Saturday afternoon in Los Angeles. A romantic, old-fashioned wedding. Fabulous!

The setting: A private estate at Trancas Beach, north of Malibu, Zuma Beach and Point Dume. WAY out there, on that rugged part of the California Coast that’s as gorgeous as it gets.

The event: An absolutely spectacular, old-fashioned, formal wedding! Vintage, retro Old Hollywood, Old Malibu glamour to the max! Pure perfection.

The wedding coordinator: Avesta Carrera of Malibu Events - the consummate, elegant party planner.

The music: US, of course! One of my small but mighty Los Angeles wedding bands extraordinaire, The Judy Chamberlain Quintet - playing the music of Rogers and Hart, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and George Gershwin.

It’s all swing to us and, as Frank Sinatra once said, “the best music ever written.”

We began with a 90 minute “seating music” concert in the courtyard of the estate, playing the bride’s choices of unusual, intense and intricate symphonic music. No Pachelbel or Lohengrin for this lady! Big fun, and the selections truly delighted and surprised the guests. My dance band musicians are all classically trained.

The continuity of a smooth transition from one style of music to another is a beautiful thing. It’s one of our specialties.

During cocktails, we had our guitarist play bossa novas while we moved over to the beautifully decorated garden - where tables for ten and twelve had been set up to capture the ocean views and the starlight that was beginning to surround us in the mist.

Launching into the bride’s grandparents’ favorites like “There’s A Small Hotel,” “The Blue Room,” “Tea For Two,” “Tangerine” and “Night and Day,” we discovered tha the younger guests were enthralled with the music, too.

Ballroom dancing to the standards of the Great American Songbook is hip again. Of course, to us, it never went out of style!

I was delighted to see the grandparents, who are in their nineties, out on the dance floor.

And some really younger guests, little ones with their shoes off, enjoyed trotting around the dance floor.

A beautiful bride, a handsome groom….and memories that will last forever.

The song may be ended for now, but the melody lingers on…..

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 10:59 pm. You can follow any updates to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.