Fake Wedding Send-off?

Honestly, you’re overthinking this and it’s all unnecessary. Typically older crowds leave after dinner and after the cake has been cut. If they are still in attendance when the “party vibe” kicks up, they will leave of their own accord if they feel uncomfortable.

Profanity in your songs is a "need" for you to the point where you would have a fake send off for guests? Sorry, there is no polite way to do this. You are a host, so the wedding is not exclusively about you. The only solution I can think of here would be to have the send off signal the actual end of your wedding reception, then host an afterparty elsewhere and invite your friends separately. Also what time does the wedding begin that you'd want people to leave by 8 pm? If people have already been there for 4-5 hours, then I agree that many older people will start to leave on their own. If for significantly less time, then you have an issue.

I agree that you should have your cake-cutting at a reasonable hour and try to give a personal greeting to the older relatives you expect to leave. Instruct the DJ to crank up the party at a certain time after the cake-cutting. Older guests will leave of their own accord, and you can party.

I would skip the fake send-off in this scenario. CM has a good suggestion with doing an after party in a different location with a limited guest list. I also like the idea of beginning the reception with the family-friendly songs, and then later transitioning to the other songs (and guests can leave if they are uncomfortable with the music). I wouldn't ask the DJ to make any kind of announcement about the music switch though, as there's not really a polite way to ask just some of your guests to leave early.

One basic rule is --don't fake stuff. It should be a better policy to let people know the party tone will change after a certain point in the reception.

First of all I think some commenters in this thread need to chill with the judgmental comments about you wanting some turn-up time in your wedding! I have some similar concerns with my wedding, but my fiance is from a big fun-loving Irish family and my family is mostly hippies, Deadheads and rule breakers lol, so we don’t think many of our immediate connections will be bothered by it, maybe just a few distant cousins and friends my mom wants to invite.


Having said that, my plan is to do as others suggested and transition into playing hip-hop, dancehall and club music after a certain hour. I think the older more conservative type guests will sense the vibe shift and then if they want to leave, they will!
I am considering writing on the invitation “beat drops at 8pm” or something like that so people know that things will get more Jersey Shore fist-pumping (we’re getting married down the shore lol) at that time. Maybe that might work for you too?
Last but not least, is your DJ using Spotify? There are radio friendly versions of many classic party songs on there! I mean, everybody who values partying is going to HAVE to play Get Low and Turn Down for What at SOME point, right? But you can find versions of those songs that edit out mentions of Lil Jon’s genitalia 😂😂😂😂
Your wedding sounds like it’ll be a hell of a party!!!! Exactly what we want ours to be too. Cheers and congrats!!!

To be fair, in retrospect MOST people here did offer feedback without being judgmental but there is definitely some judginess around this topic in general - there’s nothing wrong with wanting to party at a wedding and there should be no shaming around it! Not everybody lives by the same rules and we all deserve to have our big day unfold in a way that feels right and true to us.

We’ve been to a couple of these and they actually backfired so the future engaged couples in the social circles took the lesson to not do it. What we witnessed, they kill the vibe and give the message that it’s time to leave because the reception is over, and that’s what guests did. Even when the dj said to come back after, the majority still left. In generations past, it was understood as etiquette (defined as intentionally navigating social situations to avoid any awkward, uncomfortable interactions) that the cake cutting was the unspoken signal that all formalities have ended and it’s acceptable to head out, even if the couple had a real send off at the end. That is still the case even if people want to pretend it’s not and the only difference is that etiquette within the social circle is no longer acknowledged by the younger generations. So it doesn’t make sense why someone would want to invite people for only part of the wedding and kick them out later. Are the guests being weeded out invited out of obligation only and the couple doesn’t want them to attend? As far as being puritanical for the kids and grandparents vs being “true to yourself” after they leave doesn’t make sense either. Older generations are not as delicate as people like to imagine and many can party and drink the younger crowd under the table. The same goes for kids. They are often in the same room or vehicle with parents who drink and blast not-kid-friendly music and not a single child is traumatized in any of those cases so it doesn’t make sense that explicit lyrics or drinks from the bar at a wedding will faze them one bit or turn them into delinquents. The only thing that evicting the various generations gets across is that you don’t want to share their company, in which case, don’t invite them from the start. Context is one thing: don’t play explicit lyrics and serve alcohol in venues where it is inappropriate such as a church fellowship room for a religious wedding, but if the reception is at a separate venue, then have at it at the offsite reception site.


This exact question was also posed on Tiktok yesterday or the day before over the course of 2-3 videos by a dj company with incredibly divisive views in the comments of either “the children and elderly don’t belong in attendance to begin with and the after party is the only part we care about and anyone who doesn’t know it’s a fake photo op has sawdust for brains” or “our grandparents and children are not as innocent as you think and you’re all mean for telling people point blank to leave” with no middle ground.
The current state of weddings seems to be that the majority of every aspect is becoming not authentic at all to some degree. It used to be that couples married legally and had their receptions the same day, which is frowned on and incredibly rare now. Cakes are largely artificial now and the cost is more than a real one sells for. Same for flowers. Guests are asked to take on the responsibilities of vendors. And the list goes on.

Nothing wrong with wanting more of a party vibe during your reception, but the “fake send-off” thing is definitely going to backfire. Simply let those who aren’t into that kind of thing leave of their own accord. If you do it in the order of 1) dinner, 2) cake cutting, 3) start the music, 4) dim the lights for party vibe, usually those people are socially aware enough to leave whenever #4 happens. If your DJ has a lot of experience, they’ll know how to manage that natural vibe transition throughout the evening.