim Brickman
• "Amazing Love (You Are My King)" by David Nevue
• "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" by David Nevue
• "Joyful" by Jim Brickman
• "How Great Thou Art" by Jim Brickman
• "Wedding Bells" by Jim Brickman
• "Words Left Unsaid" by David Nevue
• "Jesu" by Jim Brickman
• "If You Believe" by Jim Brickman

Processional:
• "Hallelujah" by Vitamin String Quartet (the Paramore cover) - for family
• "Bless the Broken Road" by Rascal Flatts - for bridal party and bride

Communion/Thanksgiving: We decided to serve communion during our ceremony instead of doing any kind of unity candle (or alternative) ceremony.
• "Your Love" by Brandon Heath

Recessional: We did get our pastor's permission to use this!
• "Throne Room (Star Wars)" by John Williams

What music did you play/are you playing in your ceremony?

Joy Pouring From My Eye Sockets

I finally bought all the songs on our playlists, and I'm slowly "finalizing" them all by listening to them and making sure I like the order.

First things first, I listened to our pre-ceremony playlist. This music makes me so, so happy. Next came the processional. I imagined our families walking to their seats in the church ... I imagined my walk ... and then I imagined Matt's face as I walked down the aisle. And then I started crying.

image via The Purse Forum

Hold yourself together, woman! You're not there yet!

Did you/will you cry when you walk down the aisle?

Music Good Enough to Eat

Where we left off on the music front, we had decided to emcee our own wedding. This turned out to be a really fun idea; Mr. Hyena and I did all our recording in GarageBand on my MacBook in one night, and it didn't take very long. Once all the serious announcements were done, we spent a good long time playing with the settings and singing ridiculous things just to see how awesome we could sound. ("I Will Survive" duet in Diva voice featuring Mr. H and my kitty-boo? Yes, please!)

Anyway, we decided to overlay Mr. Hyena's emcee-ing over the intro to the songs for each event, because he doesn't want there to be silence and then HIS BOOMING VOICE in the middle of our reception. I am SUPER PUMPED for the songs we picked. Especially for the cake cutting.

I had a vibe I was going for: I wanted the music to be cohesive, and I wanted to choose something unique that you don't hear at every wedding. I wanted songs that were upbeat and danceable, in case it didn't take that long, and people wanted to get back to dancing. I chose a few different songs because I intend to cut the cake with Mr. Hyena and then eat a piece or three. Maybe other people will want to do the same. :)

If not, that's okay. More cake for me.

Mmm sexy cowboys singing while I nosh on buttercream. What could be better?

What will play when you cut your cake? Do your pets sing duets?

You know this makes me want to SHOUT!

For the first time since we got engaged, I recently started to freak out a little bit about our reception music. We'll be joining the masses rockin' an iPod/laptop reception, and I have very little grasp on the logistics.

via iWorld-CLUB
Panic! Adorable Panic!

Sure, I've got a basic outline of the music we'd like to play for the various parts of the reception, and we've got plenty of time to finalize it. I've talked to the woman who owns Downtown 202 about some of the logistics of hooking up a laptop (she said to come in a few weeks in advance to make sure everything will hook up properly, or just burn CDs of all the music).

What I wasn't sure about, though, is how the actual reception is gonna go down. Obvs, we would like to have music for the anniversary dance, cake cutting and the bouquet and garter tosses, as well as plenty of time to cut a rug. This is where it got complicated in my brain.

• When we select music for these moments, should they be embedded into the rest of the dance playlist (for minimal playlist-switching on the part of Bridesmaid A), or each event on a separate playlist?

• If each one is on a separate playlist, do I need to separate the entire dancing playlist into sets so there isn't any repeats in the music?

• Without an emcee, how do we let everyone know it's time for each event?

These questions were bouncing around in my head, unsolved for a couple of days, in which I was almost frustrated enough to blow the whole thing off and just hire a DJ. I had worked the iPod at Bridesmaid A's wedding, but since her wedding was mid-afternoon with no meal and no toasts and not many announcements, I don't remember how she accounted for these little things (and neither does she). I mainly just recall hitting play on her cocktail hour playlist, and then switching it over to the dance playlist when she and her new hubby walked in.

Luckily, Mr. H came up with an answer to my many questions ... and I promise you'll think it's crazy. You'll want to stay tuned for this.

If you had an iPod reception, how did you deal with the little "events"?

I Heart Pianos

I've just GOT to share some music I discovered! The contract with our church specifies that our ceremony music should be fitting of a Christian worship ceremony, and we needed some kind of pre-ceremony music. We're not planning to hire ceremony musicians, so our music will be done through our church's sound system.

While planning Bridesmaid A's wedding, I discovered *clouds parting in the sky* the Vitamin String Quartet. VSQ is a group of musicians who cover current pop/rock songs using only string instruments, and they're faaaabulous.

VSQ's cover of Paramore's "Hallelujah," which I want to play as a "Everybody pay attention, we're about to start the wedding" song!

I love VSQ, but Mr. Hyena isn't such a fan (I probably went a little too nuts before A's wedding). Also, I don't think they have covers of religious songs. I didn't know where to start looking for instrumental Christian covers, so I went over to Pandora and started a Vitamin String Quartet channel. Along the way, a few religious instrumental songs popped up, and I jotted down the artists' names so I could look them up on iTunes later.

