Wedding Videography, Music and Romantic Memory

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Continuum Journal of Media & Cultural Studies

ISSN: 1030-4312 (Print) 1469-3666 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccon20

Soundtrack for love: wedding videography, music and romantic memory

Michael James Walsh & Matthew Wade

To cite this article: Michael James Walsh & Matthew Wade (2020) Soundtrack for love: wedding videography, music and romantic memory, Continuum, 34:1, 14-31, DOI: 10.1080/10304312.2019.1700216 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2019.1700216

Published online: 11 Dec 2019.

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Soundtrack for love: wedding videography, music and romantic memory Michael James Walsh a and Matthew Wade b aFaculty of Business, Government and Law, University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia; bSchool of Sociology, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS Professionally produced wedding videos are evocative artefacts. Film music; music; memory; Capturing the ritual of the wedding, the wedding video stands as weddings; videography a postcard that showcases the conspicuous display of emotion that assumes a central place in the memorialization and indeed the very praxis of the modern wedding ritual. The role of music in the wedding video is crucial; representing a key partner to the imagery of the wedding, the musical dimensions emotionally charge the artefact in perpetuity. In this article we argue that the musical soundtrack of wedding videos services manifold functions, including the enabling of narrative continuity, providing a sense of propulsive rhythm, pacing and supporting the successful communication of emotions that sits at thecentreofthecompressediconographyofthewedding.Although the visual elements play a lead role, we contend that the unseen qualities of the musical materials also play an integral function; under- girding the images of the wedding and mediating the emotional and aﬀective display. The argument presented is based on an analysis of 132 selected publicly available videos, sourced from wedding videographers based in the Australian cities of Sydney and Melbourne.

Introduction The contemporary, professionally produced wedding video is a salient device of remembrance, comprising a highly curated, symbolically laden, privately intimate, yet also publicly performed and dissemination-friendly artefact of memory. Such videos have become popular mementos, and their emergence aligns with three broad trends of an overarching ‘visual turn’ (Jay 1994). The ﬁrst is the proliferation of ‘prosumer’ technologies for video recording and post-production, making event videography a viable enterprise for those looking to traverse the amateur-professional divide (Moran 2002,64–96). Second, such practices of multimodality are part of a broader ‘video turn’ in popular media consumption (Holt 2011), beginning in the 1980s with the emergence of pop culture juggernauts like MTV, and accelerating again through ubiquitous computing and the ease of personal media creation today (Vernallis 2013;Shaviro2017). Thirdly, as ‘the overlap between producers and users becomes signiﬁ- cantly larger’ (Manovich 2001, 118), videos shape the crafting of personal narratives, and we are now accustomed to ‘prosuming’ such narratives through video-hosting across digital platforms (Ritzer and Jurgenson 2010). Wedding videography has been well suited to

CONTACT Michael James Walsh [email protected] © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group CONTINUUM: JOURNAL OF MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES 15 exploiting and indeed escalating all these trends, proving a valued artefact in memorializing this ‘momentous occasion’ (Bezner 2002;Mead2007). In this article, we focus on the soundtracks used in wedding videos. We argue that music plays a vital role towards inducing desired emotional effects and narrative thrust, providing a sense of continuity, shot-to-shot rhythm, lyrical theming, and interpretive anchoring. Altogether, these musical soundtracks constitute a powerful aural framing device that aids personal and collective memory construction. Moreover, contemporary wedding videographers lean heavily on the appeal of ‘highlight’ packages,1 which are expressly produced for dissemination on social media.2 As memories are increasingly mediated via network technologies, we must remain cognizant that the ‘boundaries between present and past are no longer given, but they are the very stakes in debating what counts as memory’ (van Dijck 2007, 404). The music within these videos thus functions as a mnemonically pliable ‘artefact of memory’, holding a special status because of its ‘temporal and non-representational character’ (DeNora 2003a, 81). As such, it can be readily re-coded to complement other texts, particularly in tagging, mapping, and suggesting expected emotional engagement to the viewer. In this context, music soundtracks play an understated role, cutting across and weaving together the various actors, artefacts, and rituals of the occasion, enclosing the video within a suitably affecting auditory frame. We argue that the short-form wedding video’s distinctive textual qualities mimic and borrow from both the narrative guidance of film scores and the often non-narrative hedonism of popular music videos, yet simultaneously also serve the more traditional memorializing functions associated with the wedding photo album. Music in short-form wedding videos provides a propulsive rhythm and pacing, and altogether enhances the functional communication of idealized emotions that underlie the iconography of the wedding. The wedding video’s primary function, therefore, concerns the compressed and heightened display of the contemporary ‘romantic utopia’, made material through forms of conspicuous display (Illouz 1997), and to which the soundtrack plays a fundamental role in crafting the text’s intended reading. To develop this argument, the article is structured as follows: (1) we review relevant literature concerning the visual dimensions of weddings and the role of soundtracks; (2) we then offer an account of our sampling and methods; (3) we then present the results of a genre analysis of music used within wedding videos – identifying the aesthetic categories of music in these artefacts and considering the role they play in generating affective sentiment; (4) finally we offer a thematic account of the lyrical content that weaves together the often dazzling array of visual artefacts within wedding films. Supplementing these lines of inquiry are insights into the creative process provided by videographers themselves, collected through a questionnaire distributed to current Australian practitioners. This study is also a response to calls for a sociology of music that actually ‘deals with the specifically musical aspects of its subject’, rather than eliding such analysis by solely focusing on broader sociocultural practices of production and consumption (Marshall 2011: 157; DeNora 2003a). While we cannot claim the aesthetic acuity of practising musicologists, this paper explores ‘a more open relationship to the material and sensuous properties of [music]’ (Prior 2013, 122) through a methodological bricolage. By first illuminating cultural contexts, followed by multimodal text analysis, then complemented 16 M. J. WALSH AND M. WADE through rationales of current practitioners, this paper offers novel means by which to parse emergent forms of life narrative.

