Yesterday I shared our unique ceremony music with you, so today you’ll get to hear the special songs we chose for our reception music. We had a jazz quartet play at our wedding reception, so we knew that the music we chose had to be of that era, which made it really fun/easy to decide!

First Dance

Moon River by Andy Williams

I’ve loved this song ever since I was a little girl and saw Breakfast at Tiffany’s for the first time. I think this song describes our relationship so well. My Huckleberry friend :) When we saw our band play for the first time the band leader asked us to give him a list of songs to play and this was at the top of my list because I have always loved it so much, and when they played it that night I literally got goosebumps and my eyes welled up with tears. So perfect.

Father + Daughter Dance

I’ll Be Seeing You by Billie Holiday

This is my absolute favorite version of this song, and I think it’s an unusual but kind of perfect song for a father/daughter dance. I preferred Billie Holiday’s version because it’s much slower than Frank Sinatra. I kept this song as a surprise from my dad until the night of our wedding. And then we both cried the whole time we danced haha. I even get choked up just watching this video. My dad never EVER dances. But he and my mom took ballroom lessons before the wedding so that he would be ready to dance with his daughter. This was a moment at one point in my life I thought I’d never have with my father, so it was pretty emotional.

Mother + Son Dance

Always by Frank Sinatra

We had a really hard time finding a sweet song from this era that wasn’t about lovers. We’d pick several and be like “oh this one is so good! Crap they just said late night kisses” haha it was kind of hilarious. But then we found this little gem. Totally platonic, yet full of heartfelt sentiment. I think it should be added to official mother/son dance lists of the world. Yes those really exist. And yes Boys II Men is on all of them.

Last Dance

The Best is Yet to Come by Frank Sinatra

I mean this song just speaks for itself really. It’s so perfect thinking about the life we’ve just started together. For our last song we had the guests ushered out as it played and we were left in the ballroom with just the band and it was really very romantic. While we were dancing alone our guests were lining up outside with their confetti poppers to give us a proper sendoff. It was so great.

And that is our wedding music. We kept getting so many compliments on our band so if you’re in the area and you’re getting married you should totally hire them! Their version of Take Five was spot on. Really! :)

Guess what I saw last night? Our wedding video! And while watching it I realized that no one will ever know the songs that were played as everyone walked down the aisle, or during our first dance, or any of that unless you were actually there. So today I wanted to share with you guys the songs we chose for our ceremony music and why they were special to us. If you’re at work, you can just put your headphones on, you don’t actually have to watch any of these videos (unless you want to).

General Processional

Your Hand in Mine by Explosions in the Sky

We chose things song because they are a local band (out of Austin) that we both love, and this also happens to be the theme song to one of our favorite shows. All of their songs are super long instrumentals and we knew that this would be perfect to just loop while our guests were arriving because you can’t really tell when it starts back over again, and it’s such a beautiful happy song.

Seating of the Family + Lighting of Unity Candle

Falling Slowly (Instrumental) by Glen Hansard

Derek and I really love the movie Once. If you haven’t seen it yet, you really must ASAP. It’s the story of two musicians who met in Ireland and recorded a few songs together and formed a great love for one another (but never anything romantic) and then went their separate ways. It sounds doom and gloom, but it really is lovely. This song is one of our favorites and when we found an acoustic version of it, we knew it was meant to be.

Processional

Reset by Mute Math

As you learned earlier this week, one of our first dates was a Mute Math show, and guess what? They happen to have a pretty rad instrumental (if I do say so myself) so we both freaked out when we thought to play this for when the bridesmaids, flower girl, and ring bearer walked down the aisle. It is super modern and I think just really set the tone for the day. It transitioned from peaceful serene music to “let’s do this” music, and I’m still pretty obsessed. We didn’t play the whole thing because it’s pretty long, so it faded out about halfway through (if you’re trying to get a real life visual).

Bride’s Processional

Meteor Shower (Instrumental) by Owl City

When Owl City’s album Ocean Eyes came out (right before we started dating) I was obsessed with it, after one of our friends tweeted about it, and little did I know my future boyfriend/fiance/husband also saw that same tweet and downloaded it immediately so we definitely had our love of poppy cheesy electronic music in common. Meteor Shower is a super short but really dramatic song (with the lyrics) and a lot of people don’t know it so it was something that was special just for us because we knew what the lyrics said and when we found the instrumental for it we knew it was the perfect song for me to walk down the aisle to.

Recessional

The Throne Room by Star Wars Episode V

We both grew up in Star Wars loving families. I think my dad saw the first one about 25 times in the theatre. Crazy. We loved that the intro to this song sounds like the normal bridal recessional and then it fakes you out. It was so perfect. We kept the whole thing a secret and as we walked back up the aisle together everyone was laughing so hard, it was wonderful. My dad even said “May the force be with you” as I passed him. Awesome.

Now it’s like you were actually there. :) Tomorrow I’ll share the music we chose for our first dance, father/daughter, etc. Yay!