Ok future brides, I know what you are thinking. . . "I'll do the music thing later. It won't take very long."
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!
No, I suppose the music did not take as long as finding a dress, finding a venue, working out the wedding day menu, or scouring Goodwills, antique stores, and yard sales for china, but putting music together is not the most simple task either if you do it right.
We started putting together our music approximately two months ahead of time thanks to the suggestion from one of our planners. Otherwise I may have waited until a week before!!!
Luckily I knew what we were going to be playing -- jazz. An odd choice, I know. It's something you only see done in movie weddings. I love jazz though. It's fun. It's romantic. Plus, I took a class on it in college. I knew my grandparents would love it, my friends that love to swing dance would love it, and it is just some very relaxing music. (I had a few friends argue for rock and pop. Yuck. Not my style at all.)
First we nailed down what music the venue had available for us to use. Then we nailed down what we had available. Then the search started. What was popular in the 30's and 40's? I looked at Billboard charts, looked for lists of popular jazz music that were played at weddings, and asked my grandparents and friends that were familiar with jazz for song artists and names. We went looking at music stores for used cds we could get for fairly cheap from a variety of different jazz artists. I listened to music snippets online to determine what I wanted to order from Amazon. I think we spent approximately $200 on jazz music that would last for approximately 5 hours. (More is better. Plus, we were only playing approximately 2 songs from each artist.) For fun, we also included a few songs for the kids ("Everybody Wants to Be A Cat" and "Dynamite").
The conclusion: everybody loved our music! My time paid off! As Justin and I were leaving our reception site, our wedding coordinator told us the music made her feel like dancing! :) It was very relaxing and calming after a stressful couple of months prior to the wedding.
The kicker: I still listen to and enjoy our wedding mix! :)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