Visual media, weddings, and the role of the soundtrack Photography has long played a role in the memorializing of wedding culture. As Susan Sontag notes, ‘for at least a century the wedding photograph has been as much a part of the ceremony as the prescribed verbal formulas. Cameras go with family life’ (1977,8). Indeed, via the turn to digital media, photography and videography now play an even more prominent role in contemporary weddings (Bezner 2002;Strano2006; Wade and Walsh 2019;White2012). Beyond Sontag, visual memoralizing today does not simply ‘go’ with family life, it also serves to ‘do’, ‘make’,and‘shape’ narratives of intimacy. The vivacity and immediacy of these mediated narratives entails that we have transitioned from sharing memories to sharing experiences, rendering such texts even more laden with normative import (van Dijck 2008, 60; Walsh and Baker 2017; Walsh, Johns, and Dale 2019). Contemporary user-friendly technologies have encouraged ‘ubiquitous photography’, evident in the array of discourses and uses of photography that ‘have become radically pervasive across all domains of contemporary society’ (Hand 2012, 11). One consequence that stems from the increasing ubiquity of photography is the desire to capture the wedding in ever greater detail, while also enabling a curational veto that avoids or limits any unflattering depictions of the self. In the case of the professional wedding video, therefore, a path is provided for the marrying couple to become ‘literally actors in their own drama, enacting – and re-enacting – crucial moments of the ceremony for the benefitof the camera, and for their own viewing pleasure later on’ (Mead 2007,164). Part of the value associated with the increasing prominence of wedding videos is that – in contrast with photographic albums – they are comprised of audio-visual media, thereby heightening their affective potential due to the ‘conceptual resonance’ of mutually reinforcing intertextuality (Chion 1994, xxii). The soundtrack of the wedding video plays a decisive role in this pleasurable enactment and enchantment. An intermodal comple- mentarity is exploited, for while the visuals of the wedding will be typically striking, music proves vital in the creation of lasting memories, given one of its ‘most powerful roles is to introduce or intensify emotion’ (Neumeyer and Buhle 2009, 43). Like music embedded within a feature film, wedding video soundtracks usually accompany ‘the image from a nondiegetic position, outside the space and time of the action’ (Chion 1994, 80). As Buhler, Neumeyer, and Deemer (2010, 17) observe in relation to feature film music, we too suggest that the common use of popular music operates in two critical ways for wedding videos: first, it adds an emotional specificity to the events visually unfolding; and second, it smooths over the rapid temporal and spatial cross-cutting, and thus better orients the viewer through the text. In this way, video soundtracks draw heavily on established practices, providing

. . .the underlying or implied emotions of a scene’s direct expression; this is not mere redundancy – rather, it foregrounds the emotional content of a shot or scene, encouraging us to “read” the image or scene in a particular way. (Buhler, Neumeyer, and Deemer 2010, 17) Likewise, while leaning on culturally shared understandings of the wedding narrative itself, the wedding video soundtrack also helps as a framing device or cinematic shorthand that CONTINUUM: JOURNAL OF MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES 17 situates viewers in time and place (Henderson 2014, 487). The music selected, therefore, becomes inextricable from the mediation and memory-shaping processes that affix ‘temporal notions and relations between past and present’ (van Dijck 2008, 17), while also linking individual memories to those held on a collective level (Strong 2014, 422). Lewandowski (2010, 866) suggests that music used in film represents an important audio-visual text, that when incorporated effectively can emphasize plot while also inducing the tenor of a moment depicted on screen for the audience. While soundtracks have primarily been produced for film and television, we contend they now appear pivotal to contemporary imaginaries of the wedding, evident through video-based texts that are crafted with ever-greater technical and aesthetic sophistication. Through the added affordances of video, vivid signifiers of cultural and economic capital become markers of the couple’scommitmenttooneanother(Wade and Walsh 2019). Hence, the selection of ceremony setting, the ritual practices to be upheld, the reception venue, locations for pre or post-wedding photos, sartorial matters, décor, and adornments are partially configured in terms of how they will be visually and aurally inscribed for posterity (Otnes and Pleck 2003;Mead2007). Curiously, it would appear that despite being a novel and still developing genre, wedding videography – particularly through the selection and incorporation of non-diegetic music – most commonly serves a functional role of reinforcing convention and the ‘new traditionalism’ of weddings (Leslie 1993). Moreover, while broad secularization processes have perhaps loosened the rigidity of some rituals and protocols (Wouters 2007), the overall spectacle of the wedding has nonetheless only escalated, with commercial interests inserting themselves as the requisite means of infusing the ritual with added meaning, effervescence, and affirma- tion (Mead 2007; Otnes and Pleck 2003;McKenzieandDales2017;McAlister2018). Videographers now assume an essential role in this ever-growing ‘wedding-industrial com- plex’ (Ingraham 1999). Typically, a music supervisor working on a feature film will be tasked with sourcing music, suggesting musical ideas, and processing legal issues associated with the incorporation of selected pieces (Lewandowski 2010).However,inthecaseofweddingvideos, the creative and technical roles of director, camera operator, and editor are often fused with the music supervisor. Add to this, the live pressures of capturing a one-time event, and we can understand how an experienced videographer may shoot with active consideration of how well-specific pieces of music will fit with the footage obtained. Because, ultimately, the role of videographer is not simply to document, but to provide an enhanced version of the wedding (Mead 2007, 154), capturing visual vignettes that best elevate the couple as a model of affection, intimacy, moral standing, and overall habitus, and then accentuating these moments with musical accompaniment. The relative ease with which multimodal texts can be produced today enables skilled ‘interplaywithauralmodessuchasspokenlanguage,soundeffects and music’ (Wingstedt, Brandstorm, and Berg 2010, 194). Indeed, the inclusion of music is one means by which multimodal texts realize their greatest narrative and affective potential. Music can indicate the general tone or mood of a scene (tense, light-hearted, triumphant, etc.) and reveal the internal state of characters in ways far more subtle than direct exposition. In the case of wedding videos, a multimodal unity is achieved through selections of (usually popular) tracks that suitably accompany cultural ideals of matrimony. In presenting this analysis we seek to show how the various genres of wedding video soundtracks are tied with lyrical content that reinforces and amplifies depicted ideals. Through the accentuating potentials of music, wedding videos facilitate the committal of 18 M. J. WALSH AND M. WADE matrimonial imagery to memory, invoking romantic sensibilities tied to spectacle and ritual. Music serves to signify emotions that resonate between onscreen characters, while viewers, in turn, seek to empathize with the depth of feeling portrayed. Borrowing the framework of popular music videos (Austerlitz 2007), paired with specific genre selections and thematically poignant lyrics, the narrative of wedding videos showcases deep romantic affections, priming the audience for a reciprocal emotive display. As will be shown, in wedding videos romantic and matrimonial visual motifs are unequivocally buttressed through the soundtrack. The chosen songs provide an auditory loom upon which filmic excerpts are woven together, reinforcing the expected emotional response in celebrating the occasion of the wedding.3

