It’s the Wedding Edition, PopWatchers, in honor of Rev. Tori Spelling, who recently performed her first ceremony. (Congrats Tony and Dex! Can’t wait to see your nuptials on Season 2 of Oxygen’s Tori & Dean: Inn Love. And that is not sarcasm.)
So here’s what we’re confessing this week: How did a love of pop-culture infiltrate your wedding day, the wedding day of someone you know and love, or the wedding day of someone you neither know nor love but who invited you anyway? If you’re single but looking (like me), you can pay your shame forward. For instance, I’m sad that I wasn’t South Park co-creator Trey Parker’s bride because (1) Norman Lear performed his service, which both my father and I would have thoroughly enjoyed, and (2) There was karaoke at the reception. (I’m a Diamond Girl, Trey. That’s all I’m sayin’.)
I’m also obsessed with knowing the songs people chose for their first dances — and why — so if that’s all you got to share, love it. If you’re like my friend Karen, however, who got married in the month of "Rocktober" so she could give out mixed CDs as favors, love you.
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I just got married last October, and despite being a pop culture junkie, there really wasn’t much of it going on in our wedding plans. (I much prefer movies/tv/books to music, and music is the most acceptable at a wedding, so maybe it makes sense.)
Anyway, our song was Billy Joel’s “You’re My Home,” because we bonded over both loving Billy Joel (hey, we’re both Long Islanders, it’s practically a requirement) on our second date, and we both love and connected to the sentiments in that song. Our first-dance instructor (yup, we had one, we’re so cheesy) met us the first time and said, “You’re the ones with that weird song…” She managed to craft a dance to it anyway, cool woman that she is.
I walked down the aisle to the Foo Fighter’s “Everlong” played by this great pianist. It’s my favorite song! And isn’t the wedding all about the bride??
Although we wrote our own ceremony, my bride flatly refused to allow any reference to my first love, Star Trek II. (I wonder why?).
She compromised by permitting a small poster of Khan beside the guest book with a caption that read “Sign the book… or face my wrath!”
Although we wrote our own ceremony, my bride flatly refused to allow any reference to my first love, Star Trek II. (I wonder why?).
She compromised by permitting a small poster of Khan beside the guest book with a caption that read “Sign the book… or face my wrath!”
I walked down the aisle to the wedding song in The Muppets Take Manhattan, where Kermit and Miss Piggy get married. It starts out like a regular classical song and most people didn’t realize until Miss Piggy starts singing that it wasn’t a traditional song. Also, our teenage nephew dressed up like Darth Vader and “knighted” my husband with his lightsaber during the dinner. So yeah, we’re pretty geeky, now that I read that back. But everyone who was there said it was so us…
My husband’s and my love of pop culture didn’t really bleed over to our wedding day. We were more focused on not breaking the budget- so we kept it causual and fun. To fit that theme, our first dance was “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” Frankie Valli. We wanted a song that was fast and slow, and we even choreographed a funny little dance to it.
Our love of pop culture and all things trivial was recognized by one of our friends who gave us Trivial Pursuit 90s edition and Cranium Turbo as wedding gifts (because we spent a lot of RA duty nights playing board games with him- and he knew we already had the Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture edition.)
I almost forgot- Elvis’ “A Little Less Conversation” was a must play at the reception, because of Robert and Amy’s wedding dance on Everybody Loves Raymond. We had a blast dancing every crazy style to that song.
I can’t say that our wedding was bounding over with pop culture, but our first dance was to “Perfect Moment” by Darden Smith… which I turned into a cell-phone ringtone for when my husband calls.
As far as local culture goes, we were just in a wedding last weekend in San Antonio, and the bride and groom had vases full of cascarones on the tables. Cascarones are colored egg shells filled with confetti which you then break on people’s heads… popular in SA during Easter or Fiesta (in April) or any time you feel like breaking a confetti egg on someone’s head. There weren’t many kids at the wedding… but they were certainly popular with our group of friends!
I got married in 2004 when the show newlyweds was on and Nick and Jessica were still married. I picked Nick’s son This I Swear, which was the song that opened the show. Unlike them, I am still married and I still like the song.
The tables at our wedding were named after characters on The Family Guy, one of our favorite show. Even the bar was named The Drunken Clam. Very few people noticed.
Our wedding cake topper was Miss Piggy and Kermit in wedding garb. (love me some Muppets).
And our first dance was Michael Buble “That’s all”.
I walked down aisle to Delibe’s Flower Duet. It’s the background music in a *ahem* particular scene in the movie The Hunger. We also entered the reception to the theme from Chariots of Fire.
I was the Maid of Honor in a wedding last month, and the first dance was to the song “Come What May” from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack which is actually performed by Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman.
