The Wedding March

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A friend of mine is to be married in May 2006 in the Catholic Church.
While speaking to her Pastor she was informed that as of January 2006 the traditional Wedding March would not be allowed to be played in a Catholic church wedding. He went on to explain to her that is was because of the person who wrote the song. Could anyone please shead some light on this and let me know if this is really something that is going to take place? As always, I appreciate your responses.
 
I don’t know for sure if the Wedding March will be banned, but I think that it should be. It is a secular tune, not Catholic, I believe. Someone told me that it has something to do with immorality.

As for the person who wrote it, I’m sorry, I don’t have enough information for you!

I think that only Catholic music should be allowed in Church!
 
I got married in 1971 and it was banned in my diocese at that time. If I remember correctly, The Wedding March was taken from a pagan opera by Lohengrin so we used something by Bach I think.
 
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SnorterLuster:
I got married in 1971 and it was banned in my diocese at that time. If I remember correctly, The Wedding March was taken from a pagan opera by Lohengrin so we used something by Bach I think.
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Actually the composer is Wagner and the Opera is Lohengrin.😃
 
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julieanne:
A friend of mine is to be married in May 2006 in the Catholic Church.
While speaking to her Pastor she was informed that as of January 2006 the traditional Wedding March would not be allowed to be played in a Catholic church wedding. He went on to explain to her that is was because of the person who wrote the song. Could anyone please shead some light on this and let me know if this is really something that is going to take place? As always, I appreciate your responses.
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Called “The Bridal Chorus.”

(lō´en-grĬn) , in medieval German story, a knight of the Holy Grail , son of Parzival. He is sent to rescue Princess Elsa of Brabant from an unwanted suitor. Led to Antwerp by a swan, Lohengrin saves Elsa and marries her. She is forbidden to ask his identity, but, overcome by curiosity, she asks. As a result, Lohengrin must return to the castle of the Grail. The swan reappears and is revealed to be Elsa’s brother. In its fullest form the story is treated in a German epic poem composed c.1285-1290 and ascribed to Wolfram von Eschenbach by its unknown author. Wagner based his libretto for the opera Lohengrin (1850) on this source. The swan’s metamorphosis is also a theme in classical, Celtic, and other mythologies.

Seems rather benign, but then…

Richard
 
I thought the “Wedding March” was never allowed for Catholic Church weddings. I remember reading years ago that the Wedding March was not used in a Catholic wedding because it was secular.
 
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CantorRick:
Called “The Bridal Chorus.”

(lō´en-grĬn) , in medieval German story, a knight of the Holy Grail , son of Parzival. He is sent to rescue Princess Elsa of Brabant from an unwanted suitor. Led to Antwerp by a swan, Lohengrin saves Elsa and marries her. She is forbidden to ask his identity, but, overcome by curiosity, she asks. As a result, Lohengrin must return to the castle of the Grail. The swan reappears and is revealed to be Elsa’s brother. In its fullest form the story is treated in a German epic poem composed c.1285-1290 and ascribed to Wolfram von Eschenbach by its unknown author. Wagner based his libretto for the opera Lohengrin (1850) on this source. The swan’s metamorphosis is also a theme in classical, Celtic, and other mythologies.

Seems rather benign, but then…

Richard
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As I recall the music accompanies their trip to the bedroom. I don’t think there was any wedding. 😉
 
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Karin:
Actually the composer is Wagner and the Opera is Lohengrin.😃
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Heck, what do I know. I wanted to use Jimmy Rushing’s “My bucket’s got a hole in it.” or Bob Wills “Take me back to Tulsa, I’m too young to marry”. Neither my wife to be or our priest would let me though. 😉
 
“The music comes from Act III of Richard Wagner’s opera Lohengrin, and by purely musical standards may be rich and profound. But the plot follows the contorted twists and turns of almost any opera. There is magic, deceit, trickery, superstition, love (of course), and ultimately the death of the unhappy lover.”
canticanova.com/articles/feedback/arteg1.htm

