Expert: Crystal - 10/12/2007

Question
QUESTION: What was the song that donna walked down the aisle to?  It was an instrumental song.

ANSWER: Hello Michelleo,

That would be the "Bridal Chorus" from the opera "Lohengrin" composed by Richard Wagner. It is also called "Here Comes The Bride" in English-speaking countries.

The other instrumental song used in that episode is Felix Mendelssohn's "Wedding March", which was written as incidental music for "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in 1842. That piece of music is usually used as a recessional (song used at end of ceremony as bridal couple walk back down aisle together).

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: My brother wanted me to walk down the aisle to Pachelbel's canon d major.  He said that it was the same song Donna walked to also.  Do you have the dvd or vhs of it to check?  I googled it and Jennie Garth used it for her first dance with her second husband in 2001.

Answer
Hello again,

I checked my tape of the episode where Donna & David married, it's definitely Wagner's "Bridal Chorus/Here Comes The Bride" that plays as Nat escorts Donna down the aisle. Could your brother have gotten his 90210 brides confused because...

Pachelbel's "Canon in D" was used on 90210 during one of Dylan's coma dreams in Season 5's "The Dreams of Dylan McKay". Some details of that dream sequence are: Dylan sees Kelly dressed in a wedding dress escorted down the Walsh house stairs by Jim Walsh and thought he was seeing his wedding to Kelly, then Brandon appeared and said that it was Brandon & Kelly's wedding. Then Valerie appeared on the stairs and said that she was Brenda and that she wanted to be his wife.

When Jennie married her 2nd husband Peter Facinelli, she indeed walked down the aisle to Canon in Major. However, their first wedding dance was to "By Your Side" by Sade.

Hope this helps,
Crystal

P.S. If you want to hear an audio sample of any of these songs, I recommend using Amazon.com and checking their wedding albums (or Sade for "By Your Side"). It was very easy for me to find short samples of Wagner & Mendelssohn there, both are very popular songs used at weddings. I also used Amazon to confirm that I wasn't getting the songs confused myself.