Every decade or two, a new tune becomes the It Tune for wedding processionals. Let’s face it, even Wagner’s famous wedding march had to start off as a newfangled and slightly scandalous choice on someone’s part. Now it’s so traditional that an approximately equal number of couples would never dream of anything else, or would never dream of using it. For the record, I fall into the latter category. I don’t care much for Wagner overall, and I really dislike the idea of using a piece of music from such a disastrous marriage as a way to start off a new one.

And after I’d been to roughly sixty bazillion weddings where the Canon in D was played as the processional, I went right off Pachelbel, too. I still, however, have fond memories of the wedding I attended where the bride was a member of a string quartet who gave her the gift of playing her wedding gratis. They brought in a replacement violinist, and did Pachelbel proud. It was a charming choice between the musicians in question and the intimate backyard setting.

I, however, have never belonged to a string quartet, and the brief period in which I attempted reluctantly – and entirely without a natural talent for it – to learn the violin is an episode best never mentioned again.

So when it came time to plan my own wedding, I needed something different. Oh, also, I was being lead up the aisle by a bagpiper, and frankly, none of the tunes I’d heard other brides use was going to sound right on the pipes other than the theme from Star Wars… which my piper would have flat out refused to play.

In the end, my piper suggested a traditional Scottish tune called Highland Wedding, which was pretty, joyful, and composed with pipes in mind. It was perfect. We recessed to another traditional Scottish tune, Mairie’s Wedding. That one was my suggestion. Those choices still make me delighted. Neither was overdone in my set, but both were written to celebrate weddings and traditional in one of my background cultures. I loved the tunes, the musicians in question knew them well, and the guests seemed to enjoy both selections.

What about you? What would your perfect processional/recessional tunes be? Something traditional or not? Something played on a harp or a kazoo?

Tell me all about it!

This was a perfect pairing. I’ve come to the conclusion that there is an unbeatable combination when it comes to planning a fabulous wedding to be remembered for years to come: a chef and a musician.

Mr. Twistie and I met Bryan about five years ago when Mr. Twistie joined a band Bryan plays in. We both immediately liked him. He’s quiet and mellow with a wickedly sly sense of humor. In fact, he’s so quiet we didn’t start hearing about Julie for a long, long time even though they were already getting together back then.

Once we did meet Julie, we found her every bit as delightful as Bryan. And then there’s the food.

Bryan’s day job (most musicians have them, you know) is managing a gourmet Italian import deli. Julie’s is cooking at a gourmet Italian restaurant that foodies flock to due to it’s fantastic reputation. Parties in their home always feature great music on the stereo and some of the best food I’ve ever eaten, in the company of laid back but deliciously witty people.

In short, this is a couple born to plan a fabulous wedding… which they did without a lot of professional help.

A friend volunteered to arrange the flowers. They were an artfully chaotic mix of roses, miniature lilies, carnations, and at least half a dozen other flowers in pale yellow and lavender. The bouquets were lush and the table arrangements were placed in a charming mix of clear glass jars, pitchers, and small vases. Since the wedding was held in a rustic courtyard with lots of pretty vines and flowers around the perimeter, all that was needed for general decor was a couple wooden buckets filled with white hydrangeas at the head of the aisle made of cream colored rose petals.

Bryan arranged the music. He had iPod programs for the ceremony, cocktail hour, and dinner hour. A band mate provided the sound system it played through as well as his R&B band to play the reception. Everybody danced (except Mr. Twistie, whose gout was acting up, darn it!) from toddlers to grandparents.

As for the food, that was Julie’s job and she did an amazing one. A couple of friends pitched in with extra hands and there were waiters to hand it out, but Julie self-catered from apps to dessert. Prosciutto with melon, warm olives with lemon and garlic, mixed nuts toasted with bacon and rosemary, killer deviled eggs… I had a hard time keeping from filling up on the appetizers. But I knew dinner would be special.

From the heirloom tomato Caprese salad, to the watercress salad in a delicate balsamic vinaigrette, to the toothsome mushroom risotto, to the borlotti beans in tomato sauce, to the luscious pork with peach tomato barbeque sauce, every dish was an incredible experience for the taste buds.

