Estranged mother

Just don’t have one. No need to explain or anything. Take his lead on it.

Agree, just forgo it. Spotlight dances are meant to honor special relationships. If there isn't a relationship he'd like to honor (sometimes people will choose other special people in their life), no need to replace it with anything else.

Mom is not invited nor is there any dance

Agree with the others- you don’t need one.

Not everyone does any dancing, even when people get along. But if folks want to dance, usually bride and groom. Then
bride with her fad, or an uncle or grandfather, or mentor, someone important to her , long term. Yhem Groom and his m. Or grandmother, other important person. Traditionally, either Bride and groom choose a short song, about 2 min. or a much longer one ,4-5 min. The MC, or DJ, or bandleader announces, either that now the bride and groom will dance. ( short) Or now, the bride and groom will dance once around the floor, them would like you to join them. ( longer.) people watch them dance a minute, good pics are taken, then any couples join in the dance.
Recently, Man choose to have the spotlight on them, meaning just bride and dad, or groom and mom, dance a whole dance. Traditionally, other people join in after nearly a minute. bride and dad, groom and mom, may go on at the same time, or separately. And dances do not need to be matched. If the bride really wants to dance with her dad, does not mean groom has to dance any spotlight dance.It os your wedding Do not dance any dance you don't want. Or dance all as just one of the crowd, no one watching just you. ... Some people have religious objections to dancing in couples, and don't dance. Etiquette is that if there is dancing, Bride and groom are first dance, with or without others. And everything else is up to you.

Just skip it, nobody will think anything of it.

They would just skip it unless there is someone else he'd want to dance with.

Just skip it. We aren’t doing any parent dances at ours.

Certainly the mother/son dance can be skipped but I would hope that if the bride wanted to dance with her father (or father wanting to dance with his daughter) that this would be respected as well.

I feel like this is something he should be able to decide on, whether he wants to skip it or dance with someone else should be entirely up to him. We went to FH's cousin's wedding recently and the groom, who is estranged from his mom, danced with his grandma. It was beautiful! But that's up to him to decide.

Whatever HE wants. There can be no dance, no big deal. He can dance with someone else near and dear to him, no big deal. He can dance with you as new MIL, so big deal. The ONLY thing that matters here is what he wants to do.

If wants to have a dance, any woman who he chooses can dance with him. My husband doesn’t have a relationship with his mother either and chose his grandmother! (We postponed due to Covid but it’s something he is looking forward to)


If he doesn’t want to do it, don’t make him. That kind of situation is tough enough already, and it may bring up some hurt feelings.