I’m getting married in a week and a half, and the one thing we’re missing from our wedding plans is the walk-down-the-eisle song. It’s a pretty small, simple, non-denominational ceremony ceremony. The lady who runs the chapel said we can have whatever we want, played on cd. I don’t like the wedding march, although I could probably be happy with a very simple, single instrument version…if I knew where to find one.
We’ve looked. We’ve listened to all our classical CD’s. We’ve looked for instrumental versions of our favorite contempory songs. We’re not having much luck.
And so, as I always do when I run out of places to look for info on my own, I turn to the Dope. Any suggestions on simple, wedding appropriate music would be greatly appreciate. I like piano or guitar (and if only all my musically talented friends weren’t in another country, I’d just have some one play live). The closest we’ve come to something we’d like to use is Beethoven’s Pathetique sonata, but that’s too depressing for the occasion.
It’s a very small wedding. Just the two of us and a witness each at the front, and about 15 guests.
We’re having the wedding in the Sioux Falls, SD area. I don’t think we’re having enough of a wedding to justify hiring some one to play. I’ll be happy just to find something we can flip into a cd player to walk down the eisle to.
I’m going to listen to the ones suggested so far, and see what the SO thinks. Thanks all.
My sister is getting married in a couple of months. Here’s her song list that I’m responsible for:
bridal chorus by Wagner
wedding march by Mendelssohn
trumpet voluntary by Purcell
jesu joy of man’s desiring
claire de lune by DEBUSSY
Ode to Joy by Beethoven
Passacaile by Handel
Water Music by Handel
St. Elmo’s Fire love song by Foster
Baylor Line “That Good Ole Baylor Line”
“Take My Breath Away”
All instrumental. It’s hell trying to find the last one… instrumental anyway. Hope this helps!
Do you like jazz at all? My wife walked down the aisle to “String of Pearls” – composed by Eddie DeLange, performed by a live band. Classic jazz could be just the ticket.
When we got married, we almost used Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Procession of the Nobles” from Mlada. It’s triumphant, majestic, but with a light graceful bridge.
The only problem was we only had an organ, and we didn’t have sheet music, but it’s a fairly famous piece without being cliched, so it should be easy to find a sound file on Amazon.
Which, of course, sounds best when sung with its immortal lyrics:
Here comes the bride,
All dressed in white.
Where is the groom?
He-e’s in the dressing room.
Why is he there?
He lost his underwear.
Dum dum da DUM dum da dum dum da dum…
My SO suggested that as well. Why am I not surprised to hear his sense of humor reproduced around these parts?
Thanks you everyone for your suggestions. We tried out that which we could find so far, and have found a really nice piano version of Canon that we’re very happy with.
Now all I have to worry about is whether my future in laws will show or not
I wanted the Imperial March too, but the wife vetoed it.
Instead, we went with the theme from the computer game Myst, with part of it looped to make it a little longer. It was well received by those who didn’t recognize it, and got a big grin from the one guy who did.
I walked down the aisle to Rachmaninoff’s 18th Variation from Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini. It’s quite lovely, I think, though it does take up a bit of space when typed on the wedding program. If you’ve seen “Somewhere in Time” with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, you might recognize it.
Ah Canon in D, another fine classical piece forever ruined (for me) by pop music. A friend used it for her wedding last summer and I kept waiting for the words to start. Then I realized it was not, in fact, “Graduation (friends forever).” Why on earth I thought, even momentarily, that she would choose to walk in to a medicore graduation song is beyond me, but it happened again when I watched the tape of the ceremony. To summarize: I am stupid and know little of classical music.
We used Bach’s Suite No. 2 - Air as the Processional and Vivaldi’s Spring as the Recessional(because my sister had used Canon in D the summer before in her wedding - it really is a beautiful piece). I actually grew to prefer Bach’s Suite No. 2 because it was as beautiful, but not used nearly as often for weddings.
We used Gymnopedie No. 1 by Erik Satie, which sounds like it’s maybe just what you’re looking for. Go to this page to hear a one-minute sample; it’s the first track on the album.
