Carrie and Dan’s Custom Wedding Soundtrack

Daniel Knobler knew early on that he wanted to write the music that his bride, Carrie Crowell, would walk down the aisle to. For weeks, whenever he would be out with their dog, Millie, in the park, he would hum melodies to himself, picturing Carrie walking toward him and trying to summon the feelings he might have on that day. "I wouldn't record any of the ideas because I knew once I had found the right melody it would be stuck in my head," Dan, co-founder and producer at Mason Jar Music, recalls. "Once I had found it, I sent it along to my good friend Russell Durham, who was writing entrance and recessional music for the ceremony, and had him arrange it for the band we had assembled together."

It was important to Carrie and Dan that they have good friends playing the ceremony music. Russell led the group mixed with Nashville and New York pals: Kai Welch playing trumpet, Nat Smith on cello, Sean O'Brien on dobro, Bennett Jackson on acoustic guitar, and Jacob Blumberg on autoharp and mandolin.

"Hearing Carrie's processional brought to life so beautifully by our friends was incredible," Dan says. "I broke down and cried at the first note and lost it altogether when I saw Carrie's smile through her veil. It's impossible to describe how much it meant and how utterly perfect it was."

But the processional wasn't the only unique performance of the day. "My dad wrote the most beautiful song for us," Carrie says of the original tune performed during their ceremony. "The whole crowd was crying. He hadn't wanted us to hear it before the day, but I think he got a bit proud a few weeks before the wedding and gave us a sneak preview, but it was entirely different hearing it under a chuppah mid-ceremony."

Here, the lyrics to Rodney Crowell's "Tennessee Wedding Song":

Let's mock despair with food and wine, tango like we're Argentine

While in our wake rose petals rise and fall

With expectation in full bloom we'll cast ourselves as bride and groom

What love has joined together says it all

Life's beauty pageant queen of hearts blows kisses from a horse-drawn cart

With scented breath and gloved white hand, your every wish her soft command

When we arrive as honored guests where John and June were laid to rest

In Tennessee the land that gave you life

We'll stand before those near and dear and speak these words for all to hear

From now until forever be my wife

Your father's arm a hallowed yes to wear your mother's wedding dress

With parasol and walking cane, we'll set our course down lover's lane

Marry me, my dark-eyed pearl, my raven-haired country girl

Marry me, and we'll sail away home

When another round of day and night blinks off and on like Christmas lights

Each parting shot fired low across the bow

With every breath a ray of hope, we'll grieve our losses fully yoked

To life's eternal passing into now

For generations long since gone and those yet born, we'll soldier on

‘Til kingdom come and then some, I promise to be true to you

Marry me, my dark-eyed swan, my morning star, my evening sun

Marry me, and we'll sail away home