Dancing at wedding

View Quoted Comment I understand.... I come from a conservative family. Don't have dancing. Have your first dance privately before the reception after your ceremony

I'm having the dame sort of conundrum. We don't have a dance floor or room for dancing, but I really wanted to do a first dance. FH says we'll do one later at the hotel.

I'm having a cermony cocktail hour and a first dance and a formal sit down dinner. Since we're have a very small intimate wedding. It would not be weird to have just the first dance. especially since you want an intimate wedding. After all the day is all about the two of you and love.

View Quoted Comment Find a space on your venue and have one.
Were having our first dance on the Terrace we're our cermony will be. It will be all cleared out so we can. We just have to supply the music and speakers.

We didn't have dancing at our wedding because it's not our thing or our families' thing (we only had 22 guests). Instead, we had cake, snacks, drinks, background music, and great conversation in the bar after dinner, and no-one left early. But it entirely depends on your crowd.

That also meant we didn't do a first dance. Well, actually we did, but it was in private when we got a couple of minutes away from our guests during cocktail hour. It was completely impromptu and silly and I loved it.

This might be something you can figure out with the type of music you have at the reception. If you don't play party-like dance music, people won't be party-like dancing. If you have a DJ, you can have them play just background music or slow romantic songs and have a small area where people can dance if they want. . A DJ can definitely help you with this. We didn't want a dance party vibe for the reception, so we're having a cocktail style reception (continuous food service and only three hours) with a small jazzy band playing and we'll do a first dance and people can dance if they want to, but it won't be dinner then dance party.

If I'm at a wedding and there's music, I'm going to dance. What are you going to do if people try to dance? Ask them to stop?

We're having more of a dinner party atmosphere with no dancing because we intend for it to end early. FH isn't comfortable doing a first dance, so we won't be doing that either.

At the wedding of a family member recently, they had a surprise first dance. That side of my family doesn't dance because of religious reasons, so they didn't expect to have one. However, some of their friends put together a quartet and played a first dance song for them so they were able to. But that was the only dancing that happened, but it wasn't really weird. It was barely an hour-long late afternoon reception though with just appetizers and dessert so it made sense for them to not have dancing, I think that's the only reason it worked.

Do expect your reception will be over in a couple hours and not be a til 10pm event.

I've never once in all the weddings I've been to, seen twerking (is that a swear word?) or grinding.

Is this something your crowd is known for? That's extremely odd. Who wants to dance like that with their entire family watching?

Let the people dance, OP!

Maybe don't leave enough space for anyone else to dance and do your first dance before dinner. What is your plan for post-dinner? Usually thats when people dance.

I guess it could work but I definitely woukd not want to have slow dancing all night long, that would be awkward. Be prepared for guests to leave pretty much after dinner is over.

Ok so we are doing some kinda “weird” dancing stuff. Our reception is on a 2 hour boat cruise and we have a steel drummer playing. We will be doing a couple “first dances” there with anyone who wants to join (this is also our cocktails hours) and our reception will be dance-free.

If there was no dancing at a wedding I would be eating and leaving, just my opinion. I have never been to a wedding where there was no dancing. I have also never seen a lot of inappropriate dancing either, I would reconsider not having dancing for your guests.

PS. I am like @SOS0033 I would be dancing if there was music and if someone told me to stop I would be so offended!

Not really sure how that would work, be prepared for your guests to leave early...

If this is a traditional wedding in every other sense I don't think banning dancing is okay. In other words if you have all of the other traditional trappings, like you are having a ceremony, have a big (100 plus) guest list and have rented a reception venue I think people will expect dancing. If I were a guest at a wedding like that I would leave after dinner if it was obvious nothing else was happening. If you are having a small/intimate dinner party atmosphere I think it's fine to have some drinks/mingling followed by a first dance and dinner. I would just address the invitations a certain way so people know what to expect. Maybe instead of calling it a reception you could specify that it is cocktails/dinner somehow. I'm not sure how the wording would work for that, but maybe someone here can help.

View Quoted Comment

If you don't want dirty dancing, talk about it with your DJ. If he plays oldies and line dances then that's what people will do. You can ask him to gear it towards classics and away from certain types of music. For what it's worth, I can't really think of a wedding I've attended where there's anything inappropriate on the dance floor.

I'd go with all or nothing: either no one dances or you let everyone dance (and speak to the DJ). All slow dances means that everyone needs to be coupled up, which is extremely awkward for anyone single. If you go with no dancing, maybe try to structure it more as a cocktail reception (with plenty of seating) to encourage mingling. Dinner tends to be the most boring part of a reception, particularly since there's inevitably people sitting together who don't know each other, so encouraging people to get up is good.

I've never heard of a dancing ban.

Just a thought, perhaps include that there will be a strict no dancing policy on your invites. As a guest I've never been banned from dancing at a wedding and would be incredibly confused. If you want people to know tell them but your reception is probably going to be empty after about an hour.

My FH family is conservative too - our denomination traditionally frowns on dancing as a blanket statement - so much so that dancing isn't allowed if you use the church banquet room for your reception

I, however, love to dance, so we are having dancing. His older relatives may not be happy, but as long as we aren't having sex on the dance floor I don't see the problem

If you don't want grinding - don't play grinding music. Though I would think that most people would have the idea that a wedding dance floor is not the same as the dance floor at the club?

If you're REALLY wanting to steer away from dancing - just play dinner music, cut the cake before the meal, and don't have a dance floor - but expect people to cut out after dinner.

If I went to a wedding and there was no dancing I would leave PDQ. If you don't like the "party type dancing" (which I've never seen anyone grinding at a wedding but I guess it depends the guests you're inviting) then I would have slow dance music playing.