Weeks to a Wedding: Music and a Minister

Now that we have guests assembled, clothes to wear, and an aisle to walk down, one burning question remains. Who’ll marry us? Actually, there’s a second question. Will we have a Journey or U2 cover band at brunch? By Sophie Gilbert

Comments () | Published September 17, 2009

I’m joking about the Journey band. I had never heard a Journey song in my life until I moved to New York and was able to hit karaoke bars every night, where I soon realized how popular the band’s oeuvre is. But as fun as it can be when you’re drinking sake bombs and someone who can’t sing is yelling something about not stopping believing, there’s a distinct lack of elegance to it—especially over brunch. So it’s safe to say that there won’t be any ’80s music at our wedding, which leaves us with two choices: a string quartet or the reunion of my brother and his emo band, Ignorance of a Rival.

Not surprisingly, we chose the string quartet. And during the course of his research, John stumbled across a Washingtonian-endorsed group who does covers! I might have to rethink my walking-down-the-aisle tune—last week a friend who read this blog said that she’d been to a wedding last month where the bride chose “Can’t Help Falling in Love” as her intro song, and there’s nothing I hate more than unoriginality. If you have any brilliant ideas that aren’t total clichés, (such as Pachelbel’s Canon in D, “I Do,” “Here Comes the Bride, Thirty Miles Wide,” and that kind of thing), I’d love to see them in the comments!

So we have music, which makes any social gathering 300 percent more wonderful. What we need now is a nice person with a loud voice to lead us in our vows (preferably one who won’t freak out when John and I resolutely refuse to “obey” each other). We had one recommendation, and John called him. Everything was great until I did some background research, which led to a very strange personal Web site and a news story revealing him to be a former televangelist who left the ministry after a personal scandal and now makes a living doing weddings. Strikes one, two, and three.

Luckily, just as I was despairing and Elvis impersonators were seeming like an alluring option, John remembered that one of our guests has a friend who’s a Lutheran minister. We’ve both met him, and he’s absolutely charming and very kind. And proficient at weddings. And free on October 3. So in the nick of time we found someone to marry us, meaning that none of our friends will be required to register this week as Internet ministers. For which they’re all very grateful.

Want to read Sophie's adventures from the beginning? Go here.  

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