Ceremony Song-"Here comes the Bride"

What type of music are you having for the ceremony? Not sure how far along you are with music vendors but for an outside wedding you could do strings, a harpist, acoustic guitar... if you have a DJ, they could play pretty much any version of the song! I'm doing the traditional "here comes the bride" too (its called Wagner's Bridal Chorus) and we have a string trio for the ceremony music. (Similar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQg-xnFG9-4 )

We had the bridesmaids walk into the piano version of The Intro by XX. I walked down the aisle to the piano version of our first dance song. You can do whatever you want.

I'm a geek, so I may have the bridesmaids walk down to an alternative version of the shire song from LOTR. You can pick whatever you want, maybe within the style of music you'll be playing for the rest of the event. I'm not sure what I'll walk down to, but probably something instrumental. You could find a different non-organ version of the Bridal Chorus probably, youtube is a beautiful thing.

I like Beth's idea of walking to the piano version of your first song. I might steal that.

I'm walking to "not with haste" by Mumford and sons. It'll only be guitar. Make sure you pick whatever makes you happy. It's your day!

When I'm ready to walk to the steps into my ceremony site, I will have the traditional music, but when I hit the top step, it's changing to the Imperial March ( Darth Vaders theme music).

There are some acoustic and country style recorded versions of this song

If you don't want to stick to tradition then don't. I'm having a violinist. She's playing "here comes the sun" by the Beatles when I walk down. If you do want to walk to wagners bridal chorus maybe you can hire a musician to play it live or use a different version of the song

I'm walking in to the piano version (via iPod) of "A thousand years". It'll still sound "traditional" since its piano, but it's not at the same time.

The Bridal Chorus wasn't originally written for organ - it's from one of Wagner's operas, called Lohengrin. You should have no trouble finding a version for orchestra or even orchestra and choir, as that's how it was originally written.

If money is an issue with hiring other musicians, I would suggest contacting music programs at a local college, or even high school (that could be hit or miss depending on how good their program is). When I was in college, I gladly took whatever extra cash I could earn playing at weddings.