What could get any better than a coastal-front farmhouse? How about a WEDDING at a coastal-front farmhouse?! Yeah, that’s right. Lisa and Keith were married at this picture perfect location. I also love the fact that Lisa wanted to literally pick her own wedding flowers…and it helps to have your pick among so many lovely wildflowers! Of course they did it up right with the music selection too!

So our soundtrack was probably not how one should attempt to take care of music on their wedding day. We originally were going to have a friend’s reggae band play, covering a bunch of Beatles songs. Unfortunately they broke up the week before the wedding! Plan for everything right? Luckily our backup plan was a lot of fun. I make a lot of playlists, at least one for every month, so I wasn’t too miffed to tackle this project. It ended up being huge, and I actually was still working on it the morning of the wedding, while my sister did my hair. It was a compilation of stuff that I loved and really wanted played and songs my family requested. My sister added a bunch of good dancey pop stuff (because seriously? Your guests can’t help but want to dance to Lady GaGa), I threw on some Gloria Estefan for my mom, and it was a weird, fun mix that got a lot of compliments.

I divided music into two lists – the Dancing mix and the Wedding Love mix, to play when everyone was mingling and eating and hugging. Both ended up having over 80 songs on them, so I just put them on shuffle and let it go. Because they were so big, I’m just going to list a representative sampling of songs to give you an idea what we sounded like:

Processional: Sons and Daughters, The Decemberists (this was SO FUN!)
Recessional: All is Love, Karen O and the Kids, Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack
First Dance: This was partially Till There Was You, by The Beatles, but we rickrolled our guests halfway through. We even got the scratchy record sound in before it went to Never Gonna Give You Up. Our guests joined us for the Rick Astley half of the first dance. It was a blast!

My co-Maids of Honor surprised us with the Elephant Love Medley from Moulin Rouge. One of them went up to give a speech and the other (my sister) called out the initial disparaging remarks about love from the audience. I wish I had a recording of this, they were so cute. A crowd of people eventually ended up in the middle of the dance floor just singing REALLY loudly to each other, it was a weird but really moving moment.

Mingling and Nomming playlist sampling:
I’ve Just Seen a Face, The Beatles
Where You Lead, Carole King
Can’t Help, Devendra Banhart
Bad Things Coming, We Are Safe, Emmy the Great
Blue Skies, Eva Cassidy
Me Gustas Tu, Manu Chao
Words Cannot Describe, Mirah
Rocks and Daggers, Noah and the Whale
Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, Paul Simon
Folding Chair, Regina Spektor
With Arms Outstretched, Rilo Kiley
Single Ladies, Pomplamoose cover of Beyonce
Do You Realize?, The Flaming Lips
All My Love, Led Zeppelin
Home, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros (I’m pretty sure this is THE wedding song of the summer. IT’S SO GOOD!)
Wild One, Those Darlins
Oh Paris!, Dent May
Such Great Heights, as covered by the Shins

Dance Party playlist sampling:
Light Up the Night, The Protomen (If anyone has a video game loving partner, The Protomen are an amazing band that sings epically about Mega Man. This song is an awesome eighties-esque explosion of sound, everyone loved it and no one knew they were dancing to a song about robots saving a city from destruction!)
Origin of Love, Hedwig and the Angry Inch
I Saw Her Standing There, The Beatles
Lisztomania, Phoenix
Marry Me, St. Vincent
Rie y Llora, Celia Cruz
Kiss with a Fist, Florence and the Machine
Bad Romance, Lady GaGa
Thriller, Michael Jackson (odds are, at least one of your guests will know this dance. In my case it was my ten year old junior bridesmaid and her brother. they were total badasses!)
Sweet Caroline (this song got played and danced to three times! Make sure you guard your ipod if you are afraid of this happening!)
A-Punk, Vampire Weekend
Kiss, Prince
I’m Yours, Jason Mraz
Bruises, Chairlift
Northern Lights, The Bowerbirds (just thinking about this song makes me melt- it would be great for a first dance!)
Say Hey (I Love You), Michael Franti and Spearhead

The best thing about having a huge playlist all about fun and love is that I now have a soundtrack for the whole summer as well. We did a cross country road trip for our honeymoon, and I’ll never forget driving through Arkansas while listening to Home.

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Beautiful, wonderful photos: Jagger Photography