Carbon Copy

My New Career

No, I haven't heard back about the job, but I've discovered that if that doesn't work out, I totally already have a successful career going as a wedding singer. That's right, today I sang at my second wedding. The first was as a missionary in Montana. I was asked two days before the big event, and I hardly had any time to prepare (think 15 minutes). I ended up singing Annie's Song (by John Denver) and even though my voice kind of cracked at the beginning (nervous!), it still was awesome.

About 10 days ago, I was approached to sing at yet another wedding. That's 2 weddings in 6 years! Things are really rolling. I asked if they had a song picked out, but they trust my skills so much that they said I could choose a selection from my repertoire. Sadly, because my career is still in the early stages, my repertoire was lacking in music. The other hitch to this event was that the ceremony was to take place in a park where there was no piano. When I asked about accompaniment, the couple said they loved my voice so much that they didn't want to ruin it with any other music. While I was very flattered by this, I also insisted on having some sort of back-up. Karaoke was suggested. I also recruited the very talented Ms. Dixon to join my firm. Sure, she's already got a successful career as teacher and newspaper editor, but I figured a little side glory (because I couldn't taint my talent with money) couldn't hurt. She... uh... enthusiastically agreed.

We searched through some karaoke CDs sorting the good from the bad. Many people suggested "The Rose." Others jokingly said "Beauty and the Beast" (ha!). We almost settled for "Til There Was You," but we just couldn't handle the cheesy background singers. We decided we had to take pride in our craft. So we hit the stores for some sheet music. The problem of the piano (or alternative accompinament) still remained. Not to be deterred, Liz came up with the brilliant plan of recording our own accompaniment (performed by her) onto a CD and then playing that on the groom's laptop (with some speakers). So we found a relatively un-cheesy song ("O Perfect Love") and played through it once before I had to take off for Minnesota. Then we practiced quite a bit last night and this morning and everything seemed ready to go.

Here we are at the wedding:

The song came from a book entitled Popular Love Songs & Wedding Marches so we knew it had to be awesome, even though we had never heard of it before. We like to go with the least popular.

I have to admit, I was a little nervous. I mean, even though I 've sung at a wedding before, I'm still pretty new to this. My heart was thumping right along with the processional as the maid of honor started down the sidewalk which served as an aisle.

It was a pretty short processional. Before I knew it, the bride came walking down.

And then it was time for us to sing. I was planning on asking someone to take a picture or possibly even record the whole song, but I never did. So there's no visual or aural record. Let me just say, the laptop with the speakers plugged into it was kinda far away, and it was a little difficult to hear the accompaniment, but I still think it went pretty well.

Then the ceremony.

It's so strange to me how quickly it happens. In less than twenty minutes, Chi and Michelle were married and everyone was clapping. And even though it seems like nothing had changed, it really had.

One thing is for sure though, it may seem like the marriage happens in an instant but becoming a wedding singer takes a lot more work. I don't know if I'm ready to put in that much effort. Maybe once every 5 years is good enough.