And that, dear friends, is how I discovered this magic:

And this too:

I am so in love with piano music. I put together some mock ceremony playlists heavily featuring misters David Nevue and Jim Brickman, followed by the awesome Paramore cover and ending with "our song" — Rascal Flatts' "Bless the Broken Road" — which we're using as the processional (this is the live version, we're using the CD version):

You guys, I love it! And yes, we only have one song for the processional. As you can see, it's about four minutes long, and our church's aisle is ... about 20 feet tops. Everyone can just walk down in the same song, and I'll walk in when it gets to the dramatic musical interlude. :)

For the recessional, this is what Mr. Hyena wants:

Boys. :) I'm giving him this one. He hasn't asked for much. But I'm making him ask our pastor if he'll allow us to use it.

What music are you using for your ceremony?

Magic Words

via Film Critic / "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"
The man may be the head of the household, but the woman is the neck, and can turn the head any way she wants.

I've finally convinced Mr. H that we had to have "Smile" as our first dance. HOORAY!

We've had the majority of our music discussions while on the road visiting our families, since there's not much distraction and we have time to kill. While in my hometown, Mr. Hyena and I decided to grab lunch at Taco Bueno. (Bryan/College Station has no Taco Bueno, FOR SHAME.) This may or may not have influenced his decision-making, knowing that a delicious Wholotta Platta was coming his way. I had YouTube up on my iPhone so we could listen to songs, and I casually mentioned that I still liked "Smile" as an option. He couldn't remember which one that was, so I casually looked it up (it was already loaded) and played it for him.

"It's nice," he commented.

Then I uttered the magic five words: "It makes me really happy."

Well of course, smart fiancés ALWAYS want to keep their ladyfolk happy, and Mr. H is one smart cookie, so he agreed. And I think it's grown on him a lot since then. He's bought it on iTunes and has sung parts of it to me a few times. He says it's very "us." Exactly!

Have you had to talk your fiancé into anything wedding-related? How did it go? Or better yet, has he had to talk you into anything?

First Dances

I always figured it would be pretty easy to pick our first dance song. "Our song" is Rascal Flatts' "Bless The Broken Road," and we could just leave it at that, but you know how I like to make things difficult. :) I thought it seemed a little slow for a first dance, and I decided I'd rather use it for the processional.

Back to the drawing board we went. Mr. Hyena wanted something very classic, and I wanted something that really represented "us" as we are. It took us a while to find the point where those two meet, but we've done quite a bit of brainstorming, and here are some options that, if we don't end up revisiting, at least they can give you some ideas!

• "You and I" by Michael Buble

We both really liked this song, but I think it might have been ruined by one line in the third verse. Something along the lines of, "You may not be here forever," which I don't really think is a deal-breaker, but he was over it. *pout* But ... pianos!

(source)

• "Smile" by Uncle Kracker

The first time I heard this, I knew it was perfect. Mr. H didn't like that it was sung by Uncle Kracker. Psh. No one will know!

• "Fly Me To The Moon" by Frank Sinatra

I'm pretty sure Mr. Hyena has Frank Sinatra's entire discography. There were a lot of song options by Frankie!

• "I'd Rather Be With You" by Joshua Radin

I would like to thank Pandora for introducing me to Joshua Radin. He has a byooteeful voice!

• "Til There Was You" from The Music Man

Start at about 1:15 in. This would be fitting, since Mr. H knows "Trouble" word-for-word. :)

• "Grow Old With You" by Adam Sandler, from The Wedding Singer

Technically the song starts :27 in, but it's such a cute scene you should watch the whole thing. :) This one was ALMOST PERFECT, but once we edit out all the talking, the song is only about a minute and a half long, and we both wanted our first dance to be longer than that.

Is it obvious which picks are mine and which are my darling fiancé's? :) What are you using for your first dance?

Dancing with my father

I love to dance. I took dance lessons from age 5 until college, where I decided I couldn't live without it, so I took tap classes for a couple semesters.

My dad ... well, he didn't share my enthusiasm for dancing. He dreaded going to me and my sister's dance recitals every year (no worries, I totally understand. Sitting and watching something you don't enjoy for four hours every year for 14 years is PAINFUL, so way to go H-Dad for being there anyway!).

Because of this, I am pretty sure I have never once in my life danced with my dad. Not only that, but I'm pretty sure we have nothing musical in common. He listens to hard rock from the '70s, mainly, which is pretty much the only genre I'm not interested in.

The only song in his musical library I can remember liking when I was a kid is Led Zeppelin's "Lemon Song," but I just looked up the lyrics, and they are NOT appropriate, and will NOT be making an appearance at the wedding!

Get those boys some haircuts!

(source)

When I mentioned doing a father-daughter dance – because that's what you do, not because I really was looking forward to it – I don't think H-Dad was that into the idea. I know it's tradition, and Mr. Hyena wants to do a mother-son dance, but it feels like it's forcing an awkwardness that H-Dad and I just don't have. We're close, but a different kind of close. We enjoy going on walks together and talking hot-button issues. Can we go on a wedding walk instead?

John Cleese's Ministry of Silly Walks!

So what to do, what to do?  It was a long shot, but I went through the entire discographies of Led Zeppelin and The Who to see if there were any songs that could be even REMOTELY construed as a potential father-daughter song. If your dad is like mine, save yourself the trouble — there's not. So I turned to my darling fiancé.

"Mr. Hyenaaaaaaa ... I can't find a song to dance with my dad to!"

"So then don't do one if you don't want to."

"But you wanted to dance with your mom."

"Just because there's not an official dance doesn't mean I won't have the chance."

Have I ever mentioned I have the best fiancé ever?! As long as he's happy with this arrangement, I'm happy too. So I called H-Dad and offered this suggestion, and he was pleased. Now my dad doesn't have to dance, we don't have to find a song, and it'll be more of an "us" wedding. I don't really like the idea of doing something merely for tradition's sake when there's nothing personal about it, and now I don't have to.

Does your dad have different taste in music than you?