What Is the Difference Between Wedding Marches & Wedding Processionals?
Music and ceremony have long been important aspects of the marriage rite. Certain strains of music have become so intertwined with wedding custom that their titles have replaced the proper name for the portions of the ceremony that they are customarily played for. It is not uncommon to hear the terms wedding processional and wedding march used interchangeably, despite the fact that they are two different things.
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Wedding Processional
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Bridesmaids and groomsmen enter in anticipation of the moment the bride appears. The wedding processional is one of the time honored traditions of weddings, and can be found in weddings around the world. Processionals are groups of people traveling toward a common destination. In different cultures, the wedding procession may be composed of different people, ranging from only the immediate family, to all of the guests, to the more western tradition of only the bridal party. In almost every religion, there exists some tradition of a procession and it is almost always accompanied by music. For weddings, the procession is most commonly associated with the bridal chorus.
Processional Music
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The processional music is often played by a string quartet or an organ. One of the most important elements of any wedding processional is the music. Brides and grooms spend a significant amount of time and consideration when choosing the processional music for their nuptials. Typically, gentle, graceful music is selected for the bridal party's walk down the aisle. Some perennial favorites include Pachelbel's Canon in D, Air from Water Music by Handel and Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring by Bach. The processional music typically changes when the bride enters.
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Wagner's Bridal Chorus
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The chords play and all rise and turn to see the lovely bride. Since it was first composed in1850, the bridal chorus has been an integral part of most weddings in the English and German speaking worlds. Interestingly, over the past 150 years, the bridal chorus has repeatedly been mistakenly referred to as the wedding march. Composed by Richard Wagner as a piece for his opera, Lohengren, the bridal chorus, also commonly referred to as "Here Comes the Bride", first became popular as processional music for the bride during weddings in the Civil War era. The now familiar chords that start off the bridal chorus immediately set the tone and grab the attention of all wedding guests, alerting them that the bride is about to appear.
The Wedding March
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The wedding march celebrates the new Mr. and Mrs. The wedding march is actually a piece of recessional music, meant to be played at the conclusion of the wedding, as the bride and groom leave the altar. The wedding march was composed by Felix Mendelssohn, for his opera A Midsummer Night's Dream, based upon the play by William Shakespeare. First performed in Potsdam in 1842, the wedding march itself became a popular choice for weddings after it was first played as wedding recessional music in 1858, at the wedding of the English princess, Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise, following Mendelssohn's death.
Controversy
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Despite the extreme longevity of both pieces, there is a significant amount of controversy and discord regarding the use of one for weddings. Wagner's bridal chorus, though one of the most readily associated with weddings in the world is frowned upon by various religious groups for use in a wedding.
It is widely believed that Wagner was an Anti-Semite, and that his work was favored by Hitler. Legend has it that Hitler would blast Wagner's music in concentration camps as a form of torture. For this reason, this piece is typically not included in Jewish wedding processions.
Many churches also disallow the piece because it was composed for the opera Lohengren, an opera in which mistrust and deceit destroy a marriage before it even gets started. For this reason, many churches feel that this is an inappropriate piece to play at a wedding.
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References
- Photo Credit bride image by Mat Hayward from Fotolia.com bridesmaids pink dress and flowers image by Paul Retherford from Fotolia.com organique image by Charly from Fotolia.com bride image by shane kyle from Fotolia.com main dans la main image by Emmanuel MARZIN from Fotolia.com