The mother of the bride also made the wedding party sing “I Say a Little Prayer (For You)” to the bride & groom at the rehearsal dinner, just like in My Best Friend’s Wedding. It was just as embarrassing as it sounds.
My husband is not much of a dancer, fast or slow, but we had a blast sharing our wedding dance together to what I’m guessing is a VERY uncommon selection: “One Big Love” by Patty Griffin.
As a side note, EW should cover Patty more; she’s amazing and deserves more recognition.
Keeping with the Muppet-philia, my wife & I recessed to the Muppet Show Theme Song, played by an all-female saxophone quartet called The Opposite Sax (a Muppet-level pun). And the reception music was rendered by a CD jukebox, allowing guests to program their own music choices. Due to a malfunction, our final dance ended up accidentally being “Stayin’ Alive” by The BeeGees. This summer is our 10th anniversary, so I guess we are still stayin’ alive.
We asked that our DJ play the theme song from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, than follow that immediately with Under Your Spell, Willow and Tara’s love song from the Buffical, Once More With Feeling. He was happy to do it, and even happier when it resulted in about a dozen people (the husband and me included) dancing frantically for about 60 seconds, then remaining on the dance floor for a slow dance, at which point a lot of other people joined us, not realizing they were dancing to a lesbian love song from a fantasy TV show. It made me happy to bring that tiny bit of subversion to my WASPy (but wonderful) family.
We also named our tables after our favorite authors, but that was more a nerd thing than a pop culture thing… of course, the authors in question included both Neil Gaiman and Douglas Adams….
Being a classic TV dork, I had my bridesmaids walk down the aisle to the Dick van Dyke Show theme song.
In honor of our first date to the rerelease of The Empire Strikes Back, my husband and I had my old Han and Leia figures from when I was a kid on top of the cake.
I proposed to my wife via an animation filled with pop culture references (see if you can name all the movies, songs, etc. I included): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syxwkc36jas The proposal was then featured on the TLC show, “A Perfect Proposal:” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARDUNJ4AMBs At our wedding, we played the song “Come What May” from Moulin Rouge. Also, we named all of the tables at the recption after movies that mean something to us. We had a “Sixteen Candles” table, a “When Harry Met Sally” table, an “Incredibles” table, (of course) a “Wedding Crashers” table, etc.
I once corregraphed a dance to “Kung Foo Fighting” for my friends that were very much into Japanese anime and manga to be performed at their wedding. Sadly it was vetoed by the extended fam, but the rehersals sure were fun. I love you Barbie & Dave, go Ranma 1/2.
“In My Life” – Beatles. Got married in 2006. It had a bit of sentimental value, but mainly chose it because it wasn’t a song that we’d be embarassed by looking back. Also because it’s so deliciously short that the awkward feeling of everyone watching us dance was as painless as possible.
Oh, we also gave out a CD as wedding favors, which included all of the songs from the animation, as well as highlight songs we knew we were going to be playing at the reception.
I was in my friend’s wedding in April. They are semi-traditionalists. There was the white dress, the “Here comes the Bride” processional, the memory candles, the regular vows. Then came the recessional. We walked out to the theme of Star Wars. At the reception, she put on her Converse sneakers and we danced to Footloose. And, to cap off the night, we left at the end of the reception and went to a bar. It had rained that day, so my friend was walking down the wet, dirty street in her converse and white dress. BEST WEDDING EVER!!!
first dance at my wedding was “aeroplane over the sea” by neutral milk hotel. no one else seemed to know or care that it was about anne frank.
there was one thing that definitely went wrong with the music at my wedding, though: i was supposed to enter the reception to positive k’s “i got a man,” but instead, outside the closed door, i heard the unmistakable bass of JOCK JAMS. i peaked my head in and said “no” and closed the door again. but it was too late.
I’ve always been a big Jacko fan so I surprised my bride by performing the Thriller dance number with the bridesmaids.
This might sound silly but I always wanted “High” by The Cure to be one of the first songs that my groom and I dance at my wedding.
It was the McGuire Sisters’ “Sincerely”. LOVE that song. But we were so nervous we walked a *little* too fast down the aisle so all the guests heard was, “Sinceeeerely, Oh you kn–”
I want my wedding ring to be a replica of the ring Nenya, which is the ring worn by Galadriel in LOTR. Who needs a diamond!
My husband and I got married in 2005. Our recession was “When I’m 64″ played by a brass quintet. Our first dance was to “The Luckiest” by Ben Folds because it’s such a beautiful song and I love the lyrics!
We did the bus stop to the Cameo song “Candy” – just like in the final scene of the movie “The Best Man.”
First dance: “Grow Old With Me”, Mary Chapin Carpenter’s cover of the John Lennon song – and we handed out mix CDs of our favorite songs as wedding favors.