First dance wedding ideas planning
The Wedding first dance is traditionally the gateway to all the dancing at your Wedding . With that in mind, make sure that your First Dance has the right timing and style.
A few questions that you might want to ask yourself:
1) The obvious, what song is my favorite dance song?
2) Does this song fit our Wedding theme?
3) How will we dance to our song?
4) Do we want to have a planned dance or spontaneous?
5) When will we dance?
6) Where will we have our first dance?
7) Why are we having a first dance?
8) Do we want a first dance?
9) How will this improve our Wedding reception?
10) What works best for photographs?
Sometimes I feel like a Wedding Planner when it comes to the Wedding Itinerary. This is not a bad thing since I have seen a lot of smooth Weddings and a whole bunch of chaotic Weddings.
One area that is often overlooked is the First Dance. There are a lot of questions to answer prior to the moment when the Wedding First Dance song is played. Let’s go through some of these questions.
Where? Where will you dance your first dance song? This may be an obvious answer, but maybe not too. I have had Weddings where the couple danced on the lawn, by the bar, through the reception hall, on a balcony, and lots more. Location is something that needs to be decided.
What? What are you dancing to? Is it a live song, instrumental piece, etc. I really suggest figuring this out ahead of time and letting your music entertainment know in advance so that they can make sure they are ready. Length of song is another thing to consider.
How? Do you have a planned dance or are you just going to be spontaneous? Should you practice or are you naturals?
Why? What does it mean for you to dance? Do you want to dance? If you decide not to dance you should have someone announce that the dance floor is open.
When? To me, this is the most important. For those of you that do not know, the first dance is supposed to be the “First Dance” of the evening. Therefore, the dance floor is closed until the First Dance. So, if the Bride and Groom dances when they come into the Wedding reception, then the dance floor is open the entire evening, including dinner. If you wait until after dinner then the dance floor is open then. Many times I hear music that could be a past guests first dance song during dinner. If you had danced prior to dinner they can get up and do a little dance between courses. You might also consider dancing in between courses to let the food settle a little bit.
What I suggest to my Brides and Grooms is to have the cake cutting and first dance all together when they are introduced. The reason that I suggest this is that it allows your guests to get up and have fun, eat their cake when they want, etc at anytime. The party is on so lets not have restrictions on the evening. This also lets the music entertainment be more creative and open their dance floor up early in the evening to keep the party moving. The flow is much better.
In addition, if you do cut your cake and dance right away, a lot of times the cake is close to the dance floor so that the photographer can use the cake as an extra detail in the images. Turns out really cool in your wedding album!
The chose is yours, of course, but I do encourage thinking about what I suggested. Coming from a guy that wants events to happen smoothly and everyone to be jolly and smiling all night long, this works.
Enjoy your Wedding day! I hope that I am part of it!:-)
