gah - non-cheese suggestions for civil wedding songs, help please

I love this

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SPJwbAtXSw:550:0]

My sister sang some Schumann - which goes against the 'has to be in English' - but we printed the translation in the OOS.

Alternatively have recently been to a wedding where there was a soprano setting of the Yeats poem:

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Not sure who the arrangement was by though.

Thanks - good one with the strings behind it! wonder if i could get h to duet with me - we'd make an hilarious pair - he looks very serious when he sings and sings very loudly (quite low) in a fairly operatic style (although untrained). in this case might be a bit hilarious also because everyone's been asking them if they're going to get married for ages... "took a long time to come"... i think the bride might take it amiss.

would be verrry funny though.

Do you know which schumann it was? presumably not der tod und das madchen... would be great though. if only the groom looked scary. but like you say, the english thing has to be addressed.

my problem is i'm being far too silly about this. i should be more serious. perhaps a folk song if it's unaccompanied? might fit both. RV-W may yet come to my aid. and they're marrying up in the hills, no strangers to folk music round there...

thanks everyone for suggestions - i'm still open to ideas.

JK and I had this -

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLv8uB3hWZo:550:0]

Audio-only version, sadly, but it worked brilliantly anyway.

But I think it needs the bizarre Finnish-Russian ambience (plus the fact that English clearly isn't either of the singers' first language) plus the full-strength Red Army Choir for full impact, and I'm not sure how you could do it solo.

Rather embarassingly I can't remember, though to be fair I was rather busy signing the register at the time. You wouldn't believe it was only 9 months ago. I really wasn't a very good 'planner' ?

V-W sounds good actually. Unaccompanied folk song would be nice, and easy so you don't have to co-ordinate with accompaniest. Just have to think of something appropriate, or not totally inappropriate. hmm. O waly waly springs to mind, but if I remember rightly it doesn't end very nicely! I just googled wedding folk music and this came up: http://ask.metafilter.com/65680/A-somewhat-folky-noncontemporary-song-to-sing-at-a-friends-wedding-ceremony - might have some useful stuff?

Do you know what she is coming in to & what they are leaving to, so it's not totally different and random, and 'fits' with the rest of the music?

I walked in to the Nocturne from Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream and then we walked out to the Wedding March from the same, both played by a wee chamber orchestra, so something quite folky (much as I love folk music) might have been a little out of place.

Waaah! i love it! i could sing it very low in a russian accent. genius.

still working on the 'taking it seriously' thing.

I guess jazzy/big bandy stuff is on the cheese list? I get a kick out of you, they can't take that away from me, night and day, it had to be you etc?

I was going to suggest "Fallen for you" by Sheila Nicholls which is beautiful, but the lyrics aren't quite right. How about your own version of !All you need if love" by The Beatles? Or "If not for you" by Bob Dylan is lovely, and the lyrics are perfect.

Ok, very embarassing, I have just texted my sis and she says I have the wrong "schu" and it was in fact Schubert's Du Bist Die Ruh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvdZ1xIgv08

? I blame my stinking cold.

Her and my mum did their own translation but this is Google's version

You are peace,
The mild peace,
You are longing
And what stills it.

I consecrate to you
Full of pleasure and pain
As a dwelling here
My eyes and heart.

Come live with me,
And close
quietly behind you
the gates.

Drive other pain
Out of this breast
May my heart be full
With your pleasure.

The tabernacle of my eyes
by your radiance
alone is illumined,
O fill it completely!

FtG - that's pretty much the set list for our evening do ?

One other thought - Joni Mitchell?

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And me. Fly me to the moon was our first dance (fitting, seeing as we met on an astrophysics course ?)

This is the song list from our wedding band - might give you some inspiration, or might all come under cheese ?: http://www.urbanbluemusic.co.uk/songs.html

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Love it ?

We had 'People will say we're in love' - originally from Oklahoma, the musical, as sung by various people including Ella Fitzgerald. Lovely and not too ?. (And we were in the musical at school!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEwVAV3VPw4&feature=PlayList&p=82ADB5F35C4BFD16&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=12

The (one?) bonus of H being a jazz musician was that the band were free as they were just his mates who were going to be there anyway. It was all very relaxed and spontaneous, and guests were just asking for random requests, which was cool.

We had jazz interspersed with a ceilidh all night. Yes, it was a unique wedding ?

[View:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxFLaBPP1jk:550:0]

Might come under the heading of cheese but I think it's a beautiful song and a string quartet arrangement would suit it really well.

Thanks so much everyone - just nipped back and not had chance to follow all the links yet, but it looks great. R-A, i always get the wrong schu, you're not alone. i've sung du bist die ruh before so that would be more straight forward than others... think i'll have to explain to my friend that singing with the string quartet might be quite nerve-wracking without a practice, and they will charge for having to construct arrangements (don't think they've necessarily thought of that) so will probably need to be unaccompanied and will need to choose accordingly.

i've found the following, think it would please the groom but not so sure about the bride

http://www.yorkshirefolksong.net/song_database/Married%20Life.aspx

We had Bach's Bist du Bei Mir - church wedding but would also be suitable for civil ceremonies as there's no mention of God. Obv. not in English, and probably not everyone's cup of tea as it does talk about death a fair bit (basic idea of the lyrics is wanting the other person to be there at the end of your life), but very beautiful.