How Can I Keep From Singing?
Listener Submission: Most Meaningful Wedding Music Story

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My husband and I wanted a meaningful wedding, but funds were very limited. Since we lived only a few blocks from the Rose Garden in Evanston, Illinoid, we decided to have the wedding ceremony there. Everyone walked there and back, as we had the reception in the backyard of the duplex we were renting at the time. The ceremony was very simple. We couldn't decide on who should be in the wedding party, so we included everyone by standing in a big circle. Presided over by a friend and professor at Garrett Seminary, we said our homemade vows and exchanged rings. I knew there had to be music as it is such a vital part of both our lives. Deciding was difficult. Finally, we agreed on the old Shaker hymn "How Can I Keep From Singing?"

"My life goes on in endless song, above earth's lamentations.
I hear the real, though far off, sound that hails a new creation.
No storm can shake my inmost calm, while to that rock I'm clinging.
It sounds an echo in my soul, how can I keep from singing?"

We did two verses.

The tricky part was that we wanted everyone to sing it with us. Only two or three would already know it. And we were going to sing it without accompanyment. So this was how we did it: Both Bob and I have big families and grew up out of state. We had nearly 30 out-of-town friends and family over to dinner the night before the wedding. After dinner, I taught them the song, just like I used to teach songs to kids at summer camp. I'll never forget Ron, one of Bob's brothers, protesting that they could never learn it well enough to sing at the wedding, but I persevered. We sang it several times that night.

The next morning at the Rose Garden, things went off without a hitch. It was the perfect day, our perfect wedding, and a great party. Those who were there still say so! We reflect on it every once in a while these 16 years later and are quite thankful that we did it "our" way.

"What though the tempest round me roars, I know the truth it liveth, what though the darkness round me glows, songs in the night it giveth . . ."

Bina Thompson Nikrin
Richfield, MN