How To Start Your Wedding Dance Party

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The opening of the dance floor is a truly overlooked, underutilized, and often crucial moment of your wedding. Done correctly by your wedding DJ, can make for a lively, epically fun dance party.

It’s 7:45pm and you’ve cut your wedding cake. You’re ready to listen to great music and shake any of the left-over stress from the day away. You want to see your bridal party go crazy, your grandma get loose, and wrap your arms around the love of your life. You’re ready for the best part of your entire wedding… the dance party.

There’s a few ways to start the dancing with the help of your wedding DJ.  The opening of the dance floor can set the vibe for the rest of the night. So let’s make it fun!

  1. You can have your wedding DJ feel the vibe out – playing good, positive, classics and gradually increasing the “fun” factor and volume of the songs until you’ve got the full on, everybody-on-the-dance-floor type of wedding party you wanted.
  2. You can have you and your bridal party start it off with a choreographed flash mob style song and dance. Towards the end of the special dance mix song, the bridal party can invite everyone to join them. Many people come to the dance floor and continue to stay for the next mixed in song. This of course would require some planning. However, as an easy alternative, your DJ can ask the bridal party just before the Grand Entrance, if they can all come dance for the first song later to help start the party.
  3. You can have your DJ announce a “Friends and Family Dance”.  This dance is done after we’ve played your traditional dance songs (father/daughter, mother/son) and want to get everybody on the dance floor right away, before your wedding photographer leaves. Your DJ announces, “This next dance is a special one too. It’s called the friends and family dance. We need all of the friends, and family members of Mr. and Mrs (last name) to join them on the dance floor!”  As your guests realize the trick, that everybody is friend and family, they begin to walk to the dance floor. As the intro of the song is playing at a nice, inviting volume, your DJ announces something like, “Again, this is the friends and family dance. If you are a friend or family member of Mr. and Mrs. come on up and join them so we can start this off right! Come on we need everybody! Let’s have some fun!”. By this time everybody should understand and play along. The fun dance song you’ve personally picked is rocking and you’ve successfully tricked everybody onto the dance floor. “Now everybody hands up for Mr. and Mrs!!!” Your DJ says as your photographer snaps the perfect shot. Now kick off those heals you’ve been wearing all day, relax, and dance the night away!

If you’re interested in reading more, I found another great (better) blog about opening the dance floor for a wedding here, at AmbientDJ.com.

Here are a few great friends and family first dance songs that I've played recently:

[bsf-info-box icon=”Defaults-pencil” icon_size=”32″ icon_color=”#aaaaaa” pos=”left”]Write up by Liam Grist – a traveling, destination wedding DJ. Contact Liam today to see if he can be available for your wedding day anywhere in the US and Mexico.[/bsf-info-box]