I just celebrated my 11th wedding anniversary and holy wow, it feels weird to type that. Anyways, it got me thinking back to my wedding day. I didn’t hire a pianist or quartet since I recorded the wedding ceremony music myself. It was so much fun picking out my all time favorite wedding music and walking down the aisle to beautiful piano songs. If you are getting married soon or know of a friend needing music for their wedding, I want to share my favorite Classical wedding ceremony music with you.
1. “Air on the G String” by Johann Sebastian Bach
“Air on the G String” is a great song to use while the ushers are seating your guests. It is very peaceful and gets your guests in the mood for a wedding ceremony. This song allows the perfect amount of time to get all guests seated and if necessary can be put on repeat.
2. “Ave Maria” by Franz Schubert
“Ave Maria” is the song the bridesmaids walked down the aisle to. This song created emotion in the room before “Pachelbel’s Canon” started playing for the bride. It is the perfect length for all the bridesmaids to slowly walk to their spots and can be slowly faded out before starting the bride’s processional song.
3. “Canon in D” by Johann Pachelbel
“Canon in D” otherwise known as “Pachelbel’s Canon” is the song I walked down the aisle to. The traditional “Bridal Chorus” by Richard Wagner is still the most widely used processional song. But when I got married, I wanted to use a song that was still as beautiful but also a little different from the norm. Of course I had tears walking down the aisle, and it probably had something to do with this song playing which stirred up all kinds of emotions.
4. “Clair de lune” by Claude Debussy
“Clair de lune” is such a beautiful song. We did our unity candle lighting and the awkward stare at each other portion of our ceremony to this song. It can be faded out if you don’t need the full length of the song and can be used for any portion of the wedding ceremony.
5. Recessional-“For Once in My Life” by Stevie Wonder
For the recessional, we walked out to “For Once in My Life” by Stevie Wonder. I am a Classically trained pianist, but I also love many different genres of music. Walking out to a song with fun lyrics and a peppy rhythm got everyone smiling and ready for the reception.
What music did you use in your wedding ceremony? Do you know someone who is about to get married who can use some wedding ceremony music suggestions?
Love them all! We used hymns in our ceremony. I walked down the aisle to “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.”
Oh I love hymns. That ones such a beautiful choice.
That’s a great list. Ours was You and Me by Lighthouse. Then my husband sang that in my ear while I had a c-section with our son.
Ok I’m just slightly obsessed with Lighthouse. Good choice!
These songs are so beautiful! I’m not a huge fan of the classic songs for our wedding but there’s no denying how beautiful they are. For our wedding we are having a cellist, a keyboardist, and a guitar player for when we all walk down. We’re doing a version of “Concerning Hobbits” for the wedding party. You should look it up, it’s not traditional but it’s beautiful!
Oh how pretty! I love that song!
I LOVE Canon in D! It always makes me think of weddings!
Yes! It is like the new wedding march.
#2 & 3 were both played at my wedding!
Oh awesome!
I’ve always loved traditional wedding music. Funny enough, we didn’t have a traditional wedding so no traditional wedding music lol.
I love the idea of a non traditional wedding. If I could go back and do it over again, my wedding would have looked way different.