What do you get when two music lovers fall into like…and then into love? Well Kathleen tells it best, so I’ll leave it to her:

Jon and I met in graduate school at Syracuse University, which is sort of an odd place for a guy from Idaho and a girl from Georgia to meet, don’t you think? We were both there to pursue a master’s degree in arts journalism — music journalism, specifically. Each of us came from a musical background: Jon studied saxophone in college and I was a voice and opera major. Jon’s academic focus in Syracuse was jazz and mine was classical music, and, ever since we met, part of the fun of our relationship has been learning about new and different music from one another.

Music of all sorts has been central in our life together, so it was only fitting that we should get engaged at a concert. We had tickets to go see Josh Ritter, a indie/folkie singer-songwriter from Moscow, Idaho, where Jon grew up, who is one of our mutual favorite musicians. About halfway into the set when the band launched into Josh’s biggest hit, a song called Kathleen, Jon pulled me close. He started fishing around in his pocket with his free hand while saying some nice things into my ear, so I figured out pretty quickly what was going on! We were officially engaged before the last chorus came around.

In addition to the saxophone, Jon knows his way around the flute, guitar, ukulele and piano (sort of). As my wedding gift to Jon, I found a luthier to build him a concert ukulele from scratch. I chose all the various woods in the instrument with assistance from the builder, Mike Pereira, had a special label put inside and designed a custom inlay of his initials for the headstock. It’s a beautiful instrument and he plays it all the time now!

When it came to our wedding, music was obviously a very high priority. For our ceremony, which was held at the church where I work as a section leader/soloist in the choir, we wanted to make good use of the extraordinarily brilliant organist and give him material other than what you normally hear at church weddings. We tossed aside the church’s CD sampler of wedding favorites and instead spent many nights researching and listening to organ repertoire online. In the end, our organist helped us settle on the following program — and he’s still talking about how much he loved playing such challenging pieces for a wedding.

Here’s what we chose for the prelude, processionals and recessional, for any of you Hi-Fi brides who might need or want to go a traditional route for your ceremony:

Sonata IV in B-flat, Allegretto – Felix Mendelssohn
Prelude in G, BWV 541 – J.S. Bach
Suite, Op. 5, “Sicilienne” – Maurice Durufle
Toccata in D, “Dorian,” BWV 538 – J.S. Bach
Meditation (trans. Maurice Durufle) – Louis Vierne
Sinfonia, “We Thank Thee, Lord,” BWV 29 – J.S. Bach
Symphony no. 1 in D, Final – Louis Vierne
Wedding party processional: Prelude to a Te Deum – Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Bridal processional: Sonata III in A, Introduction – Felix Mendelssohn

The service included two more special musical touches. First, my best friend George sang a French art song for the mothers’ processional — A Chloris by Reynaldo Hahn. Second, in between the readings we chose, my voice teacher from Syracuse sang a gorgeous setting of i carry your heart with me by e.e. cummings, accompanied by my dear friend and former music teacher on the piano. It was a musical dream team!

Once the ceremony was over, things loosened up a bit. A jazz quartet fronted by local saxophonist Mace Hibbard entertained our guests with standards and original straight-ahead tunes during the cocktail hour while we were off taking photos, and once we made our big entrance, the DJ took over for dinner and party time.

First Dace: ‘Deed I Do – Blossom Dearie
Dad/Daughter: Frank Sinatra – The Way You Look Tonight
Mother/Son: In My Life – The Beatles

Once we finished the formal dances, the party floodgates opened. Our DJ did an excellent job of paying attention to our requested tunes and going with the flow of the crowd on the dance floor. We had everything from Beyonce to ’90s boy band pop to shag music for the parents, and all sorts of things in between. I honestly can’t remember that many specific tunes from the evening — it’s sort of a blur — but here are a few classic party tunes (at least among my friends) that I know we got down to:

Georgia On My Mind – Ray Charles
I Saw her Standing There – the Beatles
Walking on Sunshine – Katrina and the Waves
Motown Philly – Boyz II Men
99 Luftballoons – Nena
Don’t Stop Believin’ – Journey
Yeah – Usher
PYT – Michael Jackson
Hey Ya! – OutKast

For the last dance of the night, Jon and I took the floor again and danced to Josh Ritter’s “Kathleen”, of course. It was the perfect end to the best party ever!

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Super Sweet Shots By: Our Labor of Love