Vintage Music: 1960s

The 1960s, in comparison with some of the previous decades I posted, sounded much more current. The songs I found started to become much more familiar with bands like the Beatles and Ray Charles. 

Please enjoy some of my favourite romantic tunes from this amazing musical period! More will be posted as they are found.   

1960s

"Stand By Me" by Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (1960)

Performed by: Ben E. King (1961)

"Georgia on My Mind" by Stuart Gorrell and Hoagy Carmichael (1960)

Performed by: Ray Charles (1960)

"In Dreams" by Roy Orbison (1963)

Performed by: Roy Orbison (1963)

"My Girl" by Smokey Robinson and Ronald White (1964)

Performed by: The Temptations (1964)

"Can't Take My Eyes Off You" by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio (1967)

Performed by: Frankie Valli (1967)

"Something" by George Harrison (1969)

Performed by: The Beatles (1969)

"The Look of Love" by Burt Bacharach and Hal David (1967)

Performed by: Dusty Springfield (1967)

"You Really Got Me" by Ray Davies (1964)

Performed by: The Kinks (1964)

"How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" by Holland-Dozier-Holland (1964)
Performed by: Marvin Gaye

Vintage Music: 1950s

In my search for the best vintage, romantic music from the 1950s, I stumbled upon quite a few good ones and the list is still building. These were a few of my favourites. I mean, who could forget "Earth Angel" once you've seen Back to the Future!

1950s

"An Affair to Remember (Our Love Affair)" by Harry Warren, Leo McCarey and Harold Adamson (1957)

Performed by: Vic Damone (1957)

"Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight" by Calvin Carter and James Hudson (1953)

Performed by: The Spaniels (1954)

"Love Potion Number 9" by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (1959)

Performed by: The Clovers (1959)

"Lonely Teardrops" by Jackie Wilson (1958) 

Performed by: Jackie Wilson

"In the Still of The Night" by The Five Satins (1956)

Performed by: The Five Satins

"All I have to Do is Dream" by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant (1958)

Performed by: The Everly Brothers

"Earth Angel" by Curtis Williams (1954)

Performed by: The Penguins (1954)

"Unchained Melody" by Alex North and Hy Zaret (1955)

Performed by: The Righteous Brothers (1965)

"Love is a Many Splendored Thing" by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster (1955)

Performed by: The Four Aces 

"I Got A Woman" by Ray Charles and Renald Richard (1954)

Performed by: Ray Charles (1954)

"Everyday" by Buddy Holly and Norman Petty (1957)

Performed by: Buddy Holly and the Crickets (1957)

"(The Night Time Is) The Right Time" by Nappy Brown (1957)
Performed by: Ray Charles (1958)

"So This Is Love" by Mack David, Jerry Livingston and Al Hoffman (1950)
Performed by: Ilene Woods and Mike Douglas (Cinderella, 1950)

Vintage Music: 1940s

I was searching for some old vintage music to play during the cocktail reception and dinner. I stumbled upon vintage.weddings.com who had a great list of music ranging from the early 1900s to 1950. It was definitely a great place to get started!

Here are some of the versions of the ones I liked the most from the 1940s:

1940s

"Shoo Shoo Baby" by Phil Moore (1943)

Performed by: The Andrews Sisters (1943)

"Swinging on a Star" by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen (1944)

Performed by: Bing Crosby (1944)

"(I Love You) for Sentimental Reasons" by William Best and Ivory Watson (1945)

Performed by: Nat King Cole (1946)

"Almost Like Being in Love" by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner (1947)

Performed by: Gene Kelly (1947)

"It's Magic" by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn (1947)

Performed by: Doris Day (1948)

"Come Rain or Come Shine" by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer (1946)

Performed by: Billie Holiday (1952)

"At Last" by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren (1941) 

Performed by: Etta James (1960)

"My Baby Said Yes" by Bing Crosby (1945)
Performed by: Bing Crosby (ft. Louis Jordan Orchestra)

Vintage Music: 1930s

I was searching for some old vintage music to play during the cocktail reception and dinner. I stumbled upon vintage.weddings.com who had a great list of music ranging from the early 1900s to 1950. It was definitely a great place to get started!

