Suggestions for processional music for a wedding liturgy

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Phemie

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My friend has asked for my help choosing music for her mixed-marriage liturgy. I think we’ve settled on Ave Maria during the signing of the register and Ode to Joy for the recessional.

I need suggestions for the Processional. Either a long piece that will cover 7 attendants and the bride and her father, or a shorter piece for the attendants and another for the bride and her father.

To be clear, musicians are not a dime a dozen. I may be able to get the United Church musician to play the piano or I may have to go with recorded music, which is commonly done at weddings in our parish. Yes, I know it’s not supposed to happen. Find me an organist on a Labour Day weekend and I’ll happily use him/her.
 
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I second Handel’s Water Music. Or Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major, or the Brandenburg Concertos.
 
My vote:

Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary
Pachelbel’s Canon
Purcell’s Trumpet Tune

All in the beautiful key of D 🙂
 
Thank you all for the suggestions. My only problem with Canon in D is that Monty Python ruined it for me. 😄

She likes Handel’s Water Music and Canon in D.

She wasn’t fussy about Thaxted, but “O God Beyond All Praising” is not something she’s grown up with. Personally, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that music outside of the Ottawa Remembrance Day ceremonies when a children’s choir always sings “I Vow to Thee my Country”.
 
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Phemie said:
Canon in D.
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The beauty of this piece of music is that it has many variations so long as it follows a D,A,Bm,F#,G,D,G,A chord pattern. You can’t go wrong with it as long as you don’t watch Monte Python. 🙂
 
JulianN said:
Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major
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I sometimes wonder percentage of (still living) couples who chose this one, as we did. We enjoyed classical music while dating and chose from our favorites (thinking we were so modern :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:). Coming up 47 years.

The bridal chorus from Lohengrin by Richard Wagner was most popular at the time.
 
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Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring

Or, I’d think a song that everyone can sing like Holy God We Praise Thy Name would be a lovely processional.
 
I think Wagner and Mendelssohn music was banned from the church at one time.
 
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Believe it or not, my mother-in-law wanted Ave Maria at her wedding, but it wasn’t allowed because (supposedly) the composer was Protestant. At least, that’s what she claims. This would’ve been the late 1960s.
 
We had Water Music as a processional, Trumpet Tune as a recessional, and Ave Maria at the veneration of Mary…31 years ago.
 
TheLittleLady said:
Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring

Or, I’d think a song that everyone can sing like Holy God We Praise Thy Name would be a lovely processional.
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I’d go for that but it’s not my wedding and she doesn’t want hymns. The groom and his family are not in the least religious.
 
on_the_hill said:
Believe it or not, my mother-in-law wanted Ave Maria at her wedding, but it wasn’t allowed because (supposedly) the composer was Protestant. At least, that’s what she claims. This would’ve been the late 1960s.
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I’ve heard from gals who married around the same time as I did (1975) that our parish priest had vetoed Ave Maria. I have no idea why.
 
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Phemie said:
She wasn’t fussy about Thaxted, but “O God Beyond All Praising” is not something she’s grown up with.
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It seems Princess Diane made the tune popular at her wedding and the Catholic lyrics came later.
 
Marcello’s Adagio
or
Vivaldi’s Largo from his winter concerto.
 
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Odd. My mother had it at her wedding in the 50s. But every pastor had his own list of allowable songs.
 
I think there might be more than one song called, “Ave Maria.”
 
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