The groom's mom felt left out. And when Mikki Viereck, booked to sing at the wedding, told her that there was no song for her, nothing comparable to Daddy's Little Girl," she came close to tears. "I thought, this is ridiculous," recalls Viereck, 52. "Nobody ever bothered to write a song from mother to son."

So, that night in 1991, at her Springfield, Mass., kitchen table, Viereck wrote the lyrics to "A Song for My Son." With music by local musicians Steve Moser, 42, and Bob Casinghino, 48, it was ready for the wedding. And thanks to word-of-mouth from moms whose sons have taken the plunge, Viereck has sold about 175,000 CDs and tapes. In fact, "A Song for My Son" ("I don't know where/ The time has gone/ Since those little-boy days/ Doesn't seem so long") seems well on its way to joining "Wind Beneath My Wings" as a wedding-day classic. "It was very important for me," says Sharon Hutchings of Madison, Wis., whose son Rob, 25, was married in July. "It's hard for mothers to give up their sons."

Viereck's own boys, Lino, 28, and Zach, 23, with husband Bob, 52, a welder, are both single. She sells her music via an 800 number and in some local bridal and music stores. "It's real important," she says, "for moms to have three minutes with their sons on their wedding day to give them a hug and say, 'I love you.' That's all they ever wanted."