*To skip the pontificating and request/suggest a tune, click here dear reader.

Our flowers, the setting, a gorgeous gown (I assume)… all these will make our wedding look beautiful.

But it’s the music that’ll make our wedding feel beautiful.

Wedding Album - John Lennon and Yoko Ono

For much of my life, I have looked to music for many things. Viz.: distraction, solace, identity, beauty, verisimilitude, a catchy chorus. Humor me, and let me wax grandiloquent for a moment…

I have long believed that music is the form of human expression that conveys emotion most purely and emphatically. It is strange how inadequate words can be sometimes! I love the T.S. Eliot line, “You are the music while the music lasts…” I think (I hope) we have all had those moments where we felt completely absorbed in a song. Not just felt that the music added something to the moment, or described some internal state that we didn’t know was in us… I’m talking about those times when we feel like we are in the music, completely absorbed by it. Those times when we aren’t just hearing music, but experiencing it. Music is important to us as human beings, intrinsic, in a way the other arts aren’t.

No doubt, one of the most difficult and complicated parts of planning any wedding is choosing wedding music that not only reflects the style and taste of the couple, but also registers appropriate emotional resonance across generational and increasingly wide cultural lines. You desperately want others the feel the love, nostalgia, passion, intensity, levity, whatever that you feel in your relationship, but you have to convey this with sub-genres of popular music. Furthermore, this music is the key to avoiding overly sentimental dullness and setting the tone and mood of all the “special moments” in the day. The right music at the right time adds the depth of emotion and the ‘good time factor’ that makes a wedding memorable. Our will be no exception; in fact I think we perhaps are all too sensitive to this.

Pulp - Different Class

I have been extremely lucky to find a partner whose tastes are broad and who appreciates all kinds of different styles, periods, genres and moods of music, all on each piece’s own terms. So, in considering the above, I think we have a wider musical stream to cast our nets into than most. And, I’ll just come out and say it; we love music, know it’s power, and we’re not afraid to emotionally manipulate you during the reception.

We’re doing the iPod thing, so that means we’ll have absolute control of each and every selection of music and the order in which it’s played throughout the entire event (and save a few simoleons to boot). The downside is that an iPod can’t “read the crowd” and change the tempo if our guests want a slow song next or a faster song played. Nor can it automatically fade out a dud or gravitate towards the styles that are getting the most response. And despite our impeccable good taste, filling our iPod with songs that we like doesn’t guarantee that all our guests will like them as well.

Leon and Mary Russell - Wedding Album

So, we’d really like your input into good songs to play! (And suggestions for setting up playlists, when to break for toasts and background music etc. Logistical tips.) You can share tunes that went well at your wedding, or that slow-burning soul jam that’d you’d always thought would be perfect for a last dance. Maybe there are “classics” in your mind that no dance party can do without, or a tune from your tortured adolescence that captures lifelong longing fulfilled that you’ve never heard played in public anywhere, let alone a reception. Maybe you’d like to remind us of a song you consider “ours” or that reminds you of us. Or maybe you know the bride and groom from way back and want us to include some sweet jam that we’d always play on the jukebox at dive bars. Whatever!

Song Requests/Suggestions

In summary, the music is going to kick ass and you’d do well to recognize such and bring your sweetest dance moves.

The Wedding Dance - Pieter Bruegel the Elder