Then came the dessert table. Julie went with a dessert bar, and what a dessert bar! The formal cake was white cake filled with an unctuous pastry cream bursting with fresh strawberries and raspberries and frosted with an Italian meringue. In addition to that, there were heart-shaped red velvet Whoopee pies, chocolate chip cookies, fudgy brownies with walnuts, tart lemon bar cookies, and fabulously moist cocoanut macaroons drizzled with dark chocolate.

All the little touches were there throughout the wedding. From the sprig of sweet lavender threaded through each program, to the ceremony written by the happy couple and performed by the bride’s aunt, to the place cards set into half wine corks, to the tables named after cities in Italy (where the happy couple is set to honeymoon), to the carefully chosen wines at dinner, to the basket of complimentary flip flops for guests whose shoes proved to be impractical on the site, this wedding looked as polished as anything I’ve ever seen a professional put together.

But the thing that really made the day wasn’t any of the above, as nice as it all was. The thing that made the day so special was the warmth and thoughtfulness of the bride and groom. It was the way they made sure to talk to every single person sharing their day. It was the way Julie played in the grass with two tiny girls and the way Bryan cried as he spoke his vows. It was there in every smile, every word, and every gesture.

As pretty as the location was, as good as the music was, as delicious as the food was, as beautifully as all the t’s were crossed and i’s dotted, what really mattered yesterday was that we were in the presence of so much love.

That’s really what makes Julie and Bryan such a perfect pair.

The boobongo virtuoso you see before you is Fast Eddie, owner or perhaps manager of a Florida upholstery shop by day and wedding DJ by night. After watching the video, I had to know more – who is this guy? Luckily, the good folks at urlesque scooped the story. Can you believe that poor Fast Eddie didn’t get paid? I kid, I kid! But I also know some people who would be angry as h-e-doublehockeysticks on the inside when they saw this but would nonetheless pay their less-than-stellar boobie slappin’ wedding vendor the balance owed.

If you’re cringing right now, I feel your pain… videos of wedding vendors like this made me hyperventilate when I was planning my wedding. But never fear! We here at Manolo for the Brides have got you covered with tips for planning a wedding safely, knowing what to expect when hiring wedding vendors, and dealing with tricksy wedding vendors. Heed our advice and you’ll more often than not be in the clear!

That said, here’s a palate cleanser in the form of a grainy video of an iguana eating some poor couple’s wedding cake:

Send in the Clowns (as sung by Judy Collins) is a ballad from Act II of A Little Night Music. In it, the character Desirée reflects on the ironies and disappointments of her life. Uplifting!

You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ by The Righteous Brothers… for the quickie wedding followed by the extra quickie divorce, perhaps?

When the groom requests Just a Gigolo by Louis Prima, watch out! You might also want to reconsider if the groom requests this pimp cup.

The Lady Is a Tramp as sung by Frank Sinatra could be perfect for the bride sporting a Corinthians 13:4 tramp stamp.

And as far Verdi’s ‘La donna e mobile’ (Rigoletto) as sung by Carlo Bergonzi, well, the lyrics speak for themselves: “Anyone who trusts her is always wretched; he who opens his heart to her is lacking in caution.” Damning much?

My personal favorite — which sadly did not make the top five — is and shall remain I Will Survive, which is a fun song to act out, but rather more appropriate for sweet sixteens and block parties than for weddings. Whenever I maintain such a thing, there are always the detractors… those who think I’m just an old fuddy-duddy who’s trying to keep all the cool bridesmaids and groomsmen from acting out all the parts of Paradise By the Dashboard Light, but really now. Were I a bride, I might feel a tad odd hearing my groom singing that her’s praying for the end of time so soon after he vowed to love me forever.

To make sure we don’t have any massively jarring gaps here at Manolo for the Brides, I’m going to excerpt some of iDo, since I spend a number of pages in Chapter 14 discussing DIY wedding music and it’s Friday and I don’t feel like reinventing the wheel. Note: More and more people are calling this the iPod wedding, though you can DIY your wedding music with any mp3 player or a laptop.