Here are some of the versions of the ones I liked the most from the 1930s:

1930s

"Cheek to Cheek" by Irving Berlin (1935)

Performed by: Irving Berlin (1935)

"Night and Day" by Cole Porter (1932)

Performed by: Billie Holiday

"Let's Fall in Love" by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler (1934)

Performed by: Frank Sinatra

"All I do is Dream of You" by Nacio Herb Brown and Aruther Freed (1934)

Performed by: Joan Crawford from "Sadie McKee"

"A Fine Romance" by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields (1936)

Performed by: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

"I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" by Irving Berlin (1937)

Performed by: The Mills Brothers

"You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" by Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer (1938)

Performed by: Bing Crosby (1938)

Vintage Music: 1920s

I was searching for some old vintage music to play during the cocktail reception and dinner. I stumbled upon vintage.weddings.com who had a great list of music ranging from the early 1900s to 1950. It was definitely a great place to get started!

Here are some of the versions of the ones I liked the most from the 1920s:

1920s

"The Man I Love" by George and Ira Gershwin (1924)

Performed by: Ella Fitzgerald ft. The Nelson Riddle Orchestra (1959)

"It Had to Be You" by Isham Jones and Gus Kahn (1924)

Performed by: Frank Sinatra (1979)

"Someone to Watch Over Me" by George Gershwin (1926)

Performed by: Ella Fitzgerald

"I Wanna Be Loved by You" by Herbert Stothart, Harry Ruby, and Bert Kalmar (1928)

Performed by: Marilyn Monroe

"Blue Skies" by Irving Berlin (1926)

Performed by: Irving Berlin (1926)

"I Can't Give You Anything But Love" by Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields (1928)

Performed by: Billie Holiday (1936)

Colours: The Hardest Choice

I can't even begin to list all of the potential combinations that we tried. Let me explain why choosing our wedding colours was the hardest decision I've made for the wedding (thus far).

Autumn Colours

Our venue, as I'm sure you've seen, looks like it's constantly autumn. The location is covered in rich, warm and beautiful colours that I absolutely adore. Unfortunately, this is a winter /spring wedding. Ryan's brother's wedding was set in the fall just 2 years ago, and it was stunning. We wanted to respect them and their special day, so we chose to do something different. Basically, we now had to try and hide all of these predominant, autumn colours.

This though, wasn't my only colour misfortune. Most girls, and I say this rather generally, dream of their wedding day. I certainly had pretend weddings with friends and Barbies, but as a child, I didn't really consider colours. When I started to age and date more, of course these natural thoughts do come up. More vivid and specific ideas started to form as time progressed. 

Winter Colours

When Ryan and I had settled on Silvertip as our venue, I instantly saw the colours I wanted. Their reception room was mostly a blank slate and we were still headed to the winter season at that point; so jewel tones fit perfectly. I love Christmas so these colours were comfortable and filled with memories. I was pleased. So naturally, this meant things needed to explode around me. Silvertip, of course, didn't work out. 

Not only was I heartbroken over losing this venue, I was also disappointed that all my initial "vision" was gone. I had to re-assess and start from scratch; a huge challenge. Standing in Stewart Creek, I had no idea where to go. Choose too many colours that are actually in the venue, and I'd lose any pizzazz, as well as be in the wrong season. Choose no colours from the venue, then risk having a colourful, yet very chaotic mess on my hands. Was I to choose all, some or none? I debated this at length, I assure you. 

Colour Inspiration

After seeing the space with zero decor (referring to my post "The Naked Venue") I was glad to see that we could hide some of the loud coloured floor beneath the tables and linens. Some of those autumn colours would be present, but we could mute them. Now, I still had to figure out what to choose, but at least I had slightly better options. Once again, with the help of Pinterest, I started searching for some complimentary colours. 

When it came down to the decision, I knew we needed to keep our "theme" in mind. Our wedding would be held in a natural, rustic setting. I should probably consider that. We also were picking up a vintage vibe, so that needed to be kept in mind as well. For my "rustic romance" theme, I chose green for rustic and cream for romance. Both pretty colours and they worked with all that fall-toned decor. I then took some cues from nature and rounded it out with blue and brown. These 4 colours together reminded me of a creek or lake in the woods.  Works well for a wedding in the mountains, am I right? 

The fun part for me, was figuring out the proper shades for our colours. My goal was to make sure we stayed within our season and to have them compliment the locations existing tones. So here's how I figured it out...

