Wedding Songs That Seem Okay But Really Aren’t

So, to everyone’s surprise, I’m getting married. I’m sure that at one point in life – probably when I was a sophomore in college, probably when I would eat Taco Bell alone in a car and probably when I occasionally purchased clothing items and accessories from Hot Topic – my parents thought this was a fairly far-fetched notion. Gen getting married? Nah, she’s just going to be that weird 47-year-old who lives in our basement and emerges three times a day to eat dry ramen packets and then quietly goes back to watching TBS.

But miracles do happen, and I’m getting married! And getting married means a whole new world – a whole new lens to view life through, really. Suddenly, topics that used to make me want to slowly shave off all of my skin with a dull Gillette razor blade (think table runners, Chiavari chairs or spray painting wine bottles gold and then engraving them) are downright scintillating to me. I’ve developed a creepy sixth sense for wedding things. For example, I can enter a room and smell a homemade corkboard. I could be blindfolded and feel the aura of burlap-wrapped mason jar centerpieces somewhere on the premises. Thanks to Pinterest, I have heightened sensitivities to all things wedding related, and am basically the wedding-mutant version of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2.

Decor is not my strong point. Thank God for my very talented roommate who is a graphic designer and on call to ensure that my big day does not look like an episode of Hoarders. Music, on the other hand, I feel much more confident about. I have just one mantra guiding me through the wedding song selection process: If there are blind people at my wedding, they should think they’ve been transported back in time to a ’90s rap and R&B concert. While curating the perfect song list, I’ve come across quite a few that I strongly recommend not playing for dear Mom and Pops:

1. Red Light Special – TLC:Although this might be a song to consider if you, your fiancé, or someone in the wedding party is a highway patrol officer, it’s actually not about a really fun, secret, traffic school party. It’s about having sex under a red disco ball. See?

Baby it’s yours

All yours

If you want it tonight

Just come through my door

Take off my clothes

And turn on the red light

Verdict: Not first dance song material unless your family is really, awkwardly close.

2. Daddy’s Home – Usher: Contrary to what the title makes you think, this song is not really about your dad coming home after work to play with a chubby, 5-year-old version of you. As ambiguous as these lines are:

Is you say Daddy’s home, home for me

And I know you’ve been waiting for this lovin’ all day

This part makes it fairly clear:

Poke it on out poke it out right there

I’m a fall back while you work that chair

Do that damn thing let the neighbors hear

Verdict: Probably not as ideal for the Father-Daughter dance as you previously thought. Poking, in this sense, is not of the Facebook kind.

3. Freaks of the Industry – Digital Underground: Originally, I thought this song would be a no brainer in the case that I decided to have a Silicon Valley-Zombie-themed wedding. But then I remembered the words:

You’re lying on you’re back with your head on the edge of the bed,

The booty’s two feet from your head:

Should you: A, take the time to find a condom,

B, you walk right over and you pound ’em,

C, tell her that you want her love,

Well the answer is D, [D], all of the above.

Verdict: A 90s classic. Play it at the reception, only after the parents have kindly been escorted out and at least a few people are starting to drunkenly do the Humpty Dance. Bonus points if your guests are good at multiple-choice tests.

4. Kisses Down Low – Kelly Rowland: ALERT: This is not a song about kissing short people! I won’t say anymore here.

So, if you’re planning a wedding yourself, I hope you found the fruits of my extremely diligent research useful. Heed my warning: there is nothing more uncomfortable than dancing with your father to 112’s Peaches and Cream (not about the actual fruit).  And, if you’re not married yet and want to be, know that there is hope for hopeless, and that eating Taco Bell alone in your car is absolutely no indication that your Mr. Right isn’t just right around the corner.