I used to refuse but I remember hearing an argument by Dr. Richard Skirpan a number of years ago and changed my policy after it - now I don’t encourage it, but will generally yield if it’s requested by people of good will. I don’t recall his reasoning exactly, so I’ll try to summon him to this thread.

so I’ll try to summon him to this thread.

Our diocese revisited wedding music policies when the new translation of the wedding ritual came out about ten years ago now, and the only two pieces that by the time of our revision were still mentioned by name on the "black list" were the Mendelssohn and the Wagner. There was also a line about the processional and recessional needing to being "sacred instrumental" music.

Now, what makes a piece of instrumental music sacred? Aside from an obscure Italian Baroque "sonata da chiesa" that we learn about in music history class written expressly for use in church, I can't think of any way to satisfactorily express what makes a piece of instrumental music sacred or secular other than the common association in the mind of most listeners.

The craziest argument against Mendelssohn I have heard was that it was that it was from A Midsummer Night's Dream and promoted... interspecies marriage!

At this point, I would venture the association most people have with it is - a wedding! - no longer does it likely even evoke the play A Midsummer Night's Dream in most listeners' minds, let alone interspecies marriage.

So I don't encourage it, but I don't dissuade it. (And we edited the diocesan guidelines significantly.)

Oh no! Now I'll have to be sure I have that simplified version tucked into the back of my briefcase. I've gone 50 years since the last time I played it by simply insisting, "I don't play it." I never give any other reason.

I don’t remember which doc on sacred music I read it, but:

“Sacred music is that which the composer intended for the liturgy.” Haa! Novel idea!

That throws out a lot of music that everyone plays for it.

Bach? His works are always before or after the liturgy, or for concerts or cantatas, so really not a problem with that.

Do we get to have our own opinions and pick and choose? Yes, we all have free will… is that good? You tell me. The NO contingent can make an allowance for just about anything. Being in the VO, it is not so much an issue. I don’t ever play it. I guess I will give my opinion… it’s pop music, cheesy and shallow as comps go. I can think of 100 things that are better.

Many times they pick it because that’s the only thing that comes to their mind. Just for the reason that it’s so commercial and stereotyped is a good enough reason to never use it.

If you point them to better selections (many on youtube) they often will pick something else.

When I was doing 25 weddings every summer in Wyoming, I actually had set up a webpage with suggested offerings for preludes, processional, recessional and postludes. I never had to play the cheesy defaults after couples were a bit more informed.

This is the reasoning our diocese gives and that I pass on to the couples:

"Per Diocesan policy, we cannot permit two specific pieces for weddings: Bridal March (“Here Comes the Bride”) by Richard Wagner; and Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn.
Wagner’s Bridal March comes from the opera Lohengrin, and the music does not occur within the context of a wedding. However; circumstances of the wedding include dramatic irony regarding the marriage’s imminent failure.
Mendelssohn’s Wedding March comes from the Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, a fantasy centered around the main character’s use of magic to make the object of his affection fall in love with him.
Neither piece of music reflects the sacred nature of a sacramental marriage, nor the beliefs of the couple preparing for a sacramental marriage, nor the Church’s teachings on the Sacrament of Matrimony. As a result, they are specifically unsuitable for use in a wedding liturgy."

The couples are then given ~5 other suggestions and only one bride has made an issue of it. I think it really boils down to they don't know any better and it's all they've heard. It also doesn't help that there's no lyrics in most alternative options and they have no background in music, so they don't know how to describe what other pieces they may have heard and liked. But those two they know by name.

As soon as they hear Canon in D they recognize it and want it, but how would they remember that name? Who’s getting shot out of a cannon? The title sounds strange and not in a way that it sticks.

As a similar sounding replacement you might suggest Holst's Voluntary in C from his suite of 4 voluntaries.
https://youtu.be/3TKD0ENu_fk?si=Bpmfsr_6xeeg9I7m

Use this version of the Pachebel canon instead - esp if the couple or their minions have been difficult to deal with:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO3tu8YmfNY

I gave up on banning those two pieces years ago. Most people are, sadly, so musically illiterate they don't know anything about midsummer dreams or Wagner operas. It's just music, to them. After "Eagle's Wings," I decided that since church music had gone to perdition anyway, it wasn't a hill to die on. A note on the Canon in D. The associate pastor detested that piece and I didn't use it. What caused his hatred of it was never explained.

I rarely play weddings these days and don't miss them much. The Mendelssohn and Wagner are just tawdry in the context of a Catholic liturgy.

There was that one wedding where the priest allowed the substitution of a poem by Rilke for a lectionary reading, and a layperson might also have read the Gospel.

I requested, and got both, for my wedding.

Needs a 300-pound soprano and an aging tenor to be more authentic.

I found the Clarke Trumpet Voluntary requested more often than the Wagner. The last wedding I played for had the Hallelujah Chorus as recessional. I wasn't sure if it meant the bride was glad someone finally married her, or her dad was rejoicing at being rid of her.