Day 23 – A Song You Want Played At Your Wedding
The Way You Look Tonight – Westlife
Slight variation from the actual title – as I’m already married and not intending to have another wedding, I’ll pick a song that WAS played at my wedding. Not at the ceremony, but at the reception. The music at the service was played by my brother in law’s brass ensemble, including a piece he had composed especially for the day for Sally-Jayne to walk down the aisle to.
As I mentioned on one of the other days, Sally-Jayne is a Latin and Ballroom dance teacher. Now, many people like to do a “proper” dance as their first dance at their wedding reception. But when you’re not a great dancer (used to go to classes but certainly no expert) and your new wife is a dance teacher, and the evening part of the reception will be a dance band with lots of friends from dancing and a couple of dance teachers in attendance, the pressure is on. We decided on the dance first – we opted for a foxtrot because (a) it’s Sally-Jayne’s favourite, (b) you can get a routine that looks good without being an expert, and (c) there are lots of nice songs you can do it to. Then we chose the song itself, then we chose the version. While it’s probably not the best version out there, and it is rather sad to have chosen something by Westlife, it seemed the best for our purposes. So with a good professional choreographer and teacher, numerous lessons and lots of practice, we ended up with a routine that we managed to “perform” pretty well on the day. Even my mates, who always like to take the piss whenever dancing is mentioned, were impressed!
The song itself is a great love song in any version, and the lyrics are very appropriate for a wedding day. Almost six years ago now, and I have so many memories of the day, and hearing this song is one of the things that always triggers them for me. And, because she claims I forgot to say it in my speech, let me take this opportunity to reiterate that Sally-Jayne did indeed look fantastic!
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