Do Not Play List and Must Have List

Other than the "Chicken Dance," my do not plays were "YMCA" and "Play that Funky Music." Hubs' do not play song was the Wobble. We also had some older folks, so I had "Unchained Melody" by the Everly Brothers, "Can't Help Falling in Love" by Elvis, "Respect" by Aretha, and "Shout" by the Isley Brothers on our Must Play list. "Twist" by Chubby Checker or "The Way You Look Tonight" by Frank Sinatra would be fun, too. "Twist and Shout" by the Beatles was my father-daughter song, but that's another idea.

"Marry you" by Bruno mars could be a must play or a do not play depending on how you feel about it. Also, think through ALL of the macarena/cha cha slide type line dance songs- if you don't want them let the DJ know in case someone requests is.

I'm still early in my planning but "Mambo No. 5" By lou bega is gonna be a must play. "Gangnam Style" by psy is gonna be on my do not play list

Personally I would have “Shout” on my do not play list.
Also The Wobble. More older folks know the Electric Slide and The Cupid Shuffle is an easier dance, if you want a line dance or two.

I have a long list of do not plays including whole categories (like country and EDM), artists (including Michael Jackson, R. Kelly and Kanye) and individual songs (like the first dance songs from each of our first marriages). I also said no to group dances like Electric Slide, YMCA, Cha Cha Slide, etc.

Must plays include a clean version of our song (Best I Ever Had by Drake), At Last by Etta James and Perfect by Ed Sheeran.

Never seen either of those at weddings with dancing but every crowd is different. What kind of music do you like and what do your guests enjoy? Some older guests prefer to chat and others enjoy dancing, it depends on the overall vibe you want, regardless of the age demographic attending.


For our guests, we requested to keep country to a minimum outside of specific songs we chose. No to Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Kanye, most pop singers (Ed Sheeran, Michael Buble, Mariah Carey, Bruno Mars, etc). Beyond that, we were open to what guests liked dancing to even if it wasn’t our personal tastes.
We did allow a couple of group dances because they get folks dancing who normally wouldn’t. In our families, even the non dancers who prefer to chat the whole time will make an appearance on the dance floor at that point. Wobble and Cha Cha Slide were hits.
Must have songs were individual and not necessarily grouped into artists. We asked the dj to play non danceable songs during cocktail hour which included Beatles and Frank Valli “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”. For the regular dancing, we had Starship “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”, Jonas Brothers’ “What A Man Gotta Do”, “One Margarita” by Luke Bryan and “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga among others.

If there’s a singer/band who irritates the mess out of you, put them on the Do Not Play list, and answer to no one! For example: T***or S**ft is definitely on my Do Not Play list!


The gal I spoke to about our DJ service also mentioned something that I didn’t think about: “No cussing! Clean edits only!” I’m definitely borrowing that idea 😉

"Baby Got Back" is definitely on my no-play list, and I will also tell the DJ anything with explicit lyrics. I plan to have children at my reception so I want to keep it kid-friendly!

I recently taught my little nieces how to do the Electric Slide, so we'll do that one so they can do it with a group! I don't plan on having any other line dances unless they want to do the Cha Cha Slide. I must be old, I'm not SUPER familiar with the Wobble and don't know if the lyrics are suggestive.. if so, then it's a no from me. I guess I can look that up

Edit: Looked them up. And it's a no.

Line dances, anything by Cheap Trick, and Blurred Lines were on our do not play list. Our play list was mostly for events, like the cake cutting and first dance, because we had a live band. We had a short playlist (mostly Queen!) for when the band took breaks of songs my husband and I wanted to hear.