(Act III Run-down from Wikipedia) The bridal chamber. Elsa and Lohengrin are ushered in with the well-known bridal chorus. They express their love for each other, but Ortrud’s words are impressed upon Elsa, and, despite Lohengrin’s warning, she asks the fatal question. Telramund rushes in to attack the knight, but is slain by Lohengrin, who sorrowfully turns to Elsa, and asks her to follow him to the king, to whom he will now reveal the mystery

…so I guess given the circumstances of the music and given the wide variety of equally beautiful musical pieces, they’d prefer you pick something more inherently in tune with the sacrament. 😃
 
And of course, if you choose, you can ALWAYS have it played at the reception.

You can’t have “Here comes the Bride” either, BTW, in church. Same reason, really. The pieces are not sacred music. Catholic weddings are sacraments, are sacred, and deserve, for processional and recessional (or “gathering” and “going forth”), sacred music, not popular music, not even “classical” but profane music.
 
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SnorterLuster:
Heck, what do I know. I wanted to use Jimmy Rushing’s “My bucket’s got a hole in it.” or Bob Wills “Take me back to Tulsa, I’m too young to marry”. Neither my wife to be or our priest would let me though. 😉
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:rotfl:
 
I heard that the “Hear comes the bride” songn’s real name is “the wedding march of the wh—” you fill in the blank. don’t wanna say that word on there. not sure if that’s true or not, but that’s what I heard. and it is a cheezy song like that web site said. I went down the isle to “cannon in d” witha floutist playing along with a piano and I reccomend that for any wedding 🙂 of course, the mothers have to go down to “ave maria” 🙂
 
It’s possible that your priest won’t allow it because Wagner was a rabid anti-semite. Hitler considered him the ideal composer.
 
Being a southerner, I’m gonna have Freebird at my wedding (when the time comes)…i’d just love to see the entire church whip out their lighters and sway to the opening…kinda makes me teary eyed just thinking about it…😃

(kidding) probably something along the lines of the Largo from Xerxes by Handel–very beautiful piece.

-ACEGC
 
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JKirkLVNV:
It’s possible that your priest won’t allow it because Wagner was a rabid anti-semite. Hitler considered him the ideal composer.
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Funny, this MAY even be an understatment. Wagner is most famous as being the guy who ruined opera for everyone: Its Wagner that gave us 4-14 hour operas…I’m not kidding. ALSO, the image of the fat woman with pigtails wearing a viking helmet with horns is entirely his creation. Wagner is the epitome of overblown Romantic excess. Calling him controversial doesn’t even scratch the surface.
On the plus side, “Flight of the Valkyries” is really really cool. 😃
 
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pm1853:
Funny, this MAY even be an understatment. Wagner is most famous as being the guy who ruined opera for everyone: Its Wagner that gave us 4-14 hour operas…I’m not kidding. ALSO, the image of the fat woman with pigtails wearing a viking helmet with horns is entirely his creation. Wagner is the epitome of overblown Romantic excess. Calling him controversial doesn’t even scratch the surface.
On the plus side, “Flight of the Valkyries” is really really cool. 😃
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I once sat through a PBS presentation of “Parsifal.” It went on for weeks and weeks!!!
 
How about Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary and Purcell’s Trumpet Tune? 😉
 
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SnorterLuster:
Heck, what do I know. I wanted to use Jimmy Rushing’s “My bucket’s got a hole in it.” or Bob Wills “Take me back to Tulsa, I’m too young to marry”. Neither my wife to be or our priest would let me though. 😉
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I got married in 1974. Some of my friends suggested we have a popular tune of the time as a processional: “Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right, Here I Am, Stuck in the Middle with You!”

We thought that wouldn’t fly, so we picked the Lohengrin “Here Comes the Bride” instead. It was ALLOWED back then! I figured it became disallowed because the Church finally researched the piece and found out that, in the opera, it accompanies a pagan couple to their bridal chamber.
 
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