Channelling Julie Andrews

We’re up to church music at the moment. After a mammoth weekend of wedding stuff, we are deciding what to play for the processional and the recessional and all the bits in between and its not an easy job. Well, it might be if you were already in love with certain pieces but we pretty much have a list of what we’re not playing at the wedding as opposed to what we are. Air on a G String is out as is Clarkes Trumpet Voluntary. The Wedding March is most definitely not allowed and the Canon in D will not be getting a look in at all. Now before anyone gets upset with me because they had this at their wedding and they thought it was a beautiful piece, I actually like all these pieces. Well, except for The Wedding March, I’m actually not overly partial to that one. The thing is though that given our budget and available resources, we could not have these pieces played as we would wish them to be played at our wedding (namely with a lot of brass) so we would rather opt for something else entirely.

Since we are going to be married in an old church which has a lovely organ, we would like to take advantage of that as well. We could possibly ask friends to provide all the music throughout the service or have the organist play the piano instead but it would seem a shame not to use a grand organ at all if it is available. So we have been surfing the net looking for options and alternatives to the stock standard pieces every experienced wedding musician would have in their repertoire almost by default. I wanted something that sounded happy and upbeat that didn’t remind me of a dirge. Oddly enough, we found recordings of some pieces by the Mormon Church that I quite liked but they didn’t seem quite fitting on the whole. I didn’t mind if it was a contemporary piece or a classical one but seeing as it needed to be played on an organ, the night we were searching started to feel quite drawn out until we hit on a processional that worked.

It will probably both amuse and come as no surprise to some people that the first piece we chose was the Wedding Processional from The Sound Of Music, arguably one of the most famous musicals ever. The movie was a phenomenon in and of itself and at some point in their lives, millions of girls from all different generations wanted to actually be Julie Andrews. I thought what better way to start The Wedding in front of all our guests than to borrow a bit of musical brilliance and well maybe channel a bit of the great lady herself as I walk down the aisle. I did vaguely look at having a bit of Cinderella moment by finding out of there was such a thing as the processional from The Slipper and the Rose (one of my all time favourite movies since I was about 5) but it really wasn’t a feature in the movie. When Cinderella turns up to gatecrash the prince’s wedding they all remove to discuss whether the prince can marry her instead and then they have the main refrain for the two of them I think. She doesn’t get a proper traipse down the aisle.

Now that this has been sorted though, we still actually have all the rest of the pieces to go. There are hymns I believe that are a requirement of us being married in an Anglican church and we need to choose something for the signing of the register while everyone has to sit quietly in their pews and the recessional as we leave the church. Given the somewhat modern (and perhaps girly) piece we have chosen for when I enter the church, the idea appealed to have a modern “boy” sort of piece as we leave the church. It amused us no end to find the Mario Brothers Theme and the Tetris theme played on church organs on You Tube but I somehow think that this would not sit at all well with some of our guests. It is our wedding of course but still, it wouldn’t be meaningful enough for us to go to that effort. I imagine we shall choose some other pieces that fit a little more seamlessly into the ceremony and save the kooky for another time. There is still a whole reception full of music that we can inflict on our guests as the mood takes us.