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Awesome new wedding venue: The Woods

Posted on 5/5/2010 at 11:16:29 AM

We were honored to participate in the 3rd wedding ever at The Woods - a really cool new live music/event venue in Sellwood.  It was originally a funeral home before the current owners converted it to its current incarnation - but trust me, it’s totally not creepy.

Here’s some copy from the Woods website:

Portland’s newest venue, The Woods, is located in historic Sellwood in a former funeral parlor. The classic Mission-style building, built circa 1929, served the community for years as a place to honor and venerate those who have passed on. Renovations have breathed new life into the space, transforming it into a mid-size, comfortable and reverent venue to see modern music, where quiet is the new loud. The hardwood floors, chandeliers and spacious elegance evoke the lobby of a Western hotel, reborn as a music hall and art nouveau lounge. It’s a place to sit and have a glass of wine in a serene environment, entertained by renowned local and national musicians and performers.

The 3000 square foot venue houses a beautiful chapel area for performances, as well as several smaller lounges and outdoor seating, including a covered smoking salon.

The atmosphere is part club-house, part secret society. Patrons will feel they have stumbled upon another world: candle-lit, eccentric yet stately. Karaoke, avant stand-up comedy and movie screenings are scheduled regularly on non-musical performance nights.

And weddings, too!

This particular ceremony was really cool.  The bride and groom were already legally married, so they devised a lovely way to publicize their union in the presence of their family and community.  There were four attendants on each side (and the women each wore vintage dresses in varying shades of light green which was complemented by absolutely wonderful floral arrangements utilizing maidenhair ferns and other light green foliage); each attendant in turn related a positive aspect of their friendship with the bride or groom, and then charged them to sustain that particular positive aspect within their relationship to each other.  To which the response was “I will.”  This was much like the way the officiant normally charges the couple in a traditional ceremony, e.g.: “Will you love, honor, and respect this wo/man?”

The bride and groom then stated their vows to each other, exchanged rings, and possibly a kiss?  I missed that part.  At the end, the entire bridal party intoned together, “We now pronounce you man and wife!”

I loved it.  Oh, and what did we play?  Our bride had mentioned about a week before the wedding that she particularly loves the soundtrack from the movie Krull. If you’re not familiar, it’s a sci-fi/fantasy flick from 1983 with music by James Horner (who also did the Titanic, Avatar, the Legend of Zorro, Braveheart, and many more).

With little time, she knew it was a long shot to ask us to transcribe and arrange something from a huge orchestral film score, so she left it up to us entirely to decide on her processional music.  And I could NOT resist… I chose the love theme and made a quick arrangement by ear with the help of my dear husband who is amazingly good at this.  And did it work out?  Yes!  Not only did the timing end up absolutely perfect (we played the final bar as the bride arrived on the stage), but she also told me later that it almost made her cry when she realized we were playing it.

Ahhhh… music.  If I can have a positive effect through music on even one person, then I call that a perfect day.

-S.