There's more than one way to get to your wedding.
scene from "Lohengrin" public domain (wikimediacommons)
Elizabeth Oakes, of the Wedding and Marriage Examiner, always comes up with a unique take on anything marriage related. She has expanded in this post on the youtube wedding production to give you a view of all the other wedding marches brides and grooms walk the aisle to. In all the fanfare about the production, I was wondering how Kevin and Jill's minister felt about the irreverence in his church?
The latest news on the JK Wedding Dance raises an interesting question. Kevin and Jill have now created a webpage with a link soliciting contributions to the Sheila Wellstone Institute, a non-profit that seeks to stop domestic violence. This was seen as an acknowledgment that, despite the inspiration Chris Brown’s song “Forever” provided for their wedding processional, J&K know Chris Brown is a convicted batterer and apparently don't want to appear as if they condone his actions, even if they like his music.
The notion that art and artist are inextricably linked is a sticky and long-debated one. Many believe an artist’s work should stand alone, apart from his or her personal history or belief system; others argue that supporting artists who have objectionable pasts is ethically wrong and such works should be shunned as a sign of disapproval for malicious or unlawful conduct.
Then what do we make of some of the most common wedding music when we hear it during a ceremony? How are we supposed to interpret a work such as Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus” from “Lohengrin” (aka ”Here Comes the Bride”), perhaps the most famous processionalin the popular wedding repetoire, when we know it was written by an anti-Semitic propagandist who hurled written insults at Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn--ironically, the creator of the best-known recessional music, “The Wedding March“ from “A Midsummer NIght’s Dream”?
Then there’s the context of these two works; both are often forbidden in churches because the first comes from an opera about pagan mythology, the second from a work that celebrates sex, magic, and fairy folk. Do people of faith having weddings outside of a church need to worry about this, or does the cultural familiarity and enjoyment of these pieces override their purportedly dubious origins? Is ignorance bliss when it comes to the provenance of musical selections, or is it a major wedding-day faux pas?
Using contemporary music won’t save you from the debate; as the Chris Brown song in the JK Wedding Dance video shows, the flap over modern celebrity misconduct can be just as controversial and divisive. Should James Brown’s “I Feel Good” be banned from wedding celebrations because of Brown’s domestic violence problemsor do we consider the bad marriage mojo mitigated by his history of civil rights work?
And what about Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You, Babe,” since their singing careers and marriage ended with their divorce in 1975? Is it bad luck to dance to, or would something by Steve and Eydie be a less misbegotten choice? You decide.
Do you think the lives of artists be separated from the works they produce, and should use of works by controversial creators be considered distasteful, omens of bad luck, or their origins simply disregarded when used in a wedding? Would a song by any other name sound as sweet? (to paraphrase “Romeo and Juliet”.....you remember how their marriage ended up, of course.) "© Elizabeth Oakes 2009, reprinted with permission"
An unconventional wedding march in Saint Paul, Minnesota, sent sparks across the web. Not only was it a celebration of couple
