Shorter First Dance Songs

Following.

But you also could just not dance to the whole song.

I don't think I've been to a recent wedding where the whole track was danced to. You can work with your DJ on when to cut it or mix into another song once people are on the dance floor with you.

My DJ only played the part of the song we liked best. It was like 2.5 mins

Our DJ just faded our song out when we struck a final pose (a dip). Our dance was not choreographed, but we had taken lessons to learn some steps so we didn't just do the middle school sway. I think our dance was about 3 min.

Honestly, since we aren't doing any other special dances, I was thinking we'd just invite everybody to join us on the dance floor. But we're not doing the first dance before dinner, we're doing it as the first song after dinner when dancing and gaming and general fun starts.

I think your first dance song should mean something so limiting yourself to short songs just sounds a bit sad to me.

Ours is only 3 min long.... start to finish. We love it. Not because it's short, but because of the lyrics. "The Nearness of You" by Norah Jones.

We are dancing to Norah Jones' version of "Love Me Tender". It's about 2 1/2 minutes long.

Could you have your bridal party or parents join you half way through the song? Or have the DJ invite everyone else to join in.

I used a free online song editor and shortened our first dance song to 2.5 mins. We danced to Could I Have This Dance by Anne Murray.

We are thinking about having our WP n their SO join us on the dance floor about 1/2 thru.

We are thinking of doing the same thing that Ambrok is doing.

We will just dance for the first 2 minutes and then the DJ will request other couples to join us on the floor.

We're doing what @Kiwibride suggested! FH and I both want the moment without everyone getting bored watching us sway, AND my dad and FMIL aren't really dancers. So, we chose a song that's 4+ minutes so FH and I will dance for 2 or so minutes, then FMIL and my dad will cut in and we'll do a joint parent dance for the remaining minute and a half or so.

Our DJ showed us our to edit songs, we are taking out a verse and a chorus, making our song about 1:30. That seems short but have you ever sat in complete silence for 30 seconds? It feels like eternity. Your guests will thank you for a shorter song.

Amos Lee's "Sweet Pea" is great.

@IWasCrazyOnce our first dance can mean something whether it's 1 minute or 10. The length of the song doesn't affect the specialness of it.

Thanks everyone for the ideas! I'll be listening to those song suggestions, apparently Norah Jones is where it's at haha. I also like the idea of shortening the songs, I really like that.

If you do decide on a longer song you could do what my FSIL did. She and her husband danced to the whole song but half way through they invited the couples out into the floor to dance. Similarly I've seen people invite all the couples out and then say ok stay out if you been together 5 years 10 years etc. until the couple that has been together the longest is left dancing. Seems like a super sweet way to honor grandparents who have been together forever.

We danced to Emily Hackett's "Take my Heart, Take my Hand." It's 3:50, but we cut the "ooo" part at the end so it was shorter

@MrsSki that's a great idea, that's actually one of the songs we had been looking at