Your Love Is the Place Where I Come From
by Teenage Fanclub
“This tune is about the emptiness you feel when you are without your significant other. A musical couple I know performed this song at their reception, so if I were to use this song at my wedding, I would be, essentially, covering their cover. But traditions have to start somewhere.”
—Conrad Doucette, of Takka Takka
Hands on the Wheel
by Willie Nelson
“Basically, after years of boozing it up with miles of trashy women in bars, he finally finds something real and is ready to head home. This would be a completely appropriate song for most people I know.”
—Christian Gordy, of Cheeseburger
True Love Ways
by Buddy Holly
“I’m an old-fashioned romantic, so Buddy Holly speaks to me. Something about this song seems to make time stop—for a few minutes at least.”
—Nathan Martinez, of Pela
Thieves Like Us
by New Order
“A devastatingly honest lyric heartily intro’d with bass slides (!) and a super soaking of synth.”
—Bryan Devendorf, of the National
You Are Everything
by Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye
“This song is perfect. It has everything that, for me, sums up the notion of love between two people, perfectly wrapped into three minutes and ten seconds.”
—Devonte Hynes, of Lightspeed Champion
Oh My Love
by John Lennon
“This perfectly expresses how true love makes you feel—how everything seems clearer and more focused when you’re with the person that you’re supposed to be with. Leave it to John Lennon to articulate such a complex feeling in the most sincere and concise way.”
—Heather D’Angelo, of Au Revoir Simone
If Not for You
by George Harrison
A Bob Dylan cover, it’s just a really beautiful, non-gender-specific sentiment about feeling like the best version of yourself around the one you love. That, and the arrangement has stops and starts where you can do fun dance-y things.”
—Josh Kaufman, of Rocketship Park and Higgins