Selecting music for your Wedding DVD

Selecting the music for your wedding DVD can be a tricky business. I normally ask couples to pick a selection of 10 fast songs and 10 slow songs. I don’t use all 20 songs, but need that many to give me some options.

A few bits of advice on picking your wedding songs.

1) Make sure that the music reflects the taste of both the bride and groom, try to keep it as balanced as possible.

2) If one of you likes a song and the other hates that song, DON’T use the song!! There are lots of songs in the world and you don’t want someone to have to listen to a song they hate for the rest of your lives.

3) Listen carefully to the lyrics of the songs you pick. For example, recently a couple selected a song by Snow Patrol entitled “Open Your Eyes”. I had a listen to the song and some of the lyrics went like this…

“my skin feels cold”

“I feel so tired and old”

“Anger swells in my guts”

“I don’t feel slices and cuts”

You get the idea. Musically the song is perfect for wedding video usage but the lyrics don’t really work.

4) It can be difficult to use some songs because of the lyrics (e.g. “Wonderful Tonight”, “The Way You Look Tonight”). The fact that these two songs use the word “Tonight” in the title, restricts the song to usage in the evening part of the DVD. Sometimes I ignore this and just use the song where I feel the music works, but that isn’t ideal.