Method of sampling and analysis The data analysed in the following emerge from a project exploring performative displays and role expectations as curated in wedding videos.4 These materials were drawn from publicly available websites of wedding videographers based in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. Wedding videographers actively promote their work via digital platforms, enabling prospective clients to browse their portfolio. This provided a considerable pool of data to draw upon. Typically, these videos for public viewing are short-form texts ranging from approximately 2–10 min in length. The procedure adopted for collecting videos was as follows: initially, we searched the web using the terms ‘wedding videography Melbourne’ and ‘wedding videography Sydney’.Fromthis,thefirst15suitableresults(i.e.clearlyidentifiable wedding videography businesses then currently operating in Melbourne or Sydney) were selected as proprietors from which videos were drawn. These 30 businesses were then supplemented by 10 more (five each from New South Wales and Victoria) who were identified by the Australian Bridal Industry Academy as industry-leading. This allowed for sampling based on both a broad measure of popularity (through algorithmic visibility), and within-industry recognition. Altogether this totalled 40 outlets from whom videos would be sourced. Following this, we adopted a loose chronological sampling method, selecting the first available video featured in avendor’s showreel list, along with the video featured last, and one sampled from the middle. Many videography websites also feature a single video on their home page, as emblematic of their best work. Such ‘centrepiece’ videos were thus also included, given their relative importance in generating a positive impression for potential clients. Not all proprietors featured a centrepiece video. Therefore, either three or four videos were selected from each outlet, with the total sample amounting to 132 videos. In this respect, the sample process excluded some forms of wedding videography, such as ‘feature’ films, which are often substantially longer but intended for a smaller audience. However, the sample did include some other distinct subgenres, such as the ‘same day edit’ video (a video rapidly shot, edited, andplayedtotheweddingcongregationonthe same day). Once the videos were down- loaded and stored, a systematic review was undertaken to determine the music genres employed, along with content analysisofthesonglyrics(asfeaturedinthefinal videos).5 To provide evidentiary support to our analysis, we also administered a small, explora- tory, non-representative questionnaire to 12 working Australian wedding videographers, with topics of inquiry pertaining to how music shaped their creative process and final output. Their responses have been incorporated to further bolster the analysis of video CONTINUUM: JOURNAL OF MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES 19 artefacts we provide below. By examining the auditory content contained within these texts, combined with complementary insights into the production process from videographers, the following presents both a cultural and social semiotic analysis of the form and function of wedding videos.

