Behind the Scenes

Wedding Expo

Dress Shopping

Suit Shopping

Invitations

Details and Decorations

Music

By Will

We knew we wanted the music during the beginning of the ceremony to have some fun energy while everyone walks down the aisle while still being elegant. This led us to those piano covers of pop music that you can find on Spotify, so we started our search there. It didn't take too long to find "Let's Get Married" by The Bleachers. The only problem was that the covers we could find didn't really capture the joyous sound of the original. Fortunately, it's a pretty simple song to learn by ear, so I was able able to arrange my own version and recorded it on my keyboard! This version had more of the energy and pomp that we were looking for.

The search for Justine's music as she walks down the aisle was a little more difficult. We started by listening to classical piano solos, but after a lot of poking around with Chopin preludes and polonaises, we decided that nothing had quite the right feel. That's when we decided I would have to compose something instead.

Now I had never really written music before, so there was a lot of trial and error, as well as back and forth with the bride of course. I was often interested in a quieter introspective sound, while Justine was looking for a bright and happy march-like sound. Most importantly I wanted to incorporate some references to our relationship. At one point, I recalled a chord progression I learned from a music theory YouTube channel sometimes referred to as the "anime canon" progression. It was inspired by Pachelbel's Canon in D (a common choice for a wedding processional), developed over time amongst jazzy J-pop influences, and now features in a number of anime openings like Hunter X Hunter. We watch a lot of anime together and like the feel of J-pop music, so I used that for the main theme. It's also a pretty intricate chord progression, which means a melody written to fit it is easier to make interesting, as far I as could tell anyway.

Below are some ideas I had that ended up in the final version as well as some shorthand notation of the music. You'll notice I tried to incorporate one other reference to me and Justine: the musical motif of Oma and Shu from one of our favorite shows, Avatar: The Last Airbender. If you know what I'm referring to, see if you can pick up on it in the recording!