Wedding Music Part I: The Ceremony

Right around the time we got engaged, I started thinking about ceremony music (wayyy too early in the planning process I know, but I couldn't help myself).  While I think classical/traditional wedding music is beautiful, I knew FH and I would want to have songs that were more contemporary.  Afterall, we are major music junkies.  While browsing online one day, I came across the various works of the Vitamin String Quartet.  Now I know VSQ is old news to anyone with wedding on the brain, however I had never heard of them prior to planning my own wedding...and I remember feeling like I had just struck gold.  This was exactly what we had in mind for our wedding--string versions of our favorite contemporary songs.

Image via Lover.ly

We asked our wedding planner for string quartet recommendations and we ultimately decided to move forward with Ontario-based Cadenza Strings.  They have a TON of contemporary songs in their reportoire and charge a small fee to learn any new ones.  Last month, it was time to submit our selections so they could learn any new songs in time for the wedding.

As I browsed online through a number of Vitamin String Quartet songs for inspiration, I remember the one that stood out the most to me was their version of "Fix You" by Coldplay.  As soon as the song was over, I just knew I would walk down the aisle to this song.  As cheesy as it sounds, the first (dozen) times I listened to the song, I kept tearing up.  I thought it was so beautiful and there's even a cue about halfway through the song that sounds like the perfect part for a grand bridal entrance.  Check out the song below.



At first, FH was a little iffy about the song (he thought the lyrics weren't exactly wedding-worthy but my argument was that there wouldn't be any lyrics!) but he did agree that the string version was really nice.  As a compromise, I promised he could pick the recessional song if I could have this as the processional (marriage is all about compromise after all, right?)  He's decided on "Home" by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros and I wholeheartedly agreed since the song is one of our favorites.

We also asked our string quartet to learn one more song, "So Here We Are" by Bloc Party.  This will be one of five or six prelude songs and is another song that is very special to us--Bloc Party was the first concert FH and I had ever gone to together (7 years ago this summer!) and the band we've seen the most--I think we've seen them 5 times. The rest of the prelude songs are already on the quartet's repertoire, so here they are for your listening pleasure.






Will you be choosing non-traditional music for your ceremony?