We Thank Thee... Confessions

I have a confession to make.  But before I do I should explain myself...

When I was 12 years old my cousin Deon asked me to play the piano for her wedding.  You might be thinking "wow, I didn't know Jenni was a piano prodigy".  That's because I'm not.  But I know how to work hard.  So I accepted the challenge.  I bought the sheet music for Felix Mendelssohn's Wedding March and practiced my heart out.  It's not just as simple as playing the piece beginning to end, you have to modify the music on the fly to account for the time it takes the bride to walk down the aisle.  But Lori Lee (my piano teacher) helped me figure all that stuff out.  It was great.

When I was 13 I got to play the piano for my cousin Mindy's wedding.  She has a professional musician for the evening but wanted me to play when she walked down the aisle.  The "professional" guy was a jerk to me and kept telling me that he could do it and he didn't need my help (duh!).  But Mindy really wanted to include her family - so in yo' face music guy!

When I was 14 my cousins Natalie and Meagan both got married on my birthday!  Meagan asked me to play for her while she walked down the aisle/staircase thing.  She didn't want the Wedding March so I ended up playing a pretty New Age song.  Side Note: after Natalie's wedding reception she took the top off her wedding cake and put candles in it and they all sang happy birthday to me!  How amazingly awesome is that?!?!  The top of her cake!  I felt so special!

Then a few years later when my dad was a Bishop he was performing a wedding and they asked me to play the wedding march for them.  I can't remember many of the details (like who it was, when it was, or how it went).  Which isn't really surprising since I hardly remember anything anymore - hence the blogging.

Now confession time... in addition to playing the wedding march you need to play a song while the bridesmaids walk down the aisle.  I don't remember what I did for the last wedding, for Meagan's it was a New Age song - no worries there, for Mindy's wedding the jerk guy played while the bridesmaids walked down the aisle... which brings us back to Deon's wedding.  Now remember I was only 12 years old.   I remember my cousin Mitchell bit my shoulder during the reception and I started crying.  So ya, I was young.  I had only been playing the piano for 4 years and my repertoire of songs was pretty thin.  I needed a song that was nice but also had a beat so that they could do the famous bridesmaid's walk (step-together-step-together).  Plus it needed to be in the same key signature as the Wedding March because I didn't know how to transition back then.  AND since I was stressed about performing a new song (Wedding March) it was important to pick one I already knew to minimize the pressure.  Soooooooo with all that taken into account guess what song I played?  Deon's bridesmaids waltzed down the aisle to "We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet" from Hymns Made Easy!!!!!!!!!!!  To this day I bet she has no idea (unless she comes across this blog post).  There was one other LDS family at the wedding and I remember they came up to me after and told me that I did a great job and they especially liked my song selection! ;-)

But guess what!?!  I have ANOTHER embarrassing story about the same hymn!  This time Jake's in the hot seat.  The first year we lived in Connecticut Jake and I taught early morning seminary.  So we were always tired.  Well this one Sunday morning was no exception.  It happened to be the Primary program that day and while the darling kids recited their well-rehearsed lines Jake started to doze off.  Well, the Primary started singing "We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet" I don't know what startled Jake awake but in his groggy state he must have thought it was the closing song or something because he started singing along!  It was only a few words before I realized what was going on and stopped him.  Even thinking about it right now has me laughing out loud!  Jake sitting in the audience belting out words along with the Primary: "to guide us in these latter days..."

Needless to say I always have a little chuckle when Hymn 19 is on the program!