MUSIC FOR YOUR WEDDING

If you are planning on getting married at St. Mary’s Church, you should contact our organist, Tim Claubaugh (at 419-625-7465, ext. 18, or email music@stmarysandusky.org ) 6 months before your wedding. He will help you with planning the music for your wedding. If you are thinking of having another musicians other than Mr. Claubaugh play your wedding, you still need to contact Mr. Claubaugh to discuss this with him since whoever plays your wedding needs to have a knowledge and sense of the liturgy that they are playing and have experience at playing for Catholic liturgies. If Mr. Claubaugh clears another person to play your wedding, all the music for your wedding will need to be cleared by him as well.

If you would like to have a vocal soloist or other additional musicians such as a trumpet, flute, violin, etc., talk to Mr. Claubaugh and he can make those arrangements for you.

Keep in mind that your wedding at St. Mary’s Church is a religious sacrament and therefore the music at the wedding should reflect that as well as help your gathered guests to pray. The Diocese of Toledo has put out a document called, “Wedding Music Guidelines.” Here at St. Mary’s, we follow these diocesan guidelines.


The following comes from the Toledo Diocese “Wedding Music Guidelines”

“Principles of Planning The Ceremony:
Since the wedding liturgy is a celebration of a sacrament, the music must reflect that sacramental nature. The same general principles of planning worship and deciding on music are employed as at other liturgies.

The music should be chosen with the utmost care and consideration for the sacredness of the liturgy. It needs to be expressive of Christian faith and values. Music which only celebrates the human secular values of love is not appropriate in church. The assembly (your guests) gathered for the wedding should be drawn into active participation in this sacred ritual through prayer and song in order to share fully in the sacramental encounter with Christ the Lord.

Sometimes the only music familiar to the couple consists of songs heard at other weddings; such music may not necessarily be suited to the celebration of the sacrament. Certainly, secular love songs have no place in a sacramental celebration. Sung texts should reflect not only the love of a man and a woman but also the love of God for the couple and for all people. The pastoral musician will make every effort to offer a wide range of possibilities to the couple, particularly in the choice of music to be sung by the assembly.

As with Sunday Worship, planning for a wedding liturgy should begin with reflection on the Scripture readings to be used for the occasion. This done, the parish musician can help the couple select music to enhance the meaning of the chosen scriptures and the entire celebration.

Particular decisions about choice and placement of wedding music should grow out of the three judgments proposed in "Music In Catholic Worship," and explained further in "Liturgical Music Today."

Liturgical Judgments:
• Is the music’s text, form, placement and style congruent with the nature of the
liturgy?
• What parts are preferred for singing and who sings them?

Musical Judgments:
• Is the music technically, aesthetically, and expressively good, irrespective of musical style?
• Is the composition of good quality, and will it also sound good with the resources available?
• Do not confuse good and bad music with one style against another. Many good
pieces of music exist in chant, polyphony, choral hymns, responsorial songs and
contemporary compositions.

Pastoral Judgments:
• Will the words and music help this assembly to pray?
• Will your choice of music have the same feeling of prayerfulness within the assembly as you have originally intended.?”



The entire “Wedding Music Guidelines can be viewed in a pdf file here.

Music has its appropriate places in our lives. We wouldn’t have a pop song such as Brian McKnight’s “Back at One” sung at a church wedding no more than we would have a religious song such as the “Ave Maria” sung at a wedding reception.

Sometimes couples will come to their wedding music planning session wanting to have the “Bridal March” (also known as “Here Comes the Bride”) (from the opera “Lohengrin”) by Richard Wagner as part of the processional and the “Wedding March” (from “Midsummer Night’s Dream”) by Felix Mendelssohn as the recessional. Both of these were big pieces during the “pop culture” of their day with the Wagner piece coming from one of his operas and the Mendelssohn coming from a play. The opera and play that these pieces come from are very racy, and have themes of fraud, deception, and corruption in them as well. For these reasons, many churches, including St. Mary’s, do not allow these pieces as part of the wedding music. These two pieces do not have anything to do with weddings in the opera and the play. Neither of these pieces were used for weddings until recently (in the 1940’s) when these pieces were made popular for weddings by Hollywood in their movies. Your organist has plenty of other possibilities to show you from which you may choose.

When you meet with Mr. Claubaugh there is no need to come prepared with a list of music. It is actually better if you come to the meeting completely unprepared. If you have any questions between now and the day of your wedding, feel free to contact him at the above number or email address.

You can view the parish web page on “The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony” here.

Also look at this Diocese of Toledo web page for more wedding information.