POW - The Band

We're now past our anniversary, but there are just a few more wedding planning posts that I want to share.  :-)  Today's is the story of our band, because it's kind of a neat story.

Sometime early in 2009, we started discussing music for the reception.  Mom offered, "Wouldn't it be neat if Mr. Kirby's band played for you?"  The Kirbys have been family friends for years, after Pamela Kirby and I hit it off in high school.  Mr. Kirby plays the mandolin, banjo, and probably other instruments, and was in some sort of group, I think, at the time. 

We investigated.  :-)  Mrs. Kirby invited us to their house, casually, one afternoon in March when they were hosting a jam session.  John was in town, which worked out great, and we brought some bread for their buffet and sat and enjoyed the music.  But when Mom called back later to formally request them, we were disappointed.  Apparently there was a big bluegrass festival on July 25 which they were all planning to attend.  Back to the drawing board.

Next, I took a leap and e-mailed the Lindsey Family, after hearing that they were to be touring in NY and thereabouts in June and July.  Having been charmed by their sweet performance of Christian, bluegrass music in South Glens Falls in June 2007, Mom and I both knew that if they played for our wedding, it would be very special.  Mom thought it was a long shot, but I e-mailed them with our request and details about our wedding, and Mrs. Lindsey sent me a very kind reply!  Unfortunately, they would be returning home before our wedding, but if the timing had been different, I do think they would have come. 

It was back to square 1, again.  I remember discussing our music situation with some of the teachers in the break room at lunch, and one suggested the jazz ensemble a fellow teacher played in.  I looked them up online and learned that said ensemble would be playing in town in Saratoga very soon, so I called up my bridesmaid, Dawn to go with me to check them out.  

That was an, ah, interesting evening.  :-)  Apparently, there is a night life in Saratoga which I never knew existed, and as we parked and walked to hear our group on that spring night, we passed lots of restaurants and bars with their own live music.  Our destination proved, indeed, to be a bar, so we ordered a couple of ginger-ales, found some seats, and tried not to be too conspicuous.  At one point, Dawn started chatting with the guy next to her, and must have said something about us checking out the group for a wedding, because he then beckoned toward both of us and asked, "You guys' wedding?"  awkward! 

The music itself was good, but I realized that I'm just not into jazz enough to listen to it for several hours on my wedding day.  Thankfully, John seemed fine with all this.  Yet, once again, we had made no progress.  From the outset, I wasn't interested in a DJ myself; if you know me well, you know that I'm not a big fan of popular music.  But now someone else suggested that we could make up some mix CD's, borrow equipment, and have ask a friend to be in charge of playing them.  We were both OK with this idea, and it certainly seemed like the best one going at the time!  I wasn't stuck on bluegrass, despite our first two band attempts, and started making a list of orchestral hymns and some of my favorite songs performed by Andrea Bocelli.  John picked out the song we planned to dance to--Steve Green's "Holding Hands."  I still can hardly listen to that song without crying. 

We got back from our brother and sister-in-law's wedding at the end of June to exciting news.  Apparently, Mr. Kirby was jamming with a few other musical friends and realized that they sounded really good.  The Kirbys gave Mom a call, asking if we still needed somebody!  They set up another jam session and once again invited us over.  And we loved them!  They let us choose some of our favorites, like "You are my sunshine" and some of the old gospel hymns, and even invited us to prepare a song or two to sing with them.  Then, the fiddle player asked us if we wanted some square dancing, because she could call! 

 Singing "Are you washed in the blood?"  and "I'll fly away" with the band

And so, at the last minute, we ended up with an awesome band for our reception.  In fact, it turned out far better than I had imagined.  On the one hand, we didn't get to dance to "Holding Hands," because of a miscommunication and our inability to hook up John's ipod to their sound system.  Instead, they spontaneously played a lovely waltz, and, since John's such a good dancer, it didn't matter that it was entirely new music to us.  :-)  I couldn't have predicted how wonderfully the children would take to the music, or how the group would spontaneously play "She'll be coming round the mountain," with a cluster of little girls singing the refrain in the microphone.  And even though I knew that they planned a few square dances, when I looked down from the second-story window where we were changing into our going away clothes, I was overwhelmed.  Here was a blend of relatives and friends--most had never met each other--all come together because of us, and all evidently enjoying themselves very much.  My bridesmaids sailed down the row of dancers, empire dresses flowing, and I felt that it had all been worth it, thanks to our planning or in spite of our planning, with God's blessing.