Genres of matrimonial romance in wedding videography Wedding videos draw upon musical soundtracks as a powerful auditory frame that assists in their intended interpretation. It is here that genre, as a conceptual tool, is used to classify cultural products, particularly within the visual arts and music, where it broadly ‘describes a manner of expression that governs artists’ work, their peer groups, and the audiences for their work’ (Lena and Peterson 2008, 697). While popular music genres are constructed with commercial processes in mind – and thus are not the result of formal musicological histories (Frith 1996, 89) – they nonetheless provide useful indications of the variability of music used within wedding videos. Significantly, all videos we sampled employed a non-diegetic musical soundtrack, with the absence of music during a video proving rare (such that its very absence could carry its own poignant import). The ubiquity of music indicates its function as an interpretive aid for the visual elements portrayed. Echoing DeNora (2000), this speaks to music’s malleability in combining with image and other means of expression, for it ‘builds on its highly abstracted affordance, which in film is also what allows for its high extent of nondiegetic usage’ (Wingstedt, Brandstorm, and Berg 2010, 206). But in addition to the presence of music, our analysis maps the genres detected within wedding video soundtracks. Interestingly, from our analysis, we suggest the music sourced for wedding videos emerges from a relatively consistent range of musical genres, which we have allocated into four general aesthetic categories that contain proximate genres (see Table 1). While genre boundaries and their contextual nuances remain fluid and resistant to neat categorization – given they are constantly negotiated within a muddying context of the commercial and cultural nexus (Shuker 2013, 95) – their value in signifying matrimonial romance cannot be underestimated. The commercial and cultural quality of genre is significant in two ways to this analysis. First is the already alluded to importance of leaning on the extant cultural capital of the intended viewer, so that the fast-paced video can still be easily ‘read’. Because the audience is likely to be broad and varied in their personal tastes, videographers are incentivized towards ‘playing it safe’ in their music selections, in hopes it will appeal to any potential viewer. As videographers stated in this regard:

It depends on the couple and the type of wedding but I typically tend to select music in the folk/indie/cinematic genres for my work.

[Our selections are] Very similar in structure and mood.

Broadly similar, I tend to try to ﬁnd indie music, but I will always try to ﬁnd the perfect song that matches the couple.

Secondly, for many practitioners, the typical source of music for wedding videos is a small collection of online licencing websites, which categorize their tracks according to desired ‘genre’, ‘vibes’, or life event (eg. Musicbed). As such, it is plausible that the resulting 20 .J AS N .WADE M. AND WALSH J. M.

Table 1. Frequency of music genres found within the wedding videography sample. Instrumental Song based – Vocals Aesthetic categories -genre Cinematic/Ambient/World Country/Folk/Indie/ Pop/Pop rock/ Dance/Electronic/R&B grouping Contemporary Christian Frequency 41 60 56 25 % of the sample 22.5 32.9 30.7 13.7 Examples The Candlepark Stars (Kerry Muzzey) Best day of my life Secret Nation Tonight (four times) Ben Rector When I’m with you GryffinBurn – Ellie Goulding (featured twice) (twice) (twice) Lights and Motion Particle Storm (twice) Silver Trees Music Close Your Eyes The Temper Trap Sweet Rihanna We Found Love (twice) Disposition (twice) (twice) CONTINUUM: JOURNAL OF MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES 21 relative homogeneity is due not merely to shared affective intentions, but also commercial convenience of access. With regard to our sample, it is noteworthy that a number of musical works were featured several times across multiple videos. This appears reflective of conventional wisdom within the profession, along with revealing the ease with which popular music can be re-contextualized and imbricated with new markers of intimacy, ritual, and collective effervescence. While one might anticipate that the desire to craft a uniquely distinctive artefact would lend itself to an idiosyncratic variety of video soundtracks, our analysis suggests the opposite. Indeed, videographers can often find themselves in a creative bind, aiming to incorporate less commonly used popular music that still functions as an affecting and seemingly personalized soundtrack:

Sometimes it takes hours (one time a full day) to ﬁnd the right music. There’s only a limited number of really good music libraries, and because a lot of videographers use these same libraries it’s not uncommon to hear the same music in other people’s work, which isn’t ideal for the client. It gives me an upmost respect for composers and producers as I realise how much I rely on their talents.

Videographers carefully consider what track will best dramatize the visual depictions, using music to imbue imagery with guided emotional interpretation. As one videographer noted:

When I choose a song, I look for the dynamic “shape” of the song. Therefore, how much change there is in volume, energy etc. This plays a part in moving the story forward.

This is not an easy task, for the editor must ‘establish an interesting, coherent rhythm of emotion and thought – on the tiniest and the largest scales – that allows the audience to trust, to give themselves to the ﬁlm’ (Murch 2001,72).Whenaskedwhatways(ifany)dothey believe music selection shapes how the ﬁnal product is composed, one videographer responded:

It’s crucial to the overall edit. We use the music to shape the story and tone of the film. We edit to the music and follow the ebb and flow, crescendos and verses for the appropriate places to put the words and most meaningful scenes. It creates the map of the film. That’s why we want to pick the music; what the couple likes often doesn’t work to create the best film for the content we have. It makes a massive difference in the overall edit.

Another professional echoed this view:

Peaks and troughs in the music can determine the order of which I place moments or audio. As a rule though, I edit to the rhythm and beat of the music. If a film looks as though it is edited to a different song then it requires a different one.

Occasionally, the videographer may even have speciﬁc tracks in mind before the wedding is even recorded, for as one professional observed, ‘sometimes I can just tell what is going to work for a couple and what they have planned’. Therefore, while wedding videographers are usually not trained musicians – but certainly highly capable cinematographers and editors – their music selections prominently ﬁgure in how the video is cut together to create a compatible intertextual dynamic. Consequently, most videographers preferred not to acquiesce to the requests of clients, lest it results in trying to suture together incommensurable texts, with jarring outcomes. One respondent stated: 22 M. J. WALSH AND M. WADE

I used to [accept requests], before I started using licensed music my clients would choose music and while they thought they were going to be pleased with their choice, the music never accompanied their films well creatively. I am now a firm believer in using licensed music, not only because it is the law, but it allows me to create a totally unique film for each client that is personalised to them and no one else has. I don’t consult with them on which licensed music I use, I carefully select music that I believe reflects them and their wedding.6

Other videographers may ask or permit couples to provide suggestions, but retained editorial control:

I make it clear with clients that I maintain complete creative control over the way I shoot and edit their ﬁlms, including music selection.

