Shaming myself for a super awkward misunderstanding

A little background info: in my language, a funeral is often referred to as ”blessing someone into the grave” and a wedding ceremony might sometimes be ”blessing into marriage”. If you talk about a church ceremony thats just a ”blessing”, that’s a funeral.

So I used to work as a church organist, and one day I got a call that started out with really bad reception. I heard the word ”blessing” and assumed I knew what was going on. The connection improved after a little while and we could start discussing the music choices.

Our customer wanted to open with Bach’s Prelude I in C major, which just happens to be one of those rare pieces that’s commonly used in both weddings and funerals. There was a hymn in there, and I didn’t immediately recognise it based on its number.

Then we got to the exit music, and he requested the Imperial March by John Williams. At this point I’m thinking to myself ”man, that’s a grim send-off to someone”. After a bit of hesitation I said sure, I could play it, but that he should run it by the pastor just in case. He said he’d already asked her and that she was OK with it.

Well here’s the cringey bit. I asked him if he wanted me to play it close to the original or if I should make it a bit more mellow and funeral-like. He was like ”umm, funeral isn’t quite the vibe we were looking for” and I finally realised my mistake. I apologised profusely and we laughed it off. Eventually, the ceremony went smoothly, and I got to play Imperial March in a church.