For Dances, Did You Dance The Whole Song?

We danced to the full song, but it is totally up to you if that's what you want to do.

For the first dance we plan to do the whole song but I'm thinking about fading out the songs for the rest of the dances after a minute and a half or so. Even though the day is about us, I hate being in the spotlight so the less time dancing, the better for me haha

We did not dance to the whole song. I don't think many people in weddings I've been to have danced to the whole song. Our DJ told us a signal to give him when we were ready for them them fade it out-stop dancing and standing, swaying slowly with our arms around each other.

We did the whole song. First dance was torture. My husband tried to get the attention of the DJ and failed. We talked the whole time about how long the 4 minute song was, lol.
My dance with my dad didn’t seem as long. He talked about how special the day was and memories from growing up. (I’m tearing up now thinking about it) and I cried the majority of the time. It was really special and existed in a bubble I was aware of much else.
My husband also danced the whole song with his mom. I don’t know how he felt about the length we hadn’t discussed it. It’s personal preference, but if it was me I’d say have sit fade out, especially if you haven’t/don’t really dance together/don’t know how to dance.

I'd talk to your DJ about looking for a cue to fade out in case you get tired of dancing before the song is over.

Nope we did not! We had a live band and they knew exactly when to end the song since we told them beforehand.

Our DJ edited our spotlight dances so that they were about 2 minutes each.

A good DJ will happily do this, so no one gets bored/feels awkward.

Go for the full song!!! It’s really not a long time (assuming you’re not picking some 10-minute ballad for each dance) for your guests to wait, especially for such a sentimental tradition. You’ll be running around greeting guests and checking on other things for so much of the day, take those full songs with your spouse and parent. ❤️

Do what works for you. Every wedding withva dance I have been to has played the full song for the first dance (they all skipped parent dances) and guests watched for a bit and mingled the rest of the time while waiting for the dance floor to open to everyone. Your guests will be fine with either.

We’re planning to do the fade out - or pick a very short song 😂 We know we’ll both feel awkward dancing with everyone watching us. But as a guest, I never felt bored by the couple’s first dance.

Along these same lines, did any of you invite your guests to join you for any of the major dances? Our first dance song is such a fun, special one, we really want everyone to be able to join in on the fun! And for the father daughter dance, I just remember at all the weddings I attended when I was younger, wishing I could get a chance to join in on the moment and dance with my dad; so I want to give others that opportunity.

All of our dances were shortened. We had the DJ fade the song out after the first verse and chorus. As a guest who has been to weddings where they danced to the entire song, I did not want to put my gests through that!

Lmao I think about this too. We're most likely not doing the full song. Specially cause most songs we like have a long intro and I feel it kinda drags. This also goes for our recessional song, we'll probably just play the upbeat part of the song and take it from there.

The first piece of advice my recently married cousin gave me was NOT to dance for your entire song haha. FH and I got lucky and fell in love with a song that is only 2 min 10 seconds long otherwise I'd definitely be doing the fade out.