Search for “iPod wedding” and you’ll come across hundreds of DJs on the warpath. The moment a bride-to-be brings up her choice to ditch the traditional disk jockey in favor of some digital alternative, pro DJs start weighing in. It’s a bad idea, they say. You can’t anticipate what people will want to listen to or read the energy of the room like a real live DJ. Guests will mess around with your playlist when you’re not looking, and the rented sound system will fall over and injure someone who will then slap you with a hefty lawsuit. Your wedding will be an colossal failure!

But there’s really no reason for professional entertainers to get so defensive, because no one is trying to permanently replace DJs and bands with iTunes playlists. The fact is that some people can’t afford either or would rather budget money elsewhere, some people have tastes that are way too eclectic, and some people just don’t care overmuch for the two standard options.

If you’re sold on the idea of an iPod wedding, read some how-tos and learn the basics of live sound so you understand what the challenges are before you rush out and buy or rent anything. Search for “sound reinforcement” or “sound system basics” to find plain English tutorials that will give you a handle on the equipment you’re going to need. You can’t just hook your computer speakers up to some music source and call it a day. First, you need to find out what kind of sound system (i.e. mixer, amp, crossover, EQ, speakers, mics, and cables) your reception venue has. You need to be sure you can go from a headphone jack to whatever kind of sound system is available. Some venues may not even have a PA. And do not neglect to go over your setup with the venue manager ahead of time to make sure the equipment you’re planning to use will work in your reception space so you don’t end up having to send the best man to the local music store for cables on your wedding day. I’d also recommend having back-up mp3 players loaded with your playlists!

When your MP3 or your laptop will be standing in for a wedding disk jockey, it helps to have hundreds of CDs in every possible genre from acid rock to hip hop to new country to reggaeton to zydeco. Those CDs—or folders full of MP3s—will be the raw materials with which you will build your ultimate wedding playlist from the ground up. You may need to borrow some music from friends and download some fresh albums… um, legally, of course. If you’re worried about the dead space between songs, the latest versions of iTunes offer gapless playback and crossfade options so one song will blend into the next. To keep it seamless, try to match tempos so you have slow songs grouped together and fast songs grouped together.

It’s easy to do this using iTunes because you can set up multiple playlists and give them names that will help your music coordinator do their job. What’s that? You don’t have a music coordinator? This’ll probably be your MC—you’re going to have to designate someone to introduce people and announce things like the first dance. The best man is often the most natural choice for this job as he’ll be up on the mic anyway, but your mileage may vary.

The beauty of the iTunes organizational system is that the music coordinator only really has to mess with the music just before or just after they make announcements. Musical categories can include Cocktail Hour, First Dance, Father-Daughter Dance, Mother-Son dance, Meal Music, Pre-Cake Slow Songs, Cake Cutting Song, and Post-Cake Party Songs. Your MC will already be on the mic—and thus close to the sound system—while letting guests know that it’s time to eat or dance or whatever. They can click over to the appropriate playlist while they’re close to the laptop without missing too much of the action. Just make sure to pad the playlists and that you have more than enough music in each category so you don’t accidentally run out of sweet tunes just when guests are starting to boogie.

Now that would be a tragedy of epic proportions.

You would not believe how many were crossed off the list because of cussin’ or unabashed adult themes. Songs I thought were squeaky clean turned out to be surprisingly raunchy when I listened to them with a critical ear! In the end, I think that ‘pee’ (in Spider Robinson’s Belaboring the Obvious) was the naughtiest word sung over our sound system.

Photo via The Consumerist

But one person’s inappropriate is another person’s A-OK. I was born into a very churchy, upstanding, “say-gosh-not-God” kind of family, meaning that even songs containing certain widely accepted euphemisms for sex or drugs were right off the table. On the other hand, Conor Friedersdorf of Culture11 recently examined how gangsta rap is making musical inroads at wedding receptions.

