First dances - when?!

That's what we will be doing. Entrances, first dance, father/daughter, mother/son & into dinner. We will do speeches during dinner then cake cutting and go straight into dancing. I don't want to call people back from dancing and mingling once it starts.

I am also having a late wedding, so the DJ recommended that we "front load" everything.

We haven't official set our schedule yet, but we'll probably do the first dances before dinner is serviced to "get them out of the way" so to speak. We'll do speeches during dinner, cut the cake, and then dance the night away.

That's totally fine. We choose to have them after dinner while our guests were eating their dessert, but it is totally a personal choice.

I think that would be fine !! I think it’s a good idea

We also did our first dance right after our entrance because we wanted to keep the formalities going so we could open up the night to mingle and have fun.

Our venue coordinator recommended not doing any of the dances before dinner. We're getting married at the same venue as the reception. We're doing ceremony, cocktail hour, partway through the cocktail hour they will announce us and we will come down to join our guests, champagne toast, dinner, first dance, parent dances, everyone dances.

I'd also like to add that we're not leaving to get photos, so we decided to do the receiving line/say hello to everyone during cocktail hour so we can spend the rest of the night as we wish.

If you’ve had a cocktail hour with plenty of apps, I think that’s totally fine. Gives people time to digest apps before dinner! The only thing that would make me recommend against it for a late wedding would be if you had a very light cocktail hour (think only cheese & fruit platters) — while theres certainly nothing wrong with that option in general, if it was the case with a late wedding, I’d push for getting to dinner more quickly, as I’d presume people would be hungry and might get impatient!

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Oh great, makes me feel better, thank you! I agree!

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Thank you for this!!!!

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Amen! Totally agree!

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Same here! Okay great!

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Love that!!!!

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That is exactly what we are thinking!! Thank you!

I did my first dance right after I entered. Everyone at that point is focused on you so them watching your first dance after makes sense

I think it’s whatever you prefer. I did my first dance right after our entrance and it worked out great!

This is exactly what I planned for my wedding that’s coming up. I think getting it all out the way in the beginning is fine!

That’s perfectly fine. You get to choose your own time

That’s what we did. Entrance of the bridal party, then us, right into our first dance, then father/daughter dances.

That's my FH and I's plan. We're doing our first dance, his dance with his mother and my dance with my grandfather right after our introductions into the reception. That way, they're out of the way and we can just relax the rest of the night.