My friend Shannon is trying to pick out the music for her wedding in October and she’s finding it difficult.  I can so relate.  As a singer, musician, and general lover of all things musical, there were too many choices and not enough time for it all. 

My favorite pieces were the processional and the recessional.  We marched in to Michael W. Smith’s “Freedom”:

And out to his “Hybernia”:

My two biggest regrets musically are that I sang this at the wedding:

It’s a beautiful song, but it’s so cliche.  I’d planned to write Joey a song, but I ran out of time, so I fell back on a song I’d done at three or four other weddings.  I regret not doing something more unique.

I also regret that I failed to include The Monkees; I had planned on having an instrumental version of this played before the ceremony:

At the time, though, I wasn’t able to turn up the sheet music for our pianist.

I did find the sheet music to this one, though, which was played as the mothers were seated:

There were times during my adolescence when that song was all I had…especially during the times when my anxiety/depression got the better of me for months at a time.

Music is such a fundamental part of who we are, and so many people don’t realize that.