Friday, May 25, 2007

We had our “parental unit” meeting last weekend and “finalized” the guest list and invitations. I just have to make a few revisions to the invitations and response cards and then they can be burned to CD for Joan to print for us. Not much else to do in that arena aside from the actual assembly and mailing (to be done 6/15.)

We have a meeting with Tom and Alice (the ceremony musicians) in about a week and a half. This is our second meeting with them as our first left us with some unresolved issues. Looking back, I realize I never really blogged about this before. I guess I didn’t write anything at the time because I was frustrated with the results of our first meeting. I went into the meeting with the ceremony order and what I wanted to be played at what time. Things got off to wonderful start when the very first piece on my list got shot down and there were some uncomfortable (at least for me) Catholic vs Non-Catholic moments. After that things went downhill as I was unprepared for such a complete rejection of everything I had wanted. I guess I just went along with pretty much everything else that night just to get out of there. I know that (some) musicians can be arrogant a-holes who are obviously superior to those around them. That’s not exactly the feeling I got being around Tom and Alice, but it definitely wasn’t a warm and fuzzy, they’re on my side, feeling.

Anyway, after that disaster I took some time off from thinking about it. When I went back to it I did some research online using “Catholic Wedding Ceremony Music” as my search term as to avoid any further religious clashes. Oddly enough, the song that caused all the problems in the first place (by the way, the problem was that I wanted Ave Maria sung as the processional – the horror!) showed up on a lot of the suggested lists AS A PROCESSIONAL. Imagine that. In any case, I got some more ideas, listened to some bad midi files and recordings, and narrowed the list down to some songs I could live with.

We final got the second meeting scheduled with them this past week. Alice emailed me asking if I was going to bring sheet music to the meeting. I said no and apparently this caused panic since she “had sung everything she had.” To alleviate unnecessary spikes in blood pressure I had Adam email her my revised ceremony plan. I just wanted to get rid of back-to-back vocal pieces and try and get processionals and recessionals that were more like I wanted than what we had picked the first time. I don’t know that she has responded and I’ll have to see how things go on the 6th. I don’t want to turn into a Bridezilla over the music at the ceremony, but I don’t want to have to hear the Pachelbel Canon either. I want to respect their opinions as people who have done a lot more Catholic weddings than I have, but I don’t want to give up my choices completely just because I happen to be getting married to a Catholic.

In any case, hopefully it will all work itself out. It’s ironic that the music is really the only thing I’ve had a problem with throughout this whole wedding planning process. Even the ceremony planning wasn’t that painful (although I suppose we’re not really done yet…)

June and July will be busy months with lots of house-related appointments and tasks along with meetings with vendors, Father Mike, and eventually wedding favor assembly, dress fittings, and the million other things on the list that I can’t do yet. For now I’m enjoying the calm before the storm by very slowly packing up our apartment and, this weekend, watching the second season of The Girls Next Door ( Now out on DVD!)

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