A wedding song. That should be a simple, right? There’s always a song that starts with you from the very beginning, that sums up your relationship and feels like it was made just for you. We had one of those, we did. It should have been simple, but welcome to my life. I don’t do simple.
It started out simple.
When Husband (Then Boyfriend) and I were just beginning, I introduced him to a star on the rise, Michael Bublé. One morning as I was getting ready for work, his newest hit, “Everything” played and though I could have waited to see him at work, I rushed to Then Boyfriend’s house that morning to tell him about it. A couple months later, we went to a Bublé concert in Manhattan – a legendary date night for us – and when he closed the concert with “Everything” we danced in the aisle of Radio City Music Hall like two absolute love fools.
Here’s where it gets complicated.
Around this time, Then Boyfriend’s Brother was getting married. They hadn’t yet picked their wedding song and while in the car, we listened to a mix CD I had burned (because yes I love mix tapes), a CD that included “Everything.” A week later, when Then Boyfriend’s Brother asked about a song on that CD, I knew where this was going. I told Then Boyfriend to casually mention that that was our song but I knew he wouldn’t… and I knew he couldn’t. We had only been dating for a few months, how could he tell his brother, “You can’t have our possible wedding song in case someday we maybe get married.” Hard as it was… we gave it up.
Now that we were getting married, we had to find a wedding song. I searched tons of wedding song ideas and playlists and suggestions to find something that felt right.
Coldplay’s “Yellow” was on the list but instead became my procession song with my dad. (It was perfection there, by the way.)
I loved “Bless the Broken Road” and its idea of how the road is never perfect but it leads you in the exact direction you need to go. But it didn’t feel like us.
I discovered “This Will Be Our Year” by The Zombies — a good fit considering that our year was full of surprises and excitement but it wasn’t us either. We weren’t that hip.
I always loved “At Last” but it had been played at so many other weddings I had attended.
Still complicated.
When I found, “Nothing Can Change This Love,” by Otis Redding it slipped in like a classic glass of smooth Brandy. It was soulful and old and sounded like a song made up of a lifetime of memories.
It was such a silky, classic choice for that moment — our first dance on the dance floor Husband built, under the stars of Lake Owassa and the café lights that we strung ourselves. Yet…
It was still a song we chose and not a song that chose us.
It was a song we chose
and not a song that
chose us.
It was there the whole time
One night, after having been married a few years, I drove home playing yet another CD I had burned and there, on track 12, was what we had missed years ago. How could we have missed it? It had been there from the beginning, even before Bublé.
My mind warped back to the start. Merely 3 weeks after the first time we hung out, we woke up before dawn for a road trip ahead. We were going to Tennessee and in an ironic twist, he introduced me to Neil Diamond’s album, 12 Songs. Many CDs would accompany our trip but that CD would be the only one I remember and “Save Me a Saturday Night” would be the headline song. (Along with Walking in Memphis, of course.)
The song’s intro with its clean guitar strings and simple marimba notes reflected us — easy, effortless. The words so cozy you could tuck them under your pillow and hibernate on them. It is unclouded, void of any grandiose, Hollywood Blockbuster love scene exaggerated by a thundering soundtrack. It’s tender and quiet and a reminder that love is in the small spaces. In the slow Saturday nights, in the small requests, in the simple messages: Save me some room — in your life or at your table. Anywhere.
This was the trip we fell in love. This was the trip Husband first told me he loved me. And this song would be the notes in the background.
And So It Is
When I got home that night, I crept into our room and woke up Husband. I played the song, “This should have been our wedding song,” I said.
Still half asleep, he whispered back, “You’re right,” like he had never quite been convinced about our wedding song either, “it should have been.”
Some people have a wedding song. We have an evolution of them.
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