In addition to shared licencing sources, the desire to maintain creative control arguably contributes to the restricted range of musical genres found within our sample, with videographers adhering to narrowly prescribed aesthetic, emotional, and social functions of wedding memorialization (Bezner 2002;WadeandWalsh2019). Typically, wedding videos are tightly circumscribed within an emotional register bound to a (heteronormative) romantic idiom, one that supports the idealization of matrimonial bonds. This prescribed but familiar narrative allows for some creativity, particularly when it comes to editing styles (which can be remarkably sophisticated in contemporary wedding videos). However, any further innovation is only possible when it does not infringe upon upholding non-negotiable conventions. Significantly, the selected tracks usually featured vocals (comprising almost three- quarters of the sample). This marks a clear divergence from music composed for films. This lyrical content serves several functions of musical narrative as identified by Wingstedt, Brandstorm, and Berg (2010, 194–5), with lyrics typically being emotive, descriptive, accessible, and instructive. They intend to induce an affective response within the viewer, and to tie this elicited feeling to the valorization of the couple’s commitment, and societal norms more broadly. Drawing on the grammar of popular music to smooth over any interpretive gaps, the soundtrack provides an emotive bond to aid viewers who may lack understanding of the precise meaning embedded in various ritual acts. Music thus serves ‘as a glue, compensating for the shortcomings of editing’ and ‘holding the montage together’ (Provenzano 2008, 84). It is here, therefore, where we should note some contrasts and parallels with the other major antecedent of the wedding film, the popular music video. Wedding films share with music video a penchant for deploying rapid cross-cutting shots, with other techniques adapted for wedding videography including frequent use of montage, collage, crossfades, overlays, lens flares, and flexible continuity, all coalescing into a ‘joyous rhetoric of images’ (Chion 1994, 166; see also Austerlitz 2007;Shaviro2017;Vernallis2013). In music videos, the rapid succession of cuts and post-production effectsoftenoccuronthebeat– or other musical cues – and ‘come far more frequently than in film, that many stand out as disjunctive, and that the editing seems to have a rhythmic basis closely connected to the song’ (Vernallis 2001, 21). This mirrors the process that wedding videographers undertake, as one practitioner notes:

I edit to the beat very much so. I’ll also shape the dialogue/story and write the music to match at the same time. CONTINUUM: JOURNAL OF MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES 23

Another videographer similarly notes that ‘we would generally build the story and ﬁt the music around it’, even if that entails re-cutting the song itself:

We’re always conscious of matching crescendos to big moments and emotional moments with softer music etc – but you can always re-cut songs to match the narrative.

Thus, by making use of its innate affordances – in both its technical components and conventional associations (DeNora 2003b, 170) – music is used to weave together the moments of the wedding into an audio-visual narrative that shares a pleasing intertextual affinity. Less frequently observed, however, were instrumental pieces, which arguably attempt a subtler subsumption of the viewer by avoiding direct rhetorical prompts. Still, while not reliant on lyrical content, videos with instrumental tracks can nonetheless evoke the simultaneously liminal, transcendent, and transitional state of the wedding day, along with accentuating displays of ecstasy, joy, and affection. In any case, the variability between instrumental pieces and vocal tracks – along with the inclusion of tracks that feature non- lexical vocables – suggests some measure of reflexive creativity in the selection of music that accompanies the visuals. Videographers themselves acknowledge this:

There is a variance; we use slow dreamy music for a soft romantic vibe, we use indie, alternative if we have a fun quirky couple, we use pop, upbeat songs for a happy mood, we use rock and up-tempo music for a really exciting, punchy, party atmosphere. I suppose the variance isn’tso broad in terms of genre in that we don’t use classical, rap, heavy electronica or death metal – we work within the Cinematic, Pop, Rock, Indie, Folk, Singer-Songwriter genres.

This supports the findings from our classification analysis. While the selected music fits within a broadly popular idiom, it is carefully curated according to the desired viewer response within the narrative arc of the video, and must also align with the couple’s perceived sensibilities. We can likewise posit that the genres in our sample range between three broad functional types, reflective of various narrative purposes of music. One type were those pieces explicitly denoting romantic content, usually through lyrics laden with proclamations of love (as was the case in most uses of folk, country, and R&B genres). The second type was a more classically cinematic, orchestral, and muted romantic style (as the above videographer describes it: ‘slow dreamy music for a soft romantic vibe’). The third, meanwhile, was evident in those tracks with more hedonistic drive, emphasizing the raucous fun of the wedding day (EDM being the most common genre for this purpose). Given the prominence of song lyrics within two of these functional types, their purpose merits further consideration, particularly in how they reinforce central themes and bridge the various ‘acts’ and ‘scenes’ of the event.

