The Drama of Picking Music...Part II

With the drama of the reception music settled on and picked out (for the most part), I turned my attention on to the ceremony music. This was a bit trickier for me to do, and truth be told three days before the wedding I wasn’t finished with it! Shhh...don’t tell! I knew what I wanted to do, but pulling it all together (encountering unforeseen problems with iTunes) was another story.

The main problem, that I tell myself anyway, is that our DJ just covered the reception. I’m sure that we could have opted to pay extra and have him cover the ceremony too, but it seemed silly to do so since there wasn’t any music other than processional and recessional involved in our ceremony. Or that’s what I initially thought. Then I remembered that sometimes (especially if they’ve travelled from out of town) guests arrive early. And when the wedding is in a church for example, there’s always music playing to “entertain” the guests. Hmmm...so now I have to find more music? Jeez, this is getting to be a pain – a thought that ran through my head multiple times while trying to figure this out.

So what does a bride do in times like these? Well, I don’t know about most brides, but THIS bride turned to her trusty side-kick – the internet. In the past my good friend Google has been able to solve several problems for me, so why not this too? Sure enough, there are websites out there that post popular wedding music, which you can download for a price. Nice. That helps a lot. Except that when I start listening to the samples of what they have and going through it all, I just don’t feel it. You know, the “it” feeling when you know you’re onto something good. It just wasn’t happening for me. The songs were too...classical...not enough us, if that makes sense.

I was thinking the problem through without really thinking about the problem at all, if you know what I mean, when the solution came to me like a bolt of lightning. I could pick some of our favorite songs and find a low-key instrumental version of the song and play that for our waiting music! Hmmm...let me do a quick search...yes, that could work. Armed with this idea, I jotted down some of my favorite love songs of all time and clicked over to iTunes to search for instrumental versions. Wouldn’t you know? There is a full library of karaoke songs via iTunes. All of the songs that I could think of could be found and downloaded for at most $1.29 per song and played. This would be perfect! We could burn a CD of our picks and just have a trusted family member/friend start the CD about 30 minutes before the ceremony. Nice.

I called B to go over the idea with him. He was on board – which was nice – and told me that he already had a song in mind. I reminded him that this would be his opportunity to possibly get some of his favorites played at our wedding since no words would be used and most would be acoustical in style at most. He was excited. I was excited, and the “it” feeling was there. I quickly found my favorite songs, we had each agree to pick 6 or 7, and I downloaded them.

Enter problems stage right.

I don’t know what was going on, but iTunes was just not liking me. Three of my songs downloaded fine. The other three songs? Wouldn’t download to save my life. I tried it on my laptop at home. My desktop at home. Shhh...don’t tell, but I even tried it on my work computer. Nothing worked. I was very frustrated.

A week passes. Nothing works still. And B has not given me any song ideas other than the one that he thought of immediately when I talked to him about it. arrrggghhh.

Now, here I am at three days out. Luckily, the gods that run iTunes took pity on me last night and decided to download my last three songs. B still hasn’t given me any selections. So, I’ve decided that I’m burning the CD tonight whether he gives me songs or not. Too bad, so sad – you had your chance, buddy!

So would you like to know our selections? I don’t have time or energy to find links to the songs, but I hope that you’ll still love me.

Waiting Music:

At Last – Etta James
I Can’t Help Falling in Love (with you) – Elvis Presley
Fly Me to the Moon – Frank Sinatra
Songbird – Kenny G
Where Were You (on our wedding day) – Miles Davis
Imagine – John Lennon
The Wedding Song
Smoke in Your Eyes - Soundtrack of "Always"

Seating of the Grandparents/Parents:
Main Title – Soundtrack of “The Notebook”

Processional:
Somewhere Over the Rainbow – Martina McBride (yes, I know it’s a live version – I don’t care)

Recessional:
Oops! So there’s one more that I have to find!

But that’s the gist of it. I listed the most popular artist that sings the waiting music, but know that it will all be instrumental. Some of them are more jazzy, while some are piano and orchestra versions. I like the mix, so I’m keeping it.
A HUGE sigh of relief has escaped me just now. Yes, I know that I still have one more song to find, but that’ll be easy...famous last words, I know! Now I just have to burn the CD, make sure it plays (always double check) and find someone to slip it in and play them for me. Easy, peasy...let’s hope!