Music

This page con­tains advice for choos­ing hymns and organ music for your cere­mony. There is a very wide choice and our organ­ists and Dir­ector of Music will be able to advise fur­ther. The selec­tions below con­tain some time-honoured pieces that reflect the sense of occasion.

Hymns

Hymns should be chosen for their words, their sig­ni­fic­ance to you, and for the tune.  If you like a par­tic­u­lar set of words, but the tune is not com­monly known, we can often guide you to an altern­at­ive tune that is bet­ter known.

When choos­ing hymns you should bear these points in mind:

1. ‘All things Bright and Beau­ti­ful’ is a very com­mon choice and has become rather well-worn, espe­cially as it is a fre­quent funeral choice.
2. Because people are less famil­iar with singing hymns today, the num­ber of hymns people think they know is get­ting smal­ler with the res­ult that there is quite an over­lap between choices at funer­als and wed­dings. Hymns marked † in the list below are often chosen for funer­als. They are often selec­ted because they are good hymns. So for a wed­ding by all means choose one or two, just not all of them.
3. For Christ­mas wed­dings one carol is fine, more than that is undesirable.
4. ‘Jer­u­s­alem’ is a pop­u­lar, stir­ring tune, but it is a pat­ri­otic song not a Chris­tian hymn. Unless there are very good reas­ons the Rector does not allow it – he would nor­mally sug­gest altern­at­ive words.
5. The first hymn should be one which every­one knows so that the ser­vices gets off to a good and con­fid­ent start.
6. The second hymn, which comes after the mar­riage vows and before the pray­ers, can pick up the theme of the vows that you have just taken, ask­ing God for strength to ful­fill them in the years ahead.
7. The final hymn, which comes before the final bless­ing, should be one of praise and thanks­giv­ing as you leave church to begin a new life together as hus­band and wife.
8. Hymns can be sung to dif­fer­ent tunes.  The tune usu­ally has a name, and if you want a par­tic­u­lar tune, you may have to sing it down the phone to the Rector.  Worse, he may sing it to you… A less demand­ing approach is to use Google.  If you type the first line of the hymn into “Google” then you will usu­ally find the first one or two ref­er­ences will take you to sites that will play the tune and offer altern­at­ives. Altern­at­ively, the audio tracks of more fre­quent choices are avail­able on the Church of Eng­land wed­ding plan­ning site.

The hymns are found in dif­fer­ent hymn books and there­fore will have dif­fer­ent numbers!

• A&M(NS) = Hymns Ancient and Mod­ern (New Stand­ard Edi­tion). The red hymn book in both churches.
• SOF = Songs of Fel­low­ship volumes 1, 2 & 3 com­bined. The blue hymn book at St. Stephen’s.
• † = often sung at funerals.

When you pro­duce your order of ser­vice please care­fully check the words against an Eng­lish hym­n­book because web­sites often have Amer­ican spelling and other dif­fer­ences. The fol­low­ing is a fairly com­pre­hens­ive list of hymns, more tra­di­tional than mod­ern. How­ever, recently a num­ber of new hymns spe­cific­ally for wed­dings have been writ­ten to be sung to well-known tunes such as Morn­ing has Broken.  You may like to search these out. Unfor­tu­nately the words can not be repro­duced here because of copy­right per­mis­sion. On a related note, it is your respons­ib­il­ity to ensure you have copy­right for the words you are repro­du­cing on the order of ser­vice. We have a CCLI licence that cov­ers most of the hymns in our hymn books.