The interplay of scenes, lyrics, and themes Typically, there are three main ‘acts’ of the wedding featured in videography: the pre- parations, formal ceremonies, and post-ritual festivities. While there can be significant variation within these acts, the overarching structure remains. Spliced within acts are often small vignettes, creating a lively montage that also eases scene transitions. This footage is typically drawn from pre-wedding shoots or photography sessions, but increasingly also from pre-recorded interviews (in ways loosely resembling documentary and 24 M. J. WALSH AND M. WADE reality television genres). Some pre-wedding vignettes are even shot in the style of a music video, or short film, commonly depicting how the bride and groom first met. Within this framework, music serves a macro function, stitching together events, locations, and actors with a shared affective sensibility and mnemonic intent. A wealth of empirical literature supports the popular intuitive view that music can evoke vivid autobiographical memories (Belfi, Karlan, and Tranel 2016; Cady, Harris, and Knappenberger 2008;Schulkind, Hennis, and Rubin 1999), aiding not only as a cue in restaging life narratives, but fostering forms of emotional recall (Scherer and Zentner 2001). Similarly, well-supported is the use of music as an interactive tool to engender intimacy, to signal and induce within oneself and another a distinct emotional register (DeNora 2002). Music with prosocial lyrics is even correlated with prosocial thoughts and behaviour (Greitemeyer 2009;Jacob,Guéguen,and Boulbry 2010), and romantic songs may make one more inclined to accept courtship requests (Guéguen, Jacob, and Lamy 2010). Popular music can, therefore, be appropriated in order to capture, reflect, and valorize a bespoke – but socially and normatively mediated – life narrative. Specifically, the music- driven sentiments within wedding videos typically provide emotional salience by com- municating a version of romantic love that distinguishes it from other variants of affection and intimacy (Pinto 2017, 596). Still, the lyrical themes can alternate wildly between depictions of romantic love as overwhelming, irresistible, and a compulsion beyond rationality, against more sober and considered expressions of unwavering commitment. In this way, the soundtrack builds a connective tissue of feeling, carrying the viewer through what could otherwise prove a dizzying panoply of imagery. However, music soundtracks also serve pragmatic micro-structuring functions. For example, one common editing technique is using a track change to prime viewers for an act transition (say, from the ceremony to the reception). A track change may occur at a significant moment, such as when the presiding celebrant formally sanctions the marriage. In these cases, the track change is not intended to be subtle, but rather emphatically marks this symbolic ratification and the beginning of the next act. Typically, though, the music will not draw primary attention to itself. Rather, it serves to complement and accentuate the visual displays of role performance and semiotic markers (which, ultimately, is what is most important to the actors involved). Common themes emerge within song lyrics selected to accompany the videos. Many are country-tinged ballads, R&B smooth jams, or pop-rock confessions of love and loss, written in first person and directed to an object of affection. They are likewise characterized by the accessibility and flexible interpretation of their lyrics, and so can serve as recognizable signifiers of the internal motivations of bride and groom. To this end, lyrics often allude to past troubles overcome, steadfast commitments for today, and aspirations for the future. When incorporated into videos, some lyrics become ‘metadiegetic’ (Audissino 2017, 33–38). That is, the lyrics mirror events on screen, but the music itself is not experienced directly by the actors. This is most apparent when lyrics directly refer to the wedding occasion, such as The Dixie Cups ‘Chapel of Love’, or lines like ‘Today’s the day we’ll say “I do”’. Metadiegetic lyrics also feature in another track featuring the line ‘When I’m with you the fireworks go off’. This repeated lyric resounds as the bride and groom dance together, while around them, fireworks spurt blinding-white plumes. Another video features a cartography theme, including: shots of a world globe; flasks imprinted with compass roses; globe cufflinks; and other thematic markers. Paired with these images is an CONTINUUM: JOURNAL OF MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES 25 accompanying song that analogizes marriage as an exploration into the unknown. Lyrics can also echo the exchange of vows, or point directly to signifying artefacts. One song, for example, tells of ‘the sacred promise, and a ring that says it all’, visually matched with a close-up shot featuring the bride’s ring alongside her bridal shoes. Beyond this, another recurring theme highlights love as both fated and fragile, evident in one video that features a cover of Elvis Presley’s ‘Can’t help falling in love’. Romantic love is framed as something destined but still requiring tender care, because ‘Once in a lifetime does not happen again.’ Lyrics evoke this fateful-but-fragile relation, proclaiming that ‘I don’t believe in chance/I think it’s the choice we make/And I choose you/For the rest of my days.’ Chances are taken, and love begins with ‘Just a shot in the dark that you just might/Be the one I’ve been waiting for my whole life.’ The finite passage of time is another common motif: ‘Our time is short/This is our fate/I’m yours.’ Alternatively, other lyrics tether affection to a timeless transcendence: ‘I have loved you for a thousand years/ I’ll love you for a thousand more.’ Others similarly want for nothing but time: ‘All we need is time, alright.’ Such lyrics are imbued with nostalgia, both of the recollective and anticipatory kind (Batcho and Shikh 2016). The wedding event and its accompanying memorial texts are assembled to both stoke and satiate this anticipatory nostalgia. Curiously, many featured tracks have an unmistakable melancholy, though one still tied to hopes of love enduring (eg. Lana Del Rey’s ‘Young and Beautiful’ or Ed Sheeran’s ‘Evergreen’). Others go even further, suggesting a love doomed: ‘Watching the light on the dash/Warning that we’re gonna crash.’ While some lyrics echo common sentiments in proclaiming ‘This is the perfect day’, others evoke the underlying melancholy of knowing they may never realize this ecstatic state again, eg. ‘I wish we could stay like this forever’ and ‘In your arms I’d stay/Forever if I could.’ Other tracks, meanwhile, are unmistakably ‘break up’ songs, where jilted lovers lament that ‘We cannot repair, we cannot amend, the damage now is over and done.’ Another pleads ‘When you said your last goodbye/I died a little bit inside [. . .] But if you loved me/Why did you leave me?’ One song even confesses that ‘I faltered, left you at the altar.’ Of course, we are not to interpret these lyrics as the literal experiences of the couple featured in the video. Nor are videographers and clients likely unaware of the potential narrative and tonal juxtapositions. Rather, it appears that such songs serve to acknowledge that the couple has endured difficult circumstances, yet remain unwavering in their affections. The curious prevalence of melancholy pieces may even reflect wider cultural trends over the last half-century, where greater use of minor modes – and thus overall ‘sad-sounding’ songs – has emerged in popular music (Schellenberg and von Scheve 2012). The promise of mutual self-actualization is another prevalent lyrical theme. Singers admit of prior faults: ‘I used to be a fool/Thought that I was better/Better alone howling at the moon’. But now they proclaim that ‘When I’m with you I’m no longer wandering’, or that ‘With all of my heart, I know I’m where I should be.’ A revelatory epiphany is achieved, for ‘My life had found its missing piece’ after one’s lover ‘Brought out the best of me/A part of me I’d never seen.’ The melancholy of old is replaced by comforting exhilaration, for ‘Anticipation is something new/When you never had someone to look forward to’. Music and lyrics, therefore, illuminate Paul Ricoeur’s ‘triple mimesis’ in action, drawing out ‘the present of the past, present of the future, present of the present ’ in cognizant forms (Negus 2012, 486). A great deal of the wedding event in itself – the ritual display, the performative roles, the semiotic markers, the memorializing 26 M. J. WALSH AND M. WADE practices – seems consciously oriented to this simultaneous conflation and expansion of time and memory. As a life marker of belonging (or what Ricoeur might describe as ‘emplotment’), the wedding is bound in obligations to the past, powered by joyous ecstasy in the present, and suffused throughout with hopeful expectations for the future (Wade and Walsh 2019). Relatedly, another common lyrical theme is finding one’s ‘home’ after previously feeling ‘lost’. Lyrics declare that ‘The only place that I want to be is right back home with you’,or‘Home is wherever I’m with you’. Such themes are also used to project into a bright future:

Let’s gather some stones/Stack ‘em up and build us a home/And we’ll call it our own [. . .] And when we both grow old/We’ll have too many stories to be told.

Love has been tested, but found suﬃcient, and now they can reap the rewards:

We felt the hunger/And we felt the pain [. . .] Here’s to forever [. . .] Cause the best is yet to come.

Other future projections are pledges for a life together: ‘Go find me a string/Tie a knot and make me a ring [. . .] And your heart I will carry/Till the end of time.’ Promises are made that today’s joys can be made to last: ‘We’ll never forget this moment/It will stay brand new [. . .] ‘Cause every day gets better and better.’ Some tracks will combine references to the wedding day with aspirations for the future, such as having children (eg. Shane Filan’s ‘Beautiful in White’). And, again, with a sense of anticipatory nostalgia, some tracks evoke the pleasure of one day looking back at a life shared: ‘Reminisce every moment passed/All the times we shared/You and I growing old together [. . .] It’s been so beautiful loving you through all of these years.’ Other tracks use dramatic analogies of being subsumed and overwhelmed. Metaphors of water and drowning are common, evoking a dualistic quality of something both vitalizing and threatening: ‘Will you let me drown?’; ‘My head’sunderwater’; ‘There’s an ocean in my heart [. . .] I know you can save me’; ‘The levee breaks when I hold your hand’. Some lyrics confess fear of the unknown, but with newfound resolve: ‘Without your love, don’tknowhow I survive/It’syou,it’syouthat’s keeping me alive’; ‘I’m on your magical mystery ride/And I’m so dizzy, don’t know what hit me, but I’ll be alright’;’ Cards on the table/We’re both showing hearts/Risking it all/Though it’shard’. In other examples of melancholy inflected with hope, some lyrics turn to musings on mortality, time, and memory: ‘Lovers ’ names, carved in walls/ Overlap, start to merge [. . .] But the meaning will never disappear’; ‘Ourtimehereisshort/I’ll find you and fill every waking moment with meaning.’ Also, evident are allusions to the transformative and redemptive power of love, often articulated through appeals to divine intervention: ‘You’re the proof that the Father answers prayers’; ‘All creation’s singing their hearts out to you’; ‘You must have been sent from heaven to earth to change me.’ Other tracks capture themes of a ‘fairy tale’, something bordering on fantasy: ‘It’s like she stepped out of a dream/And into my world’; ‘If our love was a fairy tale/I would charge in and rescue you/On a yacht, baby, we would sail/To an island where we’d say I do.’ Others simply admit an ineffable quality of romantic love, one that eludes description: ‘I’ve got something to say but words can’t describe/The way that I feel when I look in her eyes’; ‘There’s no words to say it/But I’ll find them over time’; ‘Just the look in your eyes/Says it all/So much more than I could ever/I won’t try.’ CONTINUUM: JOURNAL OF MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES 27

