Jeff and Kate: Wedding Song

Two of my favorite people got married last weekend: Jeff & Kate Becker! As a surprise wedding gift, I made a song (warning: 5min) for them and played it as a ‘toast’ during the reception (click link to download):

Jeff and Kate

It of course contains a few inside jokes, but these facts might help you make sense of it:

• Jeff and Kate live together in Madison.
• They have a dog named Barkitron 3000 (see his blog here), who was pretty old when they adopted him.  Jeff once explained he envisions himself as running a “retirement home for dogs”.  Bkt3k rarely barks.. but when he does it is deep and earth-shaking.
• Jeff proposed to Kate in a treehouse. (awesome)

This turned into quite the epic scale project when I decided to involve as many of our mutual friends as possible, and even some of Jeff’s family members..

Spoken Parts:

• I managed to get Jeff’s mom and one of his brothers (Matt) on the phone to narrate during the verses - I basically just interviewed them for 5 minutes each and edited it down later.  I had no idea what to expect but I think having family members handle the 'verse’ narration was a great route.
• For the bridge section I decided to make a “life advice” section full of half-serious/half-ridiculous thoughts by all the other friends I could manage to either get in front of a mic here in Chicago or over the phone: Mike Sudmeier, Rich Kirkendall, Max Crowe, Mark Quiner, Paul Skinner, Alex May, and Nick Thompson.

Musicians:

• Hawk Colman (vocals, some narration) is a great friend and one of the most talented singers I know.  He’s actually never met Jeff & Kate.. but was up for helping out.  I’ve had him in mind since I came up with the initial idea a year ago… thanks again so much for the session, Hawk!
• Nick Thompson (tenor & bari sax) lives here in Chicago, and stopped by to knock out the parts one afternoon.
• Kestrel Wright (french horn) now lives in Seattle but just happened to be in town for a few days.  I hadn’t seen him in years and the first thing we did was have a recording session… after that we went to a Thai restaurant to catch up.
• Will Roseliep (cello) is in Boston and recorded remotely with a flash recorder, playing along to a rough mp3.  Will’s pretty hi-tech.

p.s. dear other friends: I wish I could do something like this every time someone gets married, but holy moly did I ever underestimate the amount of work it would take… so I’ll probably have to go a more traditional route for future weddings to stay healthy & sane.  Take my word that I love you equally!