Matt talks about remembering your mom or dad during your wedding day. Get tips on alternative formal dances too. Important Links See a list of songs for remembering loved ones. See all Wedding Songs Podcast episodes Podcast Transcript Not every wedding is a fairy tale wedding. Maybe the mother has passed away, maybe the father has passed away, that is really what I want to talk about today - Other options you can have throughout the day and how you can incorporate them into your wedding day. You know, not having your father or mother at your wedding doesn’t mean that your wedding cannot be something special. A day of remembrance - remembering them in a special way with what you're bringing to the wedding. You may be thinking to yourself “well what does this have to do with wedding music”? Well, the first thing I want to discuss is how you can incorporate your loved one that has passed away or maybe you do not have a relationship with anymore. A great way you can do that is thru a song dedication. A song dedication could be incorporated into the wedding ceremony as a memorial. Maybe they have a favorite song, but maybe that song isn’t “wedding appropriate”. There are a lot of instrument and acoustic cover songs available that you could make part of your wedding ceremony. Also, there could be a special dedication of that person thru song at the reception. I would highly recommend having that during cocktail hour or, probably more importantly, during dinner. It is going to be an emotional time. I am going to make an assumption that the DJ or the band will make an announcement that this is a dedication and it is going to be a very emotional time so I would really recommend having that during the background time. You really don’t want to break up the flow, the romance, or the fun at any other time. But, if you were to do it at another time, maybe at the time of the formal dances. That is what I want to talk about next. OK, let’s say you are a bride and your father has passed away but you want to have a special dance, a lot of couples are choosing to have a mother-daughter dance in its place. That is a great place to start, have your mother step in and have a special mother-daughter dance. Another option would be if you have a brother (or brothers) have a brother-bride dance. You could also have a sisters' dance. For all of these dances I am recommending, I do have song suggestions on our website for these. So you have the mother-daughter, sister-brother, and sister dance, but not only that maybe you have a step-father that stepped in. Now you could have a step-father-step-daughter dance. It doesn’t have to be all traditional, you want to make your wedding day special just for you. So, make sure if you want to have a remembrance you could have it as a dedication or you could even have it as a special dance with another family member (could even be your Aunt or Uncle). The same thing goes, like I said, for your mother. It doesn’t have to be just for the father. So instead of the groom dancing with his mother, he could dance with his father, or whoever has played the mother's role like maybe the grandmother. It doesn’t have to be the traditional father-daughter, mother-son dances, it could be other people as well. You should feel comfortable with that. This is your wedding day. Another thing you may want to consider is how are you going to incorporate a remembrance of those people on your wedding day. A great thing that we did is we made a special candle and we had a picture of my wife’s mother on that candle. We lit that candle during the ceremony. That way she was remembered during the wedding ceremony like she was present. Maybe your father passed away and he had a favorite item, maybe it's a watch, maybe a favorite sports team so then you are wearing that team on a necklace or part of the garter. However,