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Fellow Townspeople, please join me in congratulating Townsman Rick Massimo on his marriage, two days ago, to a perfectly wonderful, kind, sweet, intelligent woman. He’s lounging in the sun on the West coast of Australia right now (that’s where his wife is from), so I have my doubts he’ll be checking in on goings-on in the Hall, but…
Well, here’s the deal: like children’s music, most contemporary music selected to be played as part of a wedding service really, really sucks. I mean, really — how many times can you hear “Love” by John Lennon without realizing it’s a teeth-shatteringly saccharine greeting card of a song? I say: once! So, fellow lovers of love, I challenge you: here’s your chance to insert a song of your choice into the wedding ceremony for Townsman Rick, right after the preacher’s cautionary, hopeful message and before the vows are taken. Make sure it doesn’t suck!
HVB
Has anybody actually used that Lennon turd as part of their wedding ceremony? (My quick apologies to those of you who may come forth to say YES, THAT WAS OUR SONG!) I think of all those inspirational ballads by the likes of Celine Dione and Chicago when I think “contemporary music” used as part of a wedding ceremony. Choosing that Lennon song would be, I think, a bit of a sign of a couple’s hipness, despite my not liking it very much.
A couple of friends played “In My Life” following the vows at our wedding. Call it cliched, saccharine, or what you’d like, but it was a wedding ceremony, man. It seemed to us to fit the bill then and to this day. We weren’t going to try to impress a handful of attendees with some half-decent, hipster obscuro number.
More importantly, CONGRATS TO RICK AND THE LOVE OF RICK’S LIFE!
Billy Idol’s White Wedding, man!
Congratulations, Rick.
Rather than micro manage the dj at my wedding (which I was tempted to do), I just made sure I liked his general taste in music and then I only asked him to play three specific songs:
Acuff-Rose by Uncle Tupelo
Little Trip to Heaven by Tom Waits
Center of Gravity by Yo La Tengo
They may be schmaltzy to some but I like them.
Congrats, Rick!
Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” and The Everly Brothers’ “Let it Be Me” are the first two songs I remember our band (that is, my wife and I – not the band I’m in) playing at our reception. No regrets!
Congratulations Rick! Many years of wedded bliss to you and your bride!
“No Matter What” by Badfinger is my wife’s and my song. On our first date we saw The Original Sins and they covered it.
At our wedding, we danced to “Harvest Moon” by Neil Young as performed by After Dinner Mints, a big band jazz act. Kind of an old people song, but we don’t care.
My dad tortured the DJ the whole day.
I’m playing “Thunder Road” at my wedding. My girl ain’t a beauty, but hey, she’s alright. And the second the song is over, we’re hauling ass out of that town full of losers as soon as possible.
To Make you Feel My Love – Bob Dylan
All I Want Is You – U2
Were both played during wedding on the big church organ! – I had to supply sheet music since these ain’t in the hymnal.
True Love Ways – Buddy Holly was my 1st dance & Your Song was my dance with my mother (the #1 song the day I was born). My wife danced with her Father to The Beatles – In My Life
My brother’s #1 job as best man was to keep the DJ in line. Mr DJ had to ask permission to do anything hokey (electric slide, skits) and the best man was to say NO! and give the DJ the next 5 songs to play. It worked like a charm!
oh! Congrats Rick!
During my first wedding, we used “Grow Old With Me” by Lennon. Yes. we were trying to show our hipness. A good friend sung it for us, so we didn’t use the scratchy old demo.
The song stuck, the marriage didn’t.
Congrats to Rick! All the very best…
TB
Oh, yeah..
First dance was “Here, There, and Everywhere”
Mom’s dance was “The Long and Winding Road (Spector version)”
Her dad’s dance was “All Things Must Pass”
Everbody dance was “Real Love (Jeff Lynne version)”
There was a definite theme there…
TB
TB, I love how you specify certain versions of Beatles songs! If that’s not one of the characteristics that bring us together, I don’t know what is.
Randy Newman’s ‘Feels Like Home’ (sung by Bonnie Raitt on Faust) is a semi-popular wedding song.
I’m headed to my niece’s wedding this weekend, and, since she’s 30 or so, I’m really afraid of what the music will be like.
“When I Say Wife” by Jonathan Richman. Has the peerless line, “When I say ‘wife’/
it’s cause if you said ‘lover’ every day /
you’re gonna begin to gag.”
My friend Oscar plays in this wedding band and they are not not a polite band playing “Build me up, buttercup” for Grandma. They had this article in the NY Times, which is a fun read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/fashion/01band.html
My favorite quote from the article:
“At a Chinese ceremony in Flushing, Queens, the band made the mistake of agreeing to play the vamp to “Eye of the Tiger” through the introduction of the happy couple’s family, not realizing it would take 45 minutes. “I think I got carpal tunnel syndrome,” Mr. Krents says.”
We actually eloped, but for a short while we were planning a ceremony and I loved my wife’s idea of walking down the aisle to, “I feel pretty.”
Great article Che
My band is about to take the step (fall) into an alter-ego cover band and are trying to figure out how to play cool songs and still get paid at bars that want songs people (aka girls) know
these guys have the right idea…kinda
Our first dance was to Yo La Tengo’s version of “You Can Have It All”. During the ceremony, we used “Spiracles” by Stereolab for the intro and “Discover a Lovelier You” (an instrumental) as the outro music. We had a DJ from an awesome company called No Macarena (the name says it all, really) and he played mostly vocal jazz and for the dance floor, ’50s/’60s/Motown stuff to appease my in-laws and their friends (and that’s OK because I like a lot of that stuff, too), but he snuck in songs by Nick Drake, The Shins, Santogold, New Order Joe Jackson and EC’s version of (“What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding”.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that “Discover a Lovelier You” is by The Pernice Brothers.
Long time reader, first post.
My daughter just got married a couple of months ago, so I couldn’t resist registering to post. We walked down the aisle to Van Morrison’s “Someone Like You.” (Daughter hates “Here Comes the Bride”) After the ceremony, the happy couple left to Modest Mouse, “We’ll All Float On.”
For the reception we put together a very long mix of “love songs”, starting with older numbers for (in my daughter’s words) “the old people who will leave early” and finishing with songs she and her new husband liked best. Too long to list them all, but the “old people’s songs” included: “I Melt with You,” “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” “What a Wonderful World” (Armstrong version), “When a Man Loves a Woman,” “When I Grow Up” (Michelle Shocked), “Stand By Me,” “Love Me Do,” “I Put a Spell on You” (Creedence version), “The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades,” and Randy Newman’s “Love Song.” The songs for the latter part of the evening included several Incubus tunes, a couple by Pearl Jam and even some Coldplay. About the only more or less traditional wedding song in the mix was Etta James’s “At Last.”
mbwalker, welcome to the fray! Sounds like a cool wedding mix, but this part made me feel really old:
I consider “I Melt with You” the beginning of somewhat newer music in my life, not something from my pre-1981 essentials collection! Man, I think I just sprouted a few more gray hairs. Congrats on what must have been a bit of a mind-blowing day!
What kind of fool am I? I am the married kind.
-X
I never knew this thread existed! Thank you all so much. We let my wife’s brother-in-law program everything with a few requests from us: Percy Sledge’s version of “True Love Travels On a Gravel Road,” “I Will,” “A Lover’s Concerto” and “Heavenly Pop Hit.” I don’t remember hating anything I heard.
Thanks again.