First dance before or after dinner?

We did it before dinner. Since the attention was already on us and the guests were all seated, it just made sense to us to have the spotlight dances done then. We had a plated dinner so it also gave the wait staff a chance to serve the appetizer while people were occupied. Most weddings I've been to have had this set up.

We did it before dinner as well. We transitioned from our grand entrance into our first dance. After dinner, we had the father daughter dance then the mother son dance. I think it worked better this way so that guests didn't have to sit through 3 stoplight dances in a row.

The weddings we've attended have had their first dance before dinner! Your guests will already have the attention on you since they'll be listening to introductions. Having it after dinner may lead to most of your guests not paying attention, and more side conversations will be going on.

Hannah made a great point about a plated dinner! This is also the case if you have a buffet or different style of dinner. During my FBIL and his wife's first dance, the caterer brought all of the food out onto the buffet table since guests were paying more attention to the dancing.

Before!
It flowed nicely (introduction, dance, dads speech, buffet open). As PP said attention was already on us and people weren’t distracted by food or anything.
Also my husband really really wanted to get it out of the way. He would have been too nervous to eat if we did it after. And once dinner was over we were ready to party! We actually had to mark a venue off our list because there was no way for us to do our first dance before dinner if we had it there due to room set up/space. I’ve never seen the 1st dance done after dinner, but from what I’ve heard it is common. There’s no right or wrong way.

We did ours after dinner!

We did ours after dinner, it was a good way to open up the dance floor to guests.

We are doing our first dance before dinner, then the father daughter and mother son dance after dinner. Just seems to flow better to me, we are making a grand entrance and going to sit at a table right after doesn’t really make sense to me.

Hi Kayla! We went into our first dance immediately after introductions, then ate dinner. For us, if anyone wanted to leave early or sneak out after dinner, they would’ve at least seen the first dance. It also gave a short eating break between cocktails and dinner. Hope this helps with your decision!! ❤️

We'll be doing our first dance before dinner. We will have a grand entrance and it just makes more sense to us to do it that way. As mentioned in a few of the other comments, doing it after dinner is fine as well. Just boils down to personal preference.

I think it makes more sense to have it before dinner so the dance floor is open to guests without having to wait. Especially when the reception is limited on time anyway. With a 4 hour standard, guests typically have roughly 2 hrs to dance which is not alot.

We had ours right after we were introduced. It was the first thing after cocktail hour and way before dinner, since we had an East Coast style wedding. I liked having it right at the beginning, but it's a personal choice!

The three weddings I attended in 2019, did it before dinner

I think you should do it before dinner. so you can have all the attention on you

We did it after.

But we also faked people out into thinking it was before, because we did a swordfight, so... we had to work in both of those things.

For us, it worked out better to have dinner and then do all the special dances, followed by an open dance floor.

We are planning on having our first dance after the introduction bc it is traditional and the attention will be on us when we enter the reception. We won’t have to worry about it later bc people may decide to leave before we do it. However it not uncommon for you to have it after you eat to open up the dance floor. Do what is best for you

We did ours immediately walking into the reception after the grand entrance because we felt like the attention was already on us anyway

We plan to do ours before, after our entrance then we will do our thank you speech and start dinner. It flows for our specific event but it works either way. Once the party starts I want it uninterrupted.