Wedding: Music and Readings

Today I’ll be sharing the important songs we had throughout our wedding day as well as the readings we had during our ceremony!

Ceremony Music

I’ll kick off to the song I walked down the aisle to, and that was Kate Bush’s Cloud Busting. It’s both mine and G’s favourite Kate Bush song (in fact it was on the first playlist G ever made for me) and so it was a very easy choice for us. Whilst it isn’t a typical love song, the tune and lyrics are romantic and the story behind the song is so heartfelt and full of love and it set the tone the day perfectly! Hearing the song still gives me goosebumps.

My bridesmaids walked out every 15 seconds during the song and I entered at 2 minutes as Kate sings

‘Cause every time it rains
You’re here in my head
Like the sun coming out
I just know that something good is gonna happen”.

Even hearing it now makes me tear up!

Whilst we signed the register we had: Baby I love you by Aerteha Franklin, one of G’s favs.

We left our ceremony to We Could Forever by Bonobo, another incredible important song for us in our relationship. I hadn’t heard of Bonobo before I met G, but We Could Forever played in the bar on our first date and G mentioned he loved the song, and sent it to me the following day. Even the title was perfect and ended up being very true for us!

Wedding Breakfast Entrance

We wanted to make a real entrance to our wedding breakfast as it was the first time we would officially be introduced as Mr + Mrs Snooks – we had kept the surname reveal as a complete secret to everyone apart from G’s parents, our bridesmaids and groomsmen and so our good friend Rob who MC’d for our day, co-ordinated with Wilton’s music staff to announce as soon as the song ‘Are you Gonna Be My Girl’ by Jet, played. It was the perfect up-tempo song to bounce in to!

First Dance

Our first dance was Bueno Sera by Louis Prima. We started swing dancing classes together 3 months into our relationship so we wanted a song we could Lindy hop to and this one has also been prominent in our relationship. We hired Simon and Anna at Swing Dance UK to create a first dance routine for us which we practised almost nightly for three months before the day!

Evening Entertainment

For entertainment we had New York Brass Band who I couldn’t recommend enough! They’re a festival brass band from York who not only play incredible music, but also entertain in the most fun way by walking around your venue. As they need no amps or speakers (the beauty of trombones!) they can parade you from your ceremony to the party or in our case, we had them appear from the balcony immediately after our first dance leaving our guests so surprised – again, a moment I’ll never forget! They really got the party started in the evening and made G and I feel so special – without planning it they somehow surrounded us both in a circle so we felt like superstars! We had so many compliments from our guests about them and couldn’t recommend enough!

The last song of the evening was Work It by Missy Elliot, played by our amazing friend and ex DJ and it was a moment I’ll never forget! The whole dance floor erupted and our friends crowded around and danced and it was so fun.

Playlists

We created our own Spotify playlists for the each section of the day. One for pre-ceremony, one for the canapé + Prosecco reception, and one to be played in the background of the wedding breakfast! I will make these public so let me know if you’d like a link to them!

Wedding Readings

We really struggled with wedding readings, in fact it was probably one of the hardest parts about the day! We spent months and countless hours trawling through wedding websites and we were stumped. We didn’t want anything generic or cheesy, we wanted something that meant something or that represented us and our day. In the end we chose two that were perfect.