Simple Gifts
Listener Submission: Most Meaningful Wedding Music Story

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My wife and I were married at a Quaker Meeting in Burlington, Vermont in 1974. The meeting house was a converted barn, with (if I recall correctly) 5 or 6 rows of angled plain wooden benches on either side of a small aisle The service (as is usual) consisted mainly of silent meditation, interrupted from time to time by a member of the congregation standing up to speak an appropriate testimonial as the spirit moved them.

One man, however, the secretary of the congregation, rose near the end, and in a sonorous baritone sang (solo) the old Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts." We had not known he was going to sing—indeed he had probably not known this in advance either. Since this wonderful song expressed our philosophy of how to live so closely, it was (and remains) the highlight of our marriage service, which ended shortly after the song with us speaking and then signing our vows, which we had written and inscribed on a large parchment sheet.

A short time later we received a wedding gift from my colleagues at work: a recording of Copland's Appalachian Spring, which uses "Simple Gifts" prominently. Thus this music has always had special meaning for us, and brings back wonderful memories whenever we hear it.

Eric Godfrey
Ripon, WI