My first wedding gig on the harp lead me to learn two of the most traditionally popular pieces of wedding music of all time. Lapiz lazuli was the color of the sky of the stained glass window next to me in the church. When I was 17 years old, I had been playing the harp for three years, and I had a decade of piano experience. Also, I had been playing pipe organ for mass since the 7th grade, so I had a pretty good understanding of how ceremony worked.
When I was a junior in high school, two of my friends who were a year older than me, Jenny and Josh, decided that they were going to get married after graduation. They asked me to play harp for their Lutheran ceremony. It would be traditional, modest, and I would be the fanciest part of the affair (other than the bride of course!).
I was paid $100 by the bride’s father, George, who was loosely friends with my parents. He was a single dad who lived in a farmhouse near ours. Every so often he hosted a neighborly picnic. The house had what I thought of as my dream kitchen – restaurant-style griddle, gas burners on the stove, hanging pots and pans from the ceiling, all surrounded by deep blue tiles on the counter and backsplash. They were the color of lapiz lazuli, a deep oceanic dream.
This was this same color blue I recognized in the sky of the stained glass window when I played harp for my first wedding gig. I wore my one formal dress (also blue!). It was navy with a scalloped lace neckline, and I borrowed a string of pearls from my mother. For my first wedding gig, I remember learning two of the most traditionally popular wedding pieces of all time: Pachelbel’s Canon in D and The Wedding March by Mendelssohn. These two songs became the backbone to my Processional and Recessional suggestions for the next decade.
By comparison, thirty years later (has it really been that long!?), I just don’t have that many requests for straight forward “Here Comes the Bride” ceremonies. Around 2005, after I moved to Seattle (a city not known for its formality), I noticed that I was getting more requests for contemporary ceremony locations: a converted old schoolhouse turned event space, a warehouse / art gallery, a downtown loft, a winery, or a city park. My own wedding in 2008 was in a Japanese Garden.
These days, people feel more free to choose what aligns with their hearts, at least from my observation I think that’s true. I’m likely to have clients choose song from my suggested wedding songs list. Couples are less likely to have their parents do planning for them, or follow in footsteps of the past, even when it doesn’t resonate with who they are. I’m grateful for that. That said, if a traditional church speaks to you and that’s where you want your ceremony, by all means book it there! I’m happy to be your harpist.