Soundtrack for love: wedding videography, music and romantic memory

ABSTRACT

Professionally produced wedding videos are evocative artefacts. Capturing the ritual of the wedding, the wedding video stands as 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 the centre of the compressed iconography of the wedding. Although the visual elements play a lead role, we contend that the unseen qualities of the musical materials also play an integral function; undergirding 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.

KEYWORDS:

• Film music
• music
• memory
• weddings
• videography

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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 ‘extramusical 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).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael James Walsh

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

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.