When Words Won't Do
There's a moment in every big life event where language just runs out.
You've said everything there is to say. You've written the toast, rehearsed the vows, found the words for the eulogy. And then you're standing there — in the middle of the moment you've been building toward — and you realize that words aren't going to be enough.
Musical theatre is built around this.
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My husband likes to joke about it. "Why do people in musicals always randomly burst into song?" And honestly, it's a fair question — until you understand the answer. Characters in musicals don't sing randomly. They sing when they've hit the ceiling of what spoken word can hold. When the emotion is too large, too complicated, too sacred for language alone. That's when the song begins.
I think about that a lot when I'm preparing for someone's wedding. Or their mother's funeral. Or a retirement dinner for someone who gave forty years to something they loved.
Music has been at the heart of spiritual life across every tradition — not as an accessory, but as the thing that carries people into awe. In my own Jewish practice, I can't imagine the High Holy Days without it. On Yom Kippur and Kol Nidre, I've had the honor of singing as a cantorial soloist at Congregation Beth Israel — nearly a thousand people in that sanctuary, all of them carrying something. I've watched music open people up, bring tears that had nowhere else to go, and heal in ways that nothing else quite can.
When my grandfather died, I sang Danny Boy at his funeral. It wasn't a performance. It was an offering — a way to give everyone in that room permission to feel their grief, and their gratitude, and the particular joy of having known this specific man. Music did what the eulogy couldn't. It held all of it at once.
At my own wedding, I knew I wanted music to be intentional — not background, not ambient, not a playlist. My friends from Northwestern, some of them Tony-nominated performers, gave a pre-ceremony concert. And during the wedding itself, a dear friend had secretly composed a choral arrangement of William Finn's Infinite Joy. At a certain moment, they began to sing. Then my cousin joined in. Then childhood friends. Then friends from musical theatre. Eventually, I walked into the middle of it and joined the song too.
The morning of my wedding, we held a music rehearsal. And it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
Here's what I've learned from all of it: music doesn't decorate a moment. It becomes the moment. And when it's written or chosen specifically for your people — your story, your person, your particular kind of love or loss — it becomes something no one in that room ever forgets.
Most people plan their event and then figure out the music. I'd gently suggest flipping that. Ask yourself: where is the moment in this day where words are going to run out? Where will your guests hit that ceiling? That's where the song belongs.
I work with people who are planning something that matters — weddings, memorials, milestone celebrations, ceremonies of all kinds. We figure out together where music can do its real job: not to fill silence, but to hold what language can't.
Sometimes that's an original lyric written specifically for your person — set to a melody they already love, performed live, just for them. Sometimes it's a song that carries grief with grace. Sometimes it's a moment of collective joy that everyone in the room participates in without quite knowing how it happened.
If you're planning something intimate and you want music to be more than background — let's talk. Tell me about your event, your person, what you're hoping people feel when they walk out. We'll figure out the rest together.