Here’s how it happened at my best friend’s wedding: the DJ spun traditional fare until an old favorite, The Limbo Rock, lured even the little kids and left-footed adults onto the dance floor. The line for the limbo stick stretched longer than the song would, so the deejay scanned his collection. What would come next?

Time ticking away, he settled on Lil John’s “Get Low”—you know, for its thematic resonance. It’s a tune whose lyrics I didn’t even realize I knew until the intro played, the twenty-somethings in the wedding party made mortified eye contact with one another, and the chorus began:

To the window, to the wall, (to dat wall)
To the sweat drop down my b**** (MY B****)
To all these b****** crawl (crawl)

Now I’m pretty sure I know what’s lurking under all those stars, and I’m pretty sure you do, too. In my opinion, it’s better to be a little overzealous when weeding out wedding tunes that will give Pastor Jeff an aneurysm, but I also strongly believe that making sure that no one is unduly offended at a wedding is just straightforward good etiquette.

Causing judgmental dingbats offense by serving brunch instead of dinner or wearing purple instead of white or marrying a dude when you’re also a dude is one thing…expecting people to dance to songs with lyrics like “See *****’s like a wound, it would never heal, the more ointment you put on then the better it feels” is another thing entirely.

I can’t say I hate it when I hear hardcore cussin’ in the songs played at a wedding reception, but I do inwardly cringe on behalf of the guests who are covering their kids ears or covering their own ears. Friedersdorf says gangsta rap is good danging music — I wouldn’t know, not being all that familiar with the genre — and that radio edits should make this a non-issue. That may be true, but I will say that I hate it when good beats are uninterrupted by annoying BEEEEPS and ridiculous overdubs. Why not just play a song that everyone from age 8 to age 80 can appreciate?

What say you? Does danceability trump lyrics, or would you rather brides and grooms keep it clean?

How else would those of us who went the traditional route and learned to fox trot know that it’s all right to do a Hammer Time first dance duet instead of the boring old seventh-grade shuffle?

Some of the kooky couples who ditched All I Ask of You for something funkier have gotten flack from critics who say a first dance should not be a performance. To that I say an impassioned, “Whateverrrrrrr.” I’m just jealous that I couldn’t convince The Beard to go all out and let me come up with a wicked complex song and dance number!

If you’re keen to take your first dance to the next level, watch the videos below and take notes.

Surprise everyone:

Skip the slow stuff altogether:

Start serious, get sexy:

The ever-popular Dirty Dancing routine:

The somewhat less popular Napoleon Dynamite routine:

I know some of these are old news, but I’d wager that there are plenty of newly engaged ladies and lads out there who haven’t seen ‘em since these things tend to hit the groupbrain in waves.

And now for something completely different…an engagement blog written by a guy. I’m adding The Engaged Guy to my blogroll. I’m not sure that his assertion that his blog is “the world’s first liveblog of an engagement,” seeing as that women have been blogging their pre-nuptial pains and pleasures for ages, but we’ll let it slide.

That same potential fit of hysteria hits me every time I hear someone use Greensleeves as a processional or to denote mutual romantic love. Really, the lyrics are a laundry list of all the money he spent on a woman who isn’t in love with him, along with assurances that the fact she’s treated him like a dog only make him more ardent. Clearly masochism was alive and well in the Sixteenth century.

So yes, Virginia, sometimes the words really do matter.

This really struck home with me today when I was perusing sites with lists of suggested songs for every part of your wedding.

Looking for a great song for cutting the cake? I’m not really sure I’d go with Barenaked Ladies’ If I Had a Million Dollars what with the line about And if I had a million dollars I’d buy your love. If the love needs to be bought, well…let’s just say that’s not the kind of love I’d want to advertize. Still, even that isn’t as poor a choice as Bryan Adams’ Cuts Like a Knife.

And while I do enjoy the song Whiter Shade of Pale, I must admit I can’t imagine using it as a processional. It might raise questions as to the sobriety of the couple which could invalidate the entire proceedings. Then again, one site I visited suggested a tune from Mozart’s Don Giovanni for the same purpose. Somehow, I can’t imagine choosing that one. After all, if I wasn’t going to use Wagner’s Wedding March from Lohengrin in part because of how badly that wedding turned out (though, I admit, even moreso because I dislike the tune and my father had a burning loathing for Wagner that might have caused spontaneous combustion on his part as we headed up the aisle), it hardly seems likely that I’d find something from an opera about the world’s biggest horndog on his way to eternal damnation any more appropriate. Love the music, wouldn’t want to send the message.