336 A&M(NS) – All my hope on God is foun­ded
100 A&M(NS) – All people that on earth do dwell
SOF 19 – Amaz­ing Grace†
163 A&M(NS) – Angel voices ever singing
343 A&M(NS) – Be thou my vis­ion, O Lord of my heart
161 A&M(NS) – Christ is our corner stone
156 A&M(NS) – Come down O love divine
450 A&M(NS) – Crown with love, Lord, this glad day (Tune: Heath­lands – 179)
113 A&M(NS) – Father, hear the prayer we offer
356 A&M(NS) – Father, Lord of all Cre­ation
200 A&M(NS) – Fill thou my life
104 A&M(NS) – For the beauty of the earth
459 A&M(NS) – Give me joy in my heart (Sing Hosanna)
179 A&M(NS) – God of mercy, God of grace
374 A&M(NS) – Help us to help each other, Lord
375 A&M(NS) – I danced in the morn­ing
378 A&M(NS) – Jesus, good above all other
379 A&M(NS) – Jesus, humble was your birth
380 A&M(NS) – Jesus, Lord, we look to thee
224 A&M(NS) – Lead us, heav­enly Father, lead us†
393 A&M(NS) – Lord of all good, our gifts we bring to thee (Tune: Wood­lands – 422)
394 A&M(NS) – Lord of all hope­ful­ness†
131 A&M(NS) – Love divine, all loves excel­ling
381 SOF – Make me a chan­nel of your peace
393 A&M(NS) – Morn­ing has broken (words – listen)
205 A&M(NS) – Now thank we all our God
152 A&M(NS) – O Holy Spirit, Lord of grace
235 A&M(NS) – O Jesus I have prom­ised
203 A&M(NS) – O praise ye the Lord!
101 A&M(NS) – O wor­ship the King
1483 SOF – One more step along the world I go
192 A&M(NS) – Praise my soul the King of heaven
195 A&M(NS) – Praise the Lord! ye heav­ens, adore him
207 A&M(NS) – Praise to the Lord the Almighty
362 SOF – Shine, Jesus shine (Lord, the light of your love)
126 A&M(NS) – The King of love my shep­herd is†
422 A&M(NS) – Tell out my soul the great­ness of the Lord
640 SOF – You shall go out with joy

Organ Music

There is an entrance of piece com­monly chosen at wed­dings which you may like to reflect on before choos­ing it. The Bridal Chorus from Lohen­grin by Wag­ner (often known as the Bridal March by Wag­ner) has an unof­fi­cial set of words – ‘Here comes the bride, all dimen­sion­ally chal­lenged …’, you prob­ably know them! How­ever, the opera Lohen­grin and the set­ting of this piece of music is a tra­gic wed­ding night and dis­tinctly non-Christian – it amused Wag­ner that it made it’s way into Church wed­dings because it is not par­tic­u­larly appropriate.

Sug­ges­tions for music whilst guests arrive

This wants to be joy­ful but unob­trus­ive. You can spe­cify par­tic­u­lar piece if you would like, provided we can source the music eco­nom­ic­ally and they are suit­able for organ. Remem­ber, the bride won’t hear it!

Sug­ges­tions for Entry

You will want to choose some­thing that is long enough for the bride and brides­maids to walk the length of the aisle at an appro­pri­ate pace. Gluck and Pachel­bel are both gentle entrance pieces.

1. Trum­pet Vol­un­tary – Clarke
2. Trum­pet Tune in D – Purcell
3. Trum­pet Vol­un­tar­ies (Op. 6 nos 5 or 6) – Stanley
4. Canon in D Major – Pachelbel
5. Dance of the Blessed Spir­its – Gluck

Sug­ges­tions for music dur­ing the Sign­ing of the Registers

Apart from an organ piece, this could be instru­mental or a piece sung by the choir or a solo artist. Friends and fam­ily who are prac­tised musi­cians may like to play or sing, dur­ing the sign­ing of the register. CDs do not work well since our sound sys­tem is primar­ily designed for voice enhancement.

1. Jesu joy of man’s desir­ing – Bach
2. Ave Maria – Bach / Gounod
3. Ave Maria – Schubert
4. Min­uet from the Fire­works Suite – Handel
5. Canon in D – Pachelbel
6. Dance of the Blessed Spir­its – Gluck

Sug­ges­tions for Exit

You will want a piece of music that is joy­ful and uplifting.

1. Wed­ding March – Mendelssohn
2. St. Anthony Chor­ale – Haydn
3. Te Deum – Charpentier
4. Trum­pet Tune in D – Purcell
5. Trum­pet Vol­un­tary – Clarke
6. Trum­pet Vol­un­tary – Stanley
7. Tocatta – Widor