Dear Wedding Couple,
In the past 30 years I have played the organ for well over a thousand weddings actually closer to 1,500! From the loft I have an excellent view and have observed some remarkable weddings, and a few that didn't go so well. From these observations I've discovered a few tips that might help your wedding go more smoothly.
AT THE WEDDING REHEARSAL
There are some things about participation at your wedding that should be covered at the wedding rehearsal. Your family and friends in your wedding party should be encouraged to sing, respond, say the Our Father (or Lord's Prayer), join in and participate in your wedding liturgy -- not just be pretty fixtures in the front pews. Have someone put wedding programs in their seats so they can fully participate at the appropriate times. Tell them they are expected to sing the Psalm Response and Alleluia. Help them practice the responses to the readings and greetings by the priest. This helps the rest of the assembly by setting a good example from those in the wedding party.
Anyone in the wedding party who has to go up and down the steps to the sanctuary to proclaim one of the readings, read the intercessions, sign the wedding license, etc., should practice going up and down the steps to the sanctuary in their dress and shoes the day of the wedding. We often see women trip coming down the steps in their long gowns and high heels. Practice can prevent the embarrassment and pain of a fall.
Every bride needs a floofer. Usually this is assigned to the Maid or Matron of Honor, but someone who is going to be physically close to the bride will need to floof her gown, train, veil, whatever. This will have to be done several times throughout the wedding and should be done as discreetly as possible. Ladies, if you are a floofer, please make sure you practice with the bride in the church the day of the wedding. You will need some practice to make it work right. Don't bend over with your backside to the assembly. It's not a reverent sight for church. Hundreds of people will be focused on your ability to gracefully squat, floof, rise and return to your seat. Again, you will need some practice time in your dress to master the proper squatting technique that looks good when viewed from behind. And floofer, you will have to slip this action in between events. Don't ever get up and floof while someone is reading, singing, praying, etc. Find those moments in between these actions to sneak in there and make the dress look pretty. And for the rest of the wedding party and celebrants, give the floofer a little time to get her job done before you start reading or speaking. A lot of time and money have gone into getting to this moment, and 15 more seconds of floofing time after the bride sits, kneels, or moves from place to place won't be missed.
Work out the logistics of who is going to hold the bride's flowers during the wedding vows, and when the flowers should be returned to the bride. From my perspective in the loft, this action tends to get overlooked and I have seen some really funny things happen when flowers are laid on the bride's seat, she backs up to sit down, and several people dive to get the flowers out from under the bride.
Grooms, you need to practice walking around with your bride in a huge dress. Getting down the aisle is the easy part. Negotiating the few steps from standing to sitting down with yards of material flowing around your bride is not something you've ever dealt with before. I've seen grooms hop over the train. I've seen grooms step on the train with disastrous results. This could all be avoided if you spend a few minutes practicing.
MUSIC FOR YOUR WEDDING
The folks at St. Agnes have been providing professional quality music for decades. We are practically famous for it around here. In the past 20 years I've been at St. Agnes, there have only been three or four musicians from outside our parish who have done as good a job as our singers. Chances are the friend or family member you know who can sing is not going to be one of those three or four singers. If your musical friend has studied their skill for more than 10 years, knows Catholic liturgy intimately, is fluent in Latin, sings every week in front of a thousand people in a large church with live acoustics, with the organ a football field away then your singer may do as well as our musicians. Choosing someone who doesn't have these qualifications can be an enormous embarrassment at your wedding. Believe me! Use the musicians at St. Agnes and you can't go wrong!
Please limit your prelude selections to three pieces. We have found over the years that this gives us the flexibility we need to do our best. And we do a great job at choosing prelude selections for you if you want to leave that decision up to us.
Please don't ask us to perform pop music. It's not appropriate in church, and frankly we do our best when we play the music with which we are familiar.
We will start playing prelude music when your guests begin to arrive. This sounds silly, but we have had mothers, fathers and wedding consultants insist that we begin playing at a certain time, and there's no one in the church!
If there is a special action to take place before the wedding procession begins, let the music finish before the wedding procession begins. For example, at many weddings the mothers are seated, and then the wedding procession begins. Please wait until the music for the mothers is completely over and begin the wedding procession when the wedding procession music begins.
We have a special signal light that can be used to let the organist know when the mothers are ready to be seated and when the bridal party is assembled and ready to process in. (The button is located high in the doorway into church near the restroom. The celebrant (priest) should push it repeatedly for about 15 seconds to give the organist a cue but don't expect the music to stop abruptly. Wait for the current music to end before beginning the procession.)
