Brides: Making beautiful music together

The music chosen for a wedding ceremony should reflect who the bride and groom are as a couple.

So say several local musicians who regularly provide the musical component of the big day.

"You need to choose music that captures who you are together as a couple or maybe reflects the nature of your relationship while still keeping in mind that a wedding is still a somewhat formal event," said Paul Wainamo, the music director at King's Way Assembly of God church who has several of his own piano CDs on the market. "You need to take into account your unique ideas still need to fit the occasion."

That sentiment is somewhat echoed by Travis Harrington, band teacher at Mirror Lake Middle School and a church musician and choral director at Saint Andrews Catholic Church.

"There has to be a certain flow," Harrington said. "The music should not draw attention to itself. I tell couples, 'hey, you are both going to be dressed nicely, you've put so much effort into making sure that everything matches, the floral arrangements and the candles are beautiful and then there are the programs, so really, you need to put that much energy into selecting music that fits because the music is the support to what is happening in the ceremony itself.' "

In the case of a Catholic wedding, Harrington points out that means the music is a sacred part of the wedding mass.

No rock 'n' roll here.

But that doesn't mean Catholic couples-to-be or those getting married in other religious denominations are necessarily limited to a few choices.

Harrington said there is a long list of selections that fit the requirements for a wedding.

Oh, sure, there are the tried-and-true songs such as Pachelbel's "Canon in D Major", Johann Sebastian Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," "Trumpet Voluntary" written by English composer Jeremiah Clarke and of course, the ever-popular "Here Comes the Bride," that provide a great starting point for selecting wedding music, Harrington said.

But there is a lot of newer classical music that he likes to point couples toward to give them and the audience something fresh and unique, particularly for the processional and recessional aspects of the wedding ceremony.

He's a big fan of the Celtic-influenced Secret Garden, a violin and keyboard playing duo based out of Norway whose music is earning North American fans. Harrington particularly likes their song "Celebration" for weddings.

"It's something different, something that people will notice but won't bowl them over either," he said.

While the wedding and its accompanying fanfare should be focused primarily on the likes and preferences of the bride and groom, Harrington said wise, thoughtful couples try to take the impact their chosen music will have on the audience into consideration.

"I usually tell the couple that this is their day and the music is more for them, but at the same time, they can pick music that will reach out to those in attendance and give them the chance to say, 'this is important to me, here is what I believe,' " Harrington said.

But then again, maybe not.

He remembers playing some weddings - in his younger, less musically-discerning days as a college student in western Washington- at which a country western song was played to bring the bride in or the song in the middle of the ceremony came from "The Phantom of the Opera" or the "Star Wars" theme was played as the new couple left the church.

Not anymore.

"I mean if they want to run down the aisle to something like James Brown or Randy Travis, I personally won't play that kind of music at a wedding because of what I believe about marriage," he said.

But that also doesn't mean he isn't game for trying a few unique approaches.

Again, back to his college days, he and several other musician friends took great composition liberties with a variety of more traditional wedding pieces and created what Harrington to this day still considers the most beautiful ceremony - from a musical standpoint - that he's ever been a part of.

Sure, they had unlimited access to trained musicians.

"It was a bunch of college students having fun," he said.

But the local Chugiak-Eagle River area boasts plenty of trained musicians, Harrington said.

Local musicians often post advertisements at Keyboard Cache in Anchorage and Mike's Music in the Valley River Center in Eagle River.

It's what Angela MacPherson, a pianist at two local churches, did last spring after relocating here from eastern Canada.

For her, the music is the highlight of a wedding ceremony.

"Music is the language of the soul, it draws us in, it expresses what the bride and groom are feeling toward each other," MacPherson said. "It ties the whole ceremony together. To me, a wedding is incomplete without music."

That's why she puts flexibility into play when helping couples select wedding music.

"It's funny, one song really catches the ear of one couple and another just really don't like that particular song," she said. "Every bride and groom is different."

This brings the topic of wedding music selection back to Wainamo who says, "The music chosen has to capture the image of their relationship."

When helping a couple select music, Wainamo said he often interviews them and has the bride and groom spend some time writing down answers to questions about what attracted them to the other person and what they love about that person.

In some cases, such as the wedding of Emily (Archer) and Jesse Alberi, Wainamo writes the couple their own personal love song.

What won't he do at a wedding?

Well, rap for one.

"I don't do it well, so it is not even a consideration," he said.

Nor is anything with morally reprehensible undertones.

"I've had many outlandish requests," he said. "I've heard a few intriguing combinations, though, like when my cousin had the theme from "The Raiders of Lost Ark" played when she and her groom left the ceremony. At first I thought, huh? But then I listened to it and you know, it really does have a sort of uplifting victorious feel to it."