Music for your wedding reception
Cocktail hour and dinner music
When planning your wedding reception there is no right or wrong music. The cocktail and dinner hours are the perfect time to play the music that represents your style, life, love, and journey through this world. You certainly don't have to play Frank Sinatra just because it is a wedding. As far as cocktail and dinner music, there is the traditional, the conventional, and then there is what you want. Do not feel like you have to stick to what everyone else does. The music you choose for your wedding day should reflect you, your life, your partner's life, your life together, your family, your ups, and your downs. Think of it as trying to create the mixtape of your life. In the client portal you will be able to create playlists for your NC Mobile DJ to use for the cocktail and dinner hours. You will discuss your music preferences with your DJ in depth in your final meeting.
The music you choose for your cocktail and dinner hours should be a touch stone for you, and should embody the sounds and songs of your life journey. The music you choose as the sound track for your wedding day should be as unique and special as you are. Your assigned mobile DJ will be happy to help you choose your music and will give you input and ideas for your wedding reception playlist. We have also created a custom cocktail and dinner music planner in the client portal that will help you to communicate with your Mobile DJ the vibe that you want to create.
Here are some other things to consider when selecting the music for your wedding reception.
Tone and feel:
I like to advise couples to start by thinking about the tone and feel you want for your wedding reception. Think about the venue you are using. Is it a barn with open doors, rolling hills in the back ground, with lawn games and local beer served in mason jars? Is it a formal hotel ballroom with crystal chandeliers, fancy silver utensils, and white linen table clothes? Is it lakeside in your parents backyard? Is it in a modern art museum with a sexy lounge style ambiance? These