Alternatively, many tracks, particularly those played during reception scenes, are suggestive of bacchanalian hedonism, urging the listener to enjoy this time before it is lost forever: ‘It’s a beautiful night/We’re looking for something dumb to do/Hey baby/I think I wanna marry you.’ This is also where popular artists are most likely to feature (eg. Bruno Mars, Rhianna, Justin Timberlake, Carly Rae Jepsen). Other bacchanalian tracks harken to a more nostalgic Bruce Springsteen or Tom Waits-like sensibility: ‘Put on your old black dress/And grab your dancing shoes/Head out to the old bar Rose/And we’ll dance away our blues’. In exploring the lyrical content used in wedding videos we can, therefore, see the significance of deftly weaving together multiple aural, thematic, and visual elements into evocative artefacts of remembrance. The viewer is transported to a time, space, and context in which they may not even have been active participants, but lyrical and melodic markers nonetheless immediately convey both instructive and affective guidance regarding how the text should be interpreted. Common anecdotes of couples re-watching their wedding videos at every anniversary likewise underscore the collective accomplishment of a text that offers subsumption and immersion in mnemonic reverie (Gomart and Hennion 1999). Altogether, lyrical themes that invoke: the transformative and redemptive power of love; dramatic analogies of subsumption; projections and pledges of life together; the promise of mutual self-actualization; and framing love as both fated and fragile ‘define romantic love by separating it out from a range of other types of love, affection, desire or intimacy’ (Pinto 2017, 596). What emerges in wedding videos is an audio-visual interplay that leverages existing cultural stocks and distinctive visual markers, affectively amplified through musical selections that carry their own familiar tropes and emotive nuances. This co-mingling of artisanal technique, technological affordances, and cultural signifiers entails that – rather than any attempt at a direct observational documentary – nondiegetic and meta-diegetic music serve an additive purpose in the re-construction of memory, inscribing the past with a distinct emotional resonance guided by its creators.

Conclusion Wedding videos serve as a tangible mnemonic link to the past, providing a similar function to medals, plaques, tombstones, war memorials, and other commemorative monuments; the purposeful design of ‘future ruins’ in preserving normatively esteemed memories (Zerubavel 1996, 292). The added affordances of video actively construct heightened matrimonial ideals through the inclusion of post-production media. Thus, in a similar fashion to other music technologies, they also become paramount in shaping the past in ways that hold discursive power. Such texts never simply ‘retrieve’ the past, but rather facilitate ‘new ways for the past to be renegotiated in the present’ (Strong 2014, 421). With regard to mediation and multimodality, the wedding video exemplifies the fusing of music and image in a highly romanti- cized and vivid collage produced for sentimental and reminiscent consumption. Beyond the presence of the key actors themselves, it is arguably the music that most augments the text’s capacity as a mediator of emotional memory. As DeNora (2003a, 83) argues ‘music is often experienced as the most emotionally direct medium, one with a capacity to appeal to the body and the emotions in ways that exceed other aesthetic media’.Combinedwiththe flexibility of working in multiple contexts, it is this potential of music’s emotive capacity that wedding videographers summon in the construction of wedding videos. The linkages that 28 M. J. WALSH AND M. WADE occur when music is partnered with an act, memory, media or person – even when such an association is arbitrarily established – can become engrained as an ineffaceable symbol of shared life narratives. Through wedding videos, music is skilfully re-appropriated, endowing these multimodal texts with evocative potential in constructing vivid memories.

Notes

1. I.e. typically short videos, often labelled as a ‘showreel’, ‘trailer’ or ‘teaser’ for a longer feature, or a same-day edit film played during the wedding reception. 2. While longer ‘feature’ films are also produced, they tend to be disseminated to much smaller audiences and are less reliant on music soundtracks. Hence, we focus here on short-form wedding videos, which exhibit far greater resemblance to popular music videos compared with the amateur ‘home mode’ video of family life (Moran 2002), or documentary-style footage. 3. It is exceedingly rare for new pieces to be composed for wedding soundtracks. While one might assume that using pre-existing musical works would render them misappropriated this would misconstrue historical soundtrack practices, where bespoke compositions for film were not standard practice (Burke 2009, 60). Moreover, concerns of misappropriation neglect the ways in which pre-existing popular music can hold far more signifying power for the intended audience (Howell 2004), for such tracks come pre-loaded with ‘extra- musical allusions and associations’ drawn from wider culture (Smith 1998, 155). 4. The project ‘The High-Low Spectacle: Moral Performances and Material Culture Displays in Weddings Project’ (HERC 16–21) received ethics clearance from the University of Canberra ethics committee. 5. Of the 194 music tracks featured within the sample, only eight could not be identified through any combination of personal knowledge, music identification software, or searches based on song lyrics. Nonetheless, these pieces were coded by ear into their respective musical genres. 6. Difficulties associated with licencing – adhered to by some videographers but outright flouted by others – also reflects wider concerns regarding inequalities in authorial control and what stories can be archived for posterity (van der Hoeven 2018).

Disclosure statement

No potential conﬂict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Michael James Walsh is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Business, Government and Law at the University of Canberra. His research interests include the sociology of interaction, the writings of Erving Goﬀman, cultural sociology, technology and music. A chief dimension of his research involves exploring the reception of communication technologies as they relate and impact on social interaction. Matthew Wade is an Honorary Lecturer in the School of Sociology, Australian National University. His primary research interests lie within the sociology of science, technology, health, and morality, particularly with regard to emerging biotechnologies and their applications in shaping normative obligations of citizenship. Matthew also has a concurrent research focus in cultural sociology, specializing in spectacles of aﬀective labour, conspicuous consumption, and public appeals for moral worthiness. CONTINUUM: JOURNAL OF MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES 29

ORCID

Michael James Walsh http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1919-8312 Matthew Wade http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8401-2428

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