Musical Madness

ACK!

Picking ceremony music is apparently more difficult that it sounds. FI and I actually just spent FOUR HOURS listening to classical pieces to use, though I suppose that was mostly my fault. I refuse to use Canon in D (it's kind of like that "love is patient" quote - if I hear it at one more wedding....) or Wagner's Wedding March (would really rather not having a Nazi-supporter's music playing at my wedding), so out went two of the most popular (if not THE most popular) pieces for ceremonies.

The best resource we found was actually a website for a string quartet called After Five String Quartet. Their website is FABULOUS. It lists their repetoire (which is HUGE) and includes mp3 files to each of the songs, all set up in a nifty little online spreadsheet that lets you know what part of your ceremony each song would be appropriate for, and how many times each song has been requested by brides and grooms for each part of the ceremony. It really is great.

So between the After Five page and iTunes, FI and I were finally able to decide on an order of music for the ceremony:


Prelude
Corelli - Pastorale

Seating Family
Handel - Air (from Water Music Suite in F)

Party Processional
Bach - Air (from Suite No. 3)

Bride Chorus
Bach - Ave Maria

Recessional
Vivaldi - Spring (3d Movement)

Now to just make sure our ceremony musicians are comfortable with all of these pieces. ::fingers crossed::

Designing Your Ceremony

My fellow knotties reminded me that I have been way to lax in blogging, so here's the first in a slew of posts that will update everyone on what's been going on.


I'm not particularly religious. At all. And FI is what I would call semi-religious. He's an agnostic, but was an altar boy growing up and his parents are still very active members of their church. I am willing to use his/their Reverend for the ceremony (because it means a lot to him/them - though I have to admit I find it cool that our officiant is a woman), but there are some aspects of the ceremonies I found in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer that I simply was very uncomfortable with.

FI and I had our first pre-marital counseling meeting with our officiant (we got the results of our compatibility test - apparently we passed ;)), and she suggested that we start working on our ceremony. Sensing our discomfort with the BoCP, our officiant suggested that we look into the New Zealand Prayer Book as an alternative to he typical Episcopal marriage ceremony, and I'm happy to report that we were able to find a ceremony that we could both agree on.

We had to do a little rearranging of terms, however. For instance I was uncomfortable with a line that stated, "In marriage, MAN and WOMAN belong together," - didn't want to exclude any of any of our LGBTQ friends so we deleted it, and we changed "you have taken so and so" to "you have CHOSEN so and so."

We were also very happy to find that the Third Form of Marriage (the form that we picked) didn't require us to pick a reading from the OT (I can't stand most of the readings people pick from there, e.g. the whole woman from man's rib, etc.), so we were able to pick a reading that I felt. It's actually quite pretty and meaningful:

9Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.^[c] Do not be conceited.

17Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. (Romans 12:9-18).

See? Pretty.

Anyway, I had a REALLY hard time finding the service online, so I posted it in my bio. If you'd like to take a look, click here.

Happy ceremony planning....

~ H.