Wedding Help

A little girl in our church the other ran up to me and excitedly told me about the wedding she was in the previous weekend. How she got to ride in the limousine with the her sister (the bride), and stand up at the front of the ceremony with the bridesmaids. It was the kind of excitement where you just want to say everything so fast that time for breathing just seems like too long to wait. She went on to tell me about how her sister had a dance floor at her wedding reception and how she got to dance with the groom and by herself, and with other children who were at the wedding. Imagining her out there jumping around with the kids made me smile, and I asked her if she did the Y.M.C.A. song. She looked confused, then thoughtful and announced that they had never played that song as a part of their wedding reception music. First it confused me, and then it made me smile. The bride must have created a “Do Not Play List” for songs that would play in her wedding.

Do I Have to Play that Song?!?

You have to admit, when most people think of having a dance floor along with a wedding dj to control their wedding reception music, most guests think of the traditional silly songs that come along with it.

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Tags: wedding dj, Wedding Music, wedding reception music

For many brides out there, most of their time and effort goes into creating the perfect wedding reception. That includes an excellent menu with elegant wedding reception decorations, wedding favors that are made to impress, and of course, the right wedding reception music to help set the mood and create the feel you’ve been looking for when planning your wedding reception. The right wedding reception music can help to put people at ease, get them excited, and make them fall in love again. Music just seems to have that effect on people. There are several ways that you can use to pump that wedding reception music into your reception venue. Granted, with those different methods of getting your music out, there are also numerous price differences between each one of these options. So be sure to check and see what your wedding budget will allow before choosing which venue to go with to get your wedding reception music done.

Wedding Reception Music - Hiring a DJ

Hiring a DJ is probably the most popular way to get your wedding reception music taken care of. They can typically be hired for a (high) hourly fee, but they have a huge selection of songs that you can use to help make your wedding reception music something you’ve always dreamed of. If you’re having a dance floor, this is probably the best route to take, as you’ll probably need a live person to choose the songs that you can dance to. Be sure to talk to the DJ before the wedding and give him a list of songs that you absolutely positively do NOT want as part of your wedding reception music, such as any offensive songs, the YMCA song, anything like that. Hiring a DJ can be an expensive proposition to have a way to play your wedding reception music, but you will know that the songs will be taken care of.

Wedding Reception Music - Hiring a Wedding Singer/Band/String Quartet

Personally, I’ve never seen one of these at a wedding, though I do know that bands and wedding singers can be hired to provide some great wedding reception music. A live band may give off some great sounds, but again, you could be looking at a huge hourly bill to pay the singer and everyone in the band. Also, another bad thing about having a live band is the noise. It could be hard for your guests to have a private, intimate conversation if they have to yell over your loud live music wedding reception music. If you are hiring a string quartet, you won’t have to worry about the loud noise that your guests can’t talk over, but be sure to check their prices.

Wedding Reception Music - Rigging Your Own

Perhaps the most economical way to arrange your wedding reception music is to take care of it yourself. Hook up your Ipod or computer play list to some speakers placed strategically around the room, and set the volume that you want. This option works best with a wedding reception without a dance floor, as you can’t control which songs will be played at a particular time. But this option will provide you with exactly the kind of wedding reception music that you want to help create your perfect day, and the only cost you may have is buying and downloading songs, and renting speakers if you don’t have your own.

Wedding reception music can be tricky. In most cases it needs to be economical, functional to your wedding reception music needs, and to set off the mood that you want your wedding reception to have. So be prudent in choosing what kind of wedding reception to have, as well as how you want to get your wedding reception music out.

Tags: wedding dj, Wedding Music, Wedding Reception, wedding reception music

I believe one of the last things I did while I was doing my wedding planning was to come up with a list of wedding ceremony songs that I wanted to use. This isn’t because it wasn’t very important to me, or that I had forgotten about it until the last minute, I just didn’t know much about the songs typically played in weddings, and I was sure which songs I wanted to have sung as specials during the wedding either. I believe I literally met with the pianist and the couple doing the specials probably about two days before the wedding to go over the wedding ceremony songs that I wanted. If you are working on picking out your wedding ceremony songs and need some help, then here are the main times in your wedding ceremony that you’ll need to have wedding ceremony songs picked out for, and what I did for each area.

Wedding Ceremony Songs for the Guest’s Entrance

About half an hour before the wedding ceremony was to begin, we asked the pianist to play wedding ceremony songs that were classic love songs, such as “You are so Beautiful”, and “The Way You Look Tonight”. I didn’t go through with her to pick out every one of those wedding ceremony songs because if you think about it, there are a lot of songs that fit into a thirty minute time frame. So I gave her some of my favorites, and she played those plus others that were well liked as well.

Wedding Ceremony Songs for the Seating of the Parents and Grandparents

After all the guests are seated and it is time for the wedding ceremony to begin, you’ll want to have a noticeable silence, and then head into the wedding ceremony song you have chosen for the seating of the parents and the grandparents. The reason for the silence, and then the song is to let the guests know that the wedding ceremony has begun. There are lots of great wedding ceremony songs for this, and I chose to use “On Wings of Song” by Felix Mendelssohn. It’s beautiful. This song was also re-played while my husband and I lit the unity candle and prayed together on a prayer bench we had set up.

Wedding Ceremony Songs for the Processional

Once the parents and grandparents are seated, then you will want to have a wedding ceremony song chosen for the entrance of the groom and his groomsmen, and the bridesmaids. Perhaps the most popular wedding ceremony song for a processional is the “Canon in D” by Johann Pacuelbel, which is what we used as well. It’s a classic.

Wedding Ceremony Songs for the Entrance of the Bride

Now, typically most brides want to enter in to the Bridal Chorus, which is the traditional music brides walk down the aisle to. There are many couples I know though, who prefer to walk the aisle to another song, such as “Someday my Prince will Come”, or other such songs, and there is nothing wrong with it. The same goes for the recessional. You can go with the traditional “Wedding March” like I did, or choose your own song.

Wedding Ceremony Songs for Specials

One thing I really wanted to have in our wedding ceremony were specials sung by friends of mine in the church. They sing beautifully together, and they had a CD written and performed by friends of theirs that were Christian love songs, beautiful and one of a kind. I listened to the CD, and then asked them to perform my favorite songs. So we had two specials in our wedding ceremony, to the songs of “I Delighted in the Lord (and He gave me you)”, and “With all my Heart”.

Going through the list of wedding ceremony songs to use for your wedding can be daunting, because there are a lot of them out there. Luckily, I had a pianist who was excellent and knowledgeable about what kinds of songs are typically used in weddings, and she could play all of them, and friends who also knew a lot about music, and had the patience to go through and play all of the different wedding ceremony songs for me. Your wedding ceremony songs really help to set the mood for your wedding ceremony, and I was so thankful to have such great help with that.

Tags: Wedding Ceremony, wedding ceremony music, wedding ceremony songs