  We discuss the impact of including corrections beyond single gluon exchange
in light mesons within the nonperturbative framework of Dyson-Schwinger
equations (DSE) and Bethe-Salpeter equations (BSE). We do this by considering
unquenching effects in the form of hadronic resonance contributions, notably
pion exchange, and by the inclusion of the dominant gluon self-interactions to
the quark-gluon vertex. Thus we make steps towards an ab initio description of
light mesons by functional methods.
