Film has the AFI 100. Rock has the Rolling Stone 500. Jazz has the Blue Note catalog. Cooking has Escoffier.
Every serious craft has a reference standard. A body of work everyone inside it can point to, argue with, and build from.
Wedding music has a Spotify playlist somebody’s cousin made and a Facebook thread from 2019.
That gap is bigger than it sounds. It’s the reason a pro with fifteen years in this business and a pro with fifteen weddings under them can’t have a real conversation about a song. No shared text. No common reference. Nothing to disagree with.
So I built one.
Wedding Hit Records is the wedding music label. Not a blog about wedding music. A label. A catalog, a chart, and a point of view about which records work in a room full of people who did not choose the music.
On September 15, the catalog gets published.
The Wedding Music Canon. 1,875 songs. 1,333 artists. The 1950s through the 2010s, organized by decade and genre. Every entry earned its place one of two ways. It charted, or it owns a job at a reception that nothing else does.
That’s the reference standard this industry never had.
Between now and then, one ask.
Reply to this email with one song you think belongs in it. Not your favorite. The one you reach for when the floor is dying, and you need it back in ninety seconds.
I read every reply.
Matthew Campbell
My Wedding Songs | Wedding MusicLetter | Wedding Hit Records
September-EWF, Dancing Queen,ABBA,When a man loves a woman,Bolton Version