It should be something romantic, but not gushy.
It should bring to mind and heart the feelings of hope and joy.
It should be something meaningful to us as a couple, so we could think back whenever we hear the tune and remember all of the promise our young love held.
I decided the perfect song to meet all of these criteria was the last song from The Little Mermaid movie sound track. The two of us (and a few little sisters) had watched this movie at least a dozen times during our short courtship.
This particular song plays during the scene at the end of the movie where she is getting married to her prince charming. It is resplendent with harps, trumpets, drums, woodwinds, lower brass.
All of the instruments coming together for a song that shouts of joy and hope and promise!
Yeah, that was the song I chose.
Do you remember the old dual cassette players from the late 80's. They were so cool. When listening to one side of a tape, you could with one simple click of a button change to the other side of the tape. No more opening it up, removing the tape, putting it back in, rewinding and finally pushing play again.
No, now you simply pushed the button for whichever side of the tape had the song you wanted played.
I suppose we should have marked the correct button with a flashing neon sign, or maybe a cute little happy face sticker, or one of those bright red sticky note arrows.
But we didn't, and my swift and sure fingered little brother who just HAD to help with the wedding pushed what he apparently thought was the right button.
And we got a little bit of a previous song,
followed by
awkward silence
and then
one of the dearly loved
(yet not romantic, gushy, heartfelt or meaningful),
sing along songs from the album.
You can listen to the song here on you tube, but I will also write the lovely lyrics below.
Ah, we are the daughters of Triton
Great father who loves us and named us well
Aquata,
Andrina,
Arista,
Atina,
Adella,
Allana
And then there is the youngest in her musical debut
Our seventh little sister, we're presenting her to you
To sing a song Sebastian wrote, her voice is like a bell
She's our sister, Ari
Bwaaahhha ha ha ha ha. I remember stopping in my tracks, tugging on my new husband to listen closely and then laughing heartily! What more could I do?? Talk about a memory maker, we always think of our wedding when we hear a small child or over zealous adult belt out this dynamic number.
If you could have only seen the looks on the faces of my guests trying to figure out what in the world that song was doing in the wedding. It was too, too funny.
Oh, and loud...it was very, very loud.
I am sure my little brother was sensitive to the problem of the wind and cranked it up to counteract any gusts!
I am not sure who was running the wedding video, but the tape quickly clicks from the very awkward end of the ceremony to a head and shoulders shot of my accompanist and my little brother.
There they are under the shade of a tree, shoulder to shoulder, sheepishly looking at each other and then to the camera. They are doing all they can not to burst into laughter as they each sincerely apologized for the devastation they wrought upon the last half hour of that day.
"Our hearts were in it" they proclaimed as they fought to control the giggles.
My accompanist made and excellent point too, "Now at least no one else will ask me to play in their wedding!!" Ha ha ha.
We then went on to cake cutting, punch drinking, garter throwing, bouquet tossing, license signing and all the other things that go with a reception. My only complaint through this whole portion of time was that I continuously stepped on my dress.
My grandmother lovingly sewed this dress first out of muslin for fitting, then out of the beautiful creamy taffeta I had chosen. She worked on it until every detail was perfect. My mother and I then spent several hours sewing on seed pearls. These were across the bodice and all around the hem. Every time I stepped on the hem of my dress I could hear a little pearl crush under my weight. I just hated knowing that I was ruining the lovingly made dress and got to where I was constantly picking it up to avoid crushing any more little pearls.
Carrying a dress around gets tiring!
Having to carry it around to not ruin it was turning out to be emotional for some reason.
....to be continued