The Ave Maria is a devotional song to Mary, the mother of Jesus. It is not part of the wedding liturgy and does not have to be sung at your wedding. If you are going to have Ave Maria sung at your wedding, we need to sing 2 verses to complete the entire Hail Mary. Singing just one verse leaves out half the message. Sometimes, because it is kind of lengthy, the wedding party gets anxious and begins the wedding processional in the middle of the Ave Maria. Please resist that urge!
THE WEDDING PROCESSION
The wedding procession is a significant event in the wedding liturgy, and it can make a statement about the couple coming to God's house to be married. I encourage you to consider processing in together as a couple. In this day and age when couples are waiting longer to get married, most of you left your parent's home years ago, and you've been working together as a couple on your wedding plans for months. Does it make sense to have Dad "give the bride away"? Mom and Dad will feel more comfortable processing in as a couple, and you will show all your family and friends that you are in this together, making a conscious decision to celebrate the Sacrament of Marriage in the church as a couple. If you want to keep the wedding day suspense thing going, it is possible to work out the logistics of keeping the bride and groom apart until they join at the back of church to walk down the aisle together.
Often celebrants would prefer not to prolong the beginning of the wedding by singing a Gathering Hymn, and for most weddings they are not necessary. However, it is a way to get the assembly actively participating in your wedding, especially if you are going to have a lot of non-Catholics attending your wedding. Choosing a hymn that is familiar to all denominations is a great way to engage everyone and get them actively participating. If you choose to use this option and sing a Gathering Hymn, we suggest you make it flow seamlessly as a culmination of the procession. For example, use Beethoven's Hymn of Joy as your wedding processional, and after the entire wedding party has processed in, the music can continue as the entire assembly breaks into song singing, Joyful, Joyful We Adore You. Having the words to the familiar hymn in your program (or at least the hymn number in your program) will help everyone be able to participate well without a lot of verbal announcements.
It is not wise to include children under age 6 in a wedding. Children who haven't been through at least kindergarten haven't developed the social skills necessary to line up and walk in by themselves. It really puts a lot of pressure on a 3, 4, 5 or 6 year old to be the focus of hundreds of people in a big church. If you must have young children in the procession, consider having them walk down the aisle with an adult, or if they are very small, have them carried in the arms of an adult with whom they are comfortable.
Photographers and videographers should stay out of the aisles during the wedding procession. It's distracting and true professionals are able to give you professional results without being the center of attention during that time.
THE WEDDING LITURGY
Celebrants, gestures speak for themselves. Of course many folks at a Catholic wedding aren't Catholic and may not be familiar with everything we do, but it only adds to their confusion to have someone narrate and explain everything. Don't tell the assembly to sit down give them a gesture and sit down yourself, and the assembly will follow. And for heaven sake, don't break up the procession by announcing, "Please stand for the bride!" No one has ever been surprised by the bride sneaking down the aisle and they don't need someone to tell them she's coming.
Don't announce every action. Most weddings have a program that tells who is doing what, so we don't need an MC announcing that "Mary Smith, aunt of the bride, will proclaim our First Reading."
Couples, if you are going to have a program, for goodness sake, have it proofread before you print it. You wouldn't believe some of the typos and misspellings we see. Fax or email it to us at least a week before the wedding and give us a chance to go over it and make corrections before you have it printed. Also, we can recommend a person who makes very good wedding programs who knows the correct wording, spelling and layout.
And if you are going to have a program, please put the music, the words of the music, or the hymn number for the music in your program. We will be glad to help you with that, and can supply you with an electronic file or hard copy that can be inserted in your program.
The Psalm and Gospel Acclamation must be sung, as well as
the Eucharistic Acclamations if you are having a
During the sign of peace, consider giving a sign of peace as a couple to your parents and your witnesses, but don't turn it into a major production by hugging everyone in your wedding party, and every relative in the first 4 pews. Often we see the new couple who have just been married a few moments, split up and the bride hugs all of her attendants and family while the groom works his side. Then they switch and go through the crowd again. Sometimes the entire wedding party starts running around creating quite a frenzy of activity. The wedding liturgy just fell apart and assembly has lost the purpose of the action. Remember KISS: Keep It Short and Simple.
Celebrants, don't hand the couple things like their marriage license to carry out of church. Assign someone in the family or wedding party to be responsible for these things and let the couple leave holding onto each other.
I hope you find a few tips here that will make your special day go more smoothly. I love weddings and I look forward to playing for yours!
From the loft
Organist,