Church Wedding Songs-A Heavenly Touch?



When discussing wedding ceremony music with couples, I often find that, while they nearly always request some secular music, many couples want their spirituality reflected as well..irregardless of the wedding venue type itself.

This is easily accomplished by including a couple of songs which people tend to lump together and call them "church wedding songs".

To be sure, these songs can be placed in numerous parts of the ceremony, be they in the prelude or within the ceremony itself & can be strictly instrumental, congregant singing, or performed by a vocalist(s).

In fact, because of their very nature, most of the songs in this group have very nice lyrics which make them especially useful for vocalists & can add a very meaningful touch to a wedding.

Church Wedding Songs--3 Simple Categories

  • Christian Wedding Songs
  • Catholic Wedding Songs (read on to see why this is listed as a separate category)
  • Wedding Hymns

Christian wedding songs are, well, just that!

However, in these categories, there is some overlap here between them.

For example, Catholic wedding songs are, of course, Christian songs and are therefore sometimes used in other denominations as well.  

Here, they are simply separated out for ease of finding songs that are especially particular to the Catholic faith.

Wedding hymns is a category of its own simply because it is another subset of church wedding songs and are usually found in a church hymn book.  No surprise there!  

Hymns are often very familiar to vast numbers of Christian church-going people, and therefore:

  • It's a great way to actively involve those in attendance--IF you choose a well-known hymn!  If a hymn is chosen that a lot of people don't know, and I definitely don't recommend this, the singing participation will be very low.

      Why?  First of all, most people are self-conscious about singing in public to begin with.

  • Furthermore, if they make a mistake (which happens all the time if people don't "know" the song), they are afraid their mistake will be heard all over the place & they surely don't want that!  And who can blame them?  I never want that either, do you?  The truth is people like what they know.

      You want a good singing response, especially if it is being digitally recorded so go with familiar!

  • Hymns are often shorter than other songs and this can be well controlled by the number of verses sung.  My suggestion? Choose a maximum of 2-3 verses whose words have special meaning to you.  This way, it doesn't take long.  Remember, you have to stand there!
  • Hymn singing can also take eyes off of the bridal couple for a couple of moments, therefore       giving them, shall we say, a bit of "breathing room" for just taking a deep breath or securing a tissue (yes, it happens!), or for asking the officiant a quick question.

Alternatively, you could have a soloist perform a favorite hymn or have it performed in your prelude.

As mentioned above, the group Christian wedding songs speak for themselves and include the spectrum of traditional Christian wedding songs as well as the more contemporary Christian wedding songs.  

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