Sing a new song unto the Lord: Ceremony music

As with ceremony readings (previous post), the Catholic church has certain rules about what music you choose for your ceremony.  The most important rule is that the piece is either classical or was written expressly for church.  To the church, music is an integral part of worship, so walking down the aisle to "All You Need Is Love" is a big fat no.  There are also other minor rules, like appropriateness of season (no Easter music during Lent, etc.), and some songs are actually expressly banned because the composer was anti-Semitic or they are otherwise offensive to the church (the Bridal Chorus is one).

St. Francis Xavier does a lot to help you choose music for your ceremony.  They have a music director who sends you a CD of the most popular songs to choose from, but you are also allowed to choose other songs, within reason.  The church coordinates cantors (lead singers) and instruments, which is somewhat restrictive and expensive, but also means that you have someone who is used to playing this music at this church and don't have to worry about finding competent musicians or singers.  The cantor we chose sounds like he came straight from a Disney musical!

We had a ton of fun picking songs.  If you are a parishioner with little involvement in the music ministry, this is the only time in your life that you get to basically design your own mass, so I've been saving up songs we liked for years!  If you're into Catholic/Christian or even just classical music, this is what we picked:

Prelude: Laudate Dominum

Seating of families: Canon in D

Bridal party processional: Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

This song is often associated with Christmas, which is appropriate.

Bridal processional: Gesu Bambino

I was so happy the music director let me use this, because it's a Christmas song and technically we're still in Advent.  Mine will be instrumental, but I love her voice in this song!

Responsorial Psalm: 148, Praise the Lord from the Heavens [I liked this one for its reference to "all you creeping things" on the earth :) ]

Gospel Acclamation: Festival Alleluia

Preparation of Eucharistic gifts: Set Your Heart On the Higher Gifts

This is a sneaky way to fit in 1st Corinthians without actually reading it.

Communion Song: The Servant Song

Communion Song: We Are Many Parts

We also considered "Blest Are They", which is based on the Beatitudes, and "Lord of All Hopefullness," which I love.  There are a lot of great communion songs.

Recessional: Ode to Joy

Lance picked this one.  Personally, I can't hear it without singing "Starz has movies, Starz has movies..."  It is upbeat, though!

Postlude:  

Choosing instrumentation also took a while, because Lance liked all the songs on the sample CD with trumpets, but neither one of us wanted a trumpet.  The music director said that she could do a lot with even one more instrument, but she couldn't find duet music for the strings that we were interested in, so we settled on the piano and the violin.  So excited for the violin!