music priorities

There are these two framed pictures in our living room. One thing that Mr. Narwhal and I bonded over in the beginning of our relationship was our love for and similar taste in music. When we first started dating we would always send each other pictures of love quotes and music quotes that said things like, "Music speaks louder than words."

One of those photos Mr. Narwhal sent me was a picture filled with music quotes and he told me it was his favourite music picture yet. It was small and pixel-filled, so I decided to draw him a new one filled with better quotes and more significant things to us. When I gave it to him he told me he had the perfect gift for me. He had a picture that he had drawn three years earlier that shared many of the same quotes. They now share a wall in our living room.

music in the living room // personal photo

The moral of my tangent is that music plays a huge role in our lives. There is usually music playing in our kitchen, Mr. Narwhal knows the lyrics to every song ever and car playlists are our jam (pun intended). Live music? Our favourite. Spending our hard earned money on concerts is money well spent in our home and we have been to many concerts together. A real vacation? Hasn't happened yet. Concerts? I've lost count.

Ben Harper September 2012 // personal photo

So when it came to wedding planning, Mr. Narwhal felt strongly about one thing and that was live music. Since I was so big on photography, I really wanted to make Mr. Narwhal's big thing a priority for us as well. I didn't know if we would be able to do it, but I was pretty set on finding a way.

One afternoon I went down the Google rabbit hole searching artists in Muskoka. I looked up local bar regular musicians, radio station locals, Google, Google, Google. Somewhere along the way I stumbled upon Jenn Morin, a musician that had recently moved to Muskoka! I loved her style and taste in music and showed her Youtube channel to Mr. Narwhal. He seemed intrigued and also impressed by her choice of songs, so I contacted Jenn to talk about our wedding.

Jenn seemed really nice and was prompt at emailing us. She had a variety of options on how she could perform on our wedding day from a solo gig to full band and suggested we arrange to see her perform at her weekly gig at a local pub in Gravenhurst, Ontario*.

Gentlemen of the Road - Mumford and Sons August 2013 // personal photo

It worked out well that the night we had decided on Mr. Narwhal's best friend GM Duff was home visiting and my parents and one aunt happened to also be in Gravenhurst that evening. So, we all met up for drinks to watch Jenn play!

I personally was immediately sold (when I know, I know), I loved her vibe, her unique take on songs (she's got a killer acoustic version of No Diggity) and she is incredibly sweet! By the end of the night our rowdy table was singing along and having a great time! Everyone was sold and agreed we had to hire Jenn!

Jenn and I worked together to create a contract that worked for us. We decided that a trio made most sense for the vibe we wanted to create (Jenn and her guitar, an acoustic percussionist and upright bassist) and settled on the rate of $1300 for four hours (all we need to provide is a generator).

The three of us are going to work together on creating setlists and Jenn is even willing to learn a few songs for us! We are so grateful to have found Jenn and can hardly wait to dance to her music on our wedding day.

Was live music a priority for your wedding day?

*Gravenhurst is part of Muskoka about a 30 minute drive from us.