Song for Mother to Sing at Wedding Ceremony

What about Rod Stewart's Forever Young?

Does she have a repertoire? Maybe you could have her give you a few options and then you'd select it from those.

"In my Daughter's Eyes." Martina McBride. I was in a bridal party where it was used for the father-daughter dance, and everyone was dabbing their eyes by the time it was over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYxbdP-bHIg

I am glad that your mom has done this before, so it hopefully will go off well. However, I highly recommend not having friends and family sing at your wedding unless they are professionally trained. One of my cousins was guilted into having her 15 year old niece sing at her wedding. It was the most painful, embarrassing thing to sit through as a guest. Singing a solo live is incredibly difficult and people often overestimate their abilities.

When you pick a song, make sure to think long and hard about the length of time it takes. I am only considering hiring an opera singer for "O mio babbino caro" because it is exactly 3 minutes long. Remember that the guests will be sitting in silence while this performance breaks up your ceremony flow.

You would know best what style of music your mom is comfortable with and I would try to stick with that.

We had my dad send us a list of songs he already knew and could play (ideally I would have just chose something off this list), and I also had some of my top options to show him that I would love and I only selected songs I knew he could sing well. He wanted to play my top choice, even though it wasn't in his usual set list and he was great. He played a simple rendition of "Love Me Tender" and it was amazing. We also took into consideration how much time he would have to learn a new song so I wasn't springing something new on him last minute.

ETA: If I knew he wasn't an excellent singer, I would have politely declined. He hasn't sung professionally in a while, but has a background in music and grew up playing in clubs, restaurants, events, and weddings.

I'm going to walk down the aisle to Cat Power's version of Sea of Love. It's very cute & simple!

How about "Make You Feel My Love" by Adele. That's my aisle walking song.

@AllieCat - I just added that song to my dinner music list, I love that version!

Thanks so much to everyone for their suggestions! My moms voice is incredible- she actually sang in a wedding band for a few years so I'm not worried about that at all. I really like the suggestion of 'Love Me Tender'- it is such a beautiful song that sound beautiful on the acoustic guitar. My mom suggested just 'Songbird' by Fleetwood Mac to me and that is probably our leading contender now. I never heard it before today but I fell in love.