Oh, and I did mention Mr. Twistie is a musician, didn’t I? That means that once upon a time back in the early eighties he played a lot of weddings. He tells me he lost count of the number of couples that wanted The Eagles Peaceful Easy Feeling as a first dance. I wonder how many of them noticed what that entire third verse was saying.

So in choosing your wedding music, consider the lyrics and the associations involved. Somebody out there probably knows the words and may suddenly burst out coughing because of them.

Or maybe you just don’t want to invite me. I won’t be hurt, but I’d appreciate it if you sent along a slice of cake, anyway.

I’ve got a wedding question for you that’s equal parts opinion and experience. The question is this: For my wedding that’s coming up in three weeks, I want to walk down the aisle to Jerusalem by Hubert Parry. If you’re unfamiliar with it, a rather slow video of it being played on the piano can be found here. The problem is that my fiancé is from England and associates the song with (a) rugby matches and (b) Yorkshire coal miners. I wish I was making this up. He’s concerned that his family (all three of them who are attending, out of 100 guests) will think I’ve gone round the bend if I walk down the aisle to a “coal miner’s anthem.” My rebuttal is that the rest of the guests, being American, are utterly unfamiliar with Jerusalem in the first place and therefore won’t associate it with rugby or coal or anything else except “Ooh, pretty song!”

He’s agreed–albeit very reluctantly–to the song, but I need to know if I’m being a lunatic for wanting to have this song played at the wedding. I don’t want to make a total fool out of myself. You must have heard crazier songs for bridal entrances than an old English hymn, right? Your thoughts?

Well, K., if I was one of your guests, my reaction would indeed be “Ooh, pretty song,” because it is a pretty song and because I am an American wholly unfamiliar with Jerusalem. And as entrance songs are concerned, I have indeed heard of far crazier choices…the Pink Panther theme, for example. Heck, even the old standby “Dah-dum-da-dah” is a pretty crazy choice when you consider that the opera it hails from is more tragic than romantic.

The short answer is that you should walk down the aisle to the strains of whatever music you like best. I’d recommend shying away from dirty or profane songs, of course. And unless you’re having a kooky Halloween wedding, it’s probably best to steer clear of anything particular dark or unpleasant sounding.

But I would never suggest that you don’t play the music you like because three people at your wedding may decide you have a thing for coal miners. It’s a hymn, for cryin’ out loud. If you get any odd looks from your intended’s family, just tell them that you love a good rugby match. Pick a team before hand, and impress everyone by telling them how much you love an open scrum.

Every so often I stop by Wedding Wire to see what’s new. Of course, every so often isn’t exactly ‘often,’ which means I tend to come across new functionalities late in the game. But whatever–it’s not like I’m in urgent need of bridal entrance music. For those who aren’t yet hitched and need a little prompting where music is concerned, Wedding Wire has created a handy page where brides-to-be can preview popular ceremony and reception music.

Even if you never actually placate your antsy guests with Greensleeves pre-ceremony or dance to Andy Williams’ Hawaiian Wedding Song at the start of your reception, the wedding songs database will at least give you some ideas to roll with when you’re feeling blocked. The best part is that you can preview the songs right there on Wedding Wire, watch videos of each song being performed, and check to make sure that the lyrics are in accordance with your worldview.

The database is relatively small right now, and other sites, like WedAlert(clips) and Our Wedding Songs (lyrics), offer a similar service, but nothing I’ve found so far is as streamlined and easy to use as the Wedding Wire music guide. Here’s hoping that the site’s creators add to it sometime in the near future before some other site comes along and renders it obsolete. Teh Internets…they move fast.

(Just for fun: See a dress trashed in this older CNN spot. Or read about why no one really needs a “perfect” wedding.)