(Part 1 of a 4-part article)
95% of brides chose Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary in D as their bridal processional and Pachelbel’s Canon in D was by far the most popular choice for processional wedding music (at least among the churches we sampled).
Sometimes, when 95% of people are doing something, you can safely assume that you should follow along. But in this case? How personal could their wedding ceremonies be if everyone else is doing the same thing?
With so many people using the same musical selections, is it any wonder that so many weddings all sound alike? Is it any wonder that many brides don’t pay much attention to the music for their wedding ceremonies? Perhaps that’s because without realizing that there are other choices out there, they just aren’t at all excited about how personal their ceremony could become!
Wedding Music Unveiled exists to help the future bride and groom select the most meaningful music for their wedding ceremony in order to make it distinctly their own.
In this series of articles, I focus on the processional, specifically for Christian church weddings.
I won’t differentiate between the bridal party processional and the bridal processional. Some people will have both, some just one. For most of this series, I’ll just treat them as the same.
I will look at the planning that needs to go into this part of the ceremony and then offer you lots of processional music suggestions.
Mood of the processional
I think it is safe to say that most people consider the wedding processional music to be the defining music of a wedding. At the very least, the wedding processional music certainly is the backdrop for one of your ceremony’s most dramatic moments.
In the Christian wedding ceremony, the processional is one of the key parts of the ceremony. It is not the bride herself that is significant, but the entrance of the bride and the joining together of the bride and the groom. This parallels the Biblical description of the promised joining together of Christ and His bride (the church). It is this parallel that makes the processional so significant.
The mood of the processional thus ought to be joyful. This mood will be set by your choice of music.
The focus of the processional is not the music, but the music is very important as it underscores its significance.
Though music isn’t the focus of the processional, it is very important as it underscores the processional’s significance.
The way the wedding processional music expresses joy sets the tone for the start of the ceremony. How you express that joy in your processional music is up to you.
One of the first considerations in designing your wedding ceremony is the style you’d like for your processional.
There are many ways to express joy. By “joyful”, we don’t simply mean “a happy sound”. Do you want loud, stately and majestic? Do you want quiet, gentle and flowing?
The choice is entirely yours. The choice you make will reflect your personality which is what you want (see the article The Secret to Making Your Wedding Uniquely Yours).
Consider whether you will enter to a separate bridal processional. If so, think about how well the two pieces will go together. After all, they will be played back-to-back. We recommend that you have two contrasting pieces. How they contrast is up to you (they can contrast in style, volume, grandeur, the performing instruments, etc.).
Their styles must match the build on each in the way that you want. The transition from a soft, gentle piece into a stirring march will grab everyone’s attention, and the style of the first set by the first piece will be quickly forgotten. This is fine, unless that first style is what you desired! If you want to start the ceremony with a certain desired tone, this will be established in the second, or bridal processional.
A recent wedding I played for had two processionals, both in the majestic “trumpet tune” style. But the first one had a much “bigger” and bolder sound than the second, which had a more delicate and refined sound. This was deliberate. The bride did not want to make such a big deal of her entrance and the toned-down sound of the bridal processional helped achieve that.
Don’t forget about the music leading up to the processional (everything played from before the start of the ceremony up to the processional). Do you want the processional to completely stand out from everything prior or to be the culmination of it? Maximizing the contrast between the processional and the previous piece will make the processional sound more dramatic.
Avoid the common choices
Do you want commonly used wedding processional music or do you want something less familiar but every bit as powerful?
Before you even consider going with a commonly used choice thinking it will be the “safer” choice, think about what you want your wedding ceremony music to say about you (be sure to read “The Secret to Making Your Wedding Uniquely Yours”). Do you want it to say “she went with the usual choices” or “she has the courage to express herself!”?
If you’re the type who wants something distinctive, you’ve found a home here. Be sure to bookmark this site or subscribe to our RSS feed to get updates automatically. Wedding Music Unveiled’s goal is to help you design a unique, memorable wedding ceremony. If you sign up for our free e-mail newsletter, you’ll get additional valuable tips by e-mail as well as be able to download other helpful items, such as our comprehensive, six-page Wedding Music Planning Checklist.
In the next part of this article, I’ll look at ceremony details you should consider when making your processional choices.
Your comments are always welcome and appreciated!
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