Getting Closer!

Blue, can work for any season. Typically, we see sky or light blues for spring, bright cobalt or teal for summer, grey-blues for fall, and silvery or deep blues for winter. For our timing and space, I chose navy. Its' deep colour fits nicely with the venue's existing colours and grounds our colour pallet. Navy can be characteristically a winter colour, so that works as well. For green, I chose a bright apple green instead of a evergreen or emerald, and my neutrals like cream and brown, rounded it out. 

Luckily, I love these colours now and I think it will be perfect for our mountain wedding. I'm  thankful that there are tons of flower varieties in both cream and green. Choosing two colours for the flowers and using them in a large quantity will create a great impact when looking at the completed space. 

With my lovely ladies in navy and myself in ivory, this colour palette has become my perfection. They certainly were not my favourite colours or are even ones that I'm attached to. I just ended up falling in love with them because they will help build the most wonderful wedding. I really could not be more in love. 

 Cream, Navy, Wood and Apple
I have also picked Slate Grey to round out the pallet

Dress Debacle

Every Brides Nightmare!

I think it is safe to say that wedding dress shopping is complicated.

I would assume that for most women, wearing a white dress is important and special on that day, but also can turn you into a hideously unattractive blob. It's a odd combination of both a sense of pride and duty to be the bride in this amazing dress, but also to try and not let ourselves just go crazy with insecurities. This, this is much harder than it seems.

I remember the first time I put on the elusive "white dress". I went dress shopping with my parents and sister in Winnipeg (not the greatest place for fashion, might I add), but I wanted the first time to be at least a little memorable and special. We arrived at this boutique off of a main street downtown and I walked through the doors. I had some idea of what I thought I wanted in a dress, what sort of styling and fabric, but all I saw was a sea of white. It's what I imagine our teeth feel like as we cram a gooey, toasted marshmallow in on our mouth.  Just absolutely consumed by white. 

A lovely older woman greeted us, and started asking the standard questions like, "tell me about your groom" and "where is the wedding?" I knew the next question was coming as I was still trying to figure out how to answer: "How do you want to look on your wedding day?"

I struggled to answer for a moment or two, then just blurted out, "not like a horrific, white blob." The consultant laughed and said she would do her absolute best to make me a beautiful bride. I wasn't too convinced that this point, but I let her start pulling different styles and waited nervously in the dressing room.

After what felt like forever (it was 5 minutes, I checked), the woman returned and told me that she brought a variety of shapes and styles to help me get a sense of what I liked and disliked. I already knew that I wasn't going to be a "cupcake" or "princess" bride, nevertheless, I slipped into a ruffled tulle ballgown to start with. As she laced up the back, I stared at myself in the mirror. To put my skin tone in perspective, my nickname in school was Snow White, due to my dark hair and very pale skin. Standing there, strapped into this large puffy dress, I was hideous. Honestly, it was more funny than tragic. I waltzed out of the dressing room cooing to my family that I had found the perfect dress. My family erupted into laughter and recommended that I keep looking. With humour, I'm glad to say that I stuck through quite a few more disaster dresses before I started to understand what I really wanted. 

'Emma' by Maggie Sottero

 I didn't leave that store with a dress; luckily, I wasn't expecting to. Rather, I wanted to get that initial shock over with and to have some fun with my family. Once we returned to Calgary, the real shopping began.

 To be a little more on the serious side, wedding dress shopping isn't as fun as it's made out to be (i.e. TV Shows like TLC's Say Yes to the Dress). At least, it wasn't for me. I'm not a large girl but I have my own body hang ups, like not having a long neck and being larger busted. These two don't blend well together. However, I would recommend to those girls out there worried about looking like a blob, or even just not beautiful, that there will be a dress for you. You just have to have the patience and humour to find it. 

 It was not without heartache, and frankly a few tears, that I found my dress. Even now, I have my doubts. It's hard to imagine what your dress will look like on you in the perfect size, the right colour and with alterations. I'm having to believe that when I put that dress on the day of, that I will be the beautiful bride that the consultants assured me that I would be. 

I'm looking forward to finally seeing my dress when it arrives in November. Until then, my mom continues to remind me that as long as I have the man who loves me standing beside me, it won't matter what dress I'm wearing. To him, I am perfect.