Close to the Heart

Hi guys. I haven't blogged in forever, I know. I'm sorry! Of course I have excuses (the house we've been renting for the past 2 years being sold and us having to move, buying a new car before the Cash for Clunkers program ended, and oh yeah....buying our first house!!! I guess you could say we've taken advantage of some of the economic incentives that our President has been enacting!) but I also felt like I needed a bit of a break. I lost some inspiration for a while. BUT, I'm back now....and I'm excited to share with you more details from our wedding as well as what's going on in our lives now (um, hello....decorating a new house! oh, and us trying to learn how to actually do maintenance and updating around our house ourselves!)

So, looking back on my last post I shared with you guys music that we're using in our wedding video....but I haven't yet shared with you the music we used in our ceremony. Music is VERY important to us. I actually work in the business and Mark is a musician (slash structural engineer). We also met through music....I was booking bands at a bar and his friend/old bandmate's band was playing. Music has played a pretty big role in our entire relationship and I feel that songs are one of the biggest ways to trigger memories and bring about those emotions you have connected to that song. So obviously, we chose our ceremony music wisely....and it definitely was NOT the traditional wedding music! ;) The music we chose was ALL listed in our program...even the Prelude and Postlude songs. And here they are:

Prelude:

Green Arrow by Yo La Tengo

I Found A Reason by The Velvet Underground

Major Label Debut - Broken Social Scene

New Slang - The Shins

Such Great Heights - Iron & Wine

I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie

Love and Some Verses - Iron & Wine

Our Way to Fall - Yo La Tengo

....we wanted these songs to set the mood. Calm, Warm, Loving, Slow & Steady...but with an Upbeat tone and tempo. We didn't want anything that would be too overpowering here or draw TOO much attention because we knew it'd just mostly be background music for everyone entering and finding their seats. We did, although, want to foreshadow that this would not be your typical wedding and your typical wedding music. 

photo credit: McLellan Style

The next set of songs were even more carefully chosen because they would each play a part in the wedding ceremony:

Seating of Family: Pitter Patter Goes My Heart by Broken Social Scene

Processional (for the girls and the guys who walked separately): Sea of Love by Cat Power

Bridal March: Lover's Spit (beginning instrumental part looped) by Broken Social Scene

Recessional: All You Need is Love by The Beatles

Postlude:

I'm A Believer by The Monkees

God Only Knows by The Beach Boys

She's A Rainbow by The Rolling Stones

And there ya have it! I'm so, SO happy that we chose music that really fit and really represented us and our relationship. I knew some people would think that it was odd, but it was seriously one of my favorite parts of our wedding. We actually had a lot of people (both young and old) complement us on our choice for music...so it turned out quite well. And one of the best parts....whenever we hear one of these songs now, it takes us back to that day and that moment in time :)

Love and Some Verses - Wedding Video Music

Sorry this is coming so late, but i had a request to share the music that I mentioned in my previous post that we provided for Superium Productions, our videographers. Like I said before, we gave Nick about 20 songs to pick from for our video....we couldn't really narrow it down much from that! A few of these were in our "prelude" for our ceremony and lot of the others were discarded in place of other songs that we choose to use in our ceremony or other significant musical moments. In no particular order, here they are:

Song - Artist

1. Wonderful Love - Creeper Lagoon

2. 
Ben Kweller - Sundress
Ben Kweller - Sundress (Official Music Video) - Click here for another funny movie.

3. Do You Realize - The Flaming Lips

4. Kingdom Come - Coldplay

5. Wildflowers - Tom Petty

Wildflowers album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Shared via AddThis

6. Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles

7. Fix You - Coldplay

8. The Cure - Just Like Heaven

9. God Only Knows - The Beach Boys

10. In the Summertime - Mungo Jerry

11. I Will - The Beatles

12. Here Comes Your Man - The Pixies

13.

14. She's a Rainbow - The Rolling Stones

15. La Vie en Rose - Louis Armstrong

16. Just Another - Pete Yorn

17.

Death Cab For Cutie I Will Follow You Into The Dark
Uploaded by s_tancredi. - See the latest featured music videos.

18. Strangers - The Kinks

19. Real Love - The Beatles

20.

....and there ya have it! The top 20 songs we chose for our wedding 

video! ...And don't worry, there will be PLENTY more posts about

music we used in our wedding coming up shortly! :)

Reception Music: DJ or Band?

DJ/rupture source

For reals.

Mark and I have been talking about this subject for longer than I'd like to admit (somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 months maybe?!?) and we STILL haven't come to a decision on it. Yes, that is S-A-D. I warned you...we're indecisive! 

Here's the issue...I work in the music industry and Mark is a musician (well, I mean, he's a structural engineer...but he's also a musician). So....can you see where this is going? We're particular about music. Some might go as far as to call us music snobs, but the point is we like good music. Now, I don't think it's any secret whatsoever about how cheesy wedding bands can be. We don't want that. We wanted a good wedding band (is that an oxymoron?). We basically narrowed it down to either a "party band" (who plays everything....classic rock, pop, top 40s, hip hop, 80s...you get the idea) OR an oldies/r&b type band. Well, I finally found 1 band that I liked pretty well...they are more of a party band composed of Belmont (school of music) alums. So guess what? They're booked for our date. Of course!!! So now I've searched high and low again and I'm coming up empty handed. 

Which brings us to our next option - a DJ. I always thought that bands were more fun at weddings than DJs. That bands were more interactive and really got the party going, whereas DJs were even more cheesy and play even worse music. I know that's not always the case...but that has been my general experiences. Plus, I just like live music. I'm at the point now where I'm considering a DJ. I'm at a loss for bands and I'm thinking that if we find the right DJ then it could work out really well. We could just find someone with a good music collection (we could even supplement their collection with some of ours) and also give them a good solid "Do Not Play List" and it could totally work out. I mean, at least this way we're hearing the songs we want to hear (b/c we're not limited by what songs the band knows) and we're hearing them as they were meant to be heard (b/c some band isn't totally destroying them in their rendition of the song) and we could still play lots of stuff to get the crowd going. 

My goal basically with the reception music is just for everyone to have a good time and to literally be on the dance floor all night. I want it to be a huge party and a huge celebration and I want everyone to dance their booties off! 

So....what do you think guys?!? Should we go with a Band or a DJ? If you vote Band please provide suggestions for bands! Heck...if you vote DJ please provide suggestions too!! :)

Thanks guys!! Any feedback you can give is appreciated! We're in time crunch mode on this detail now! (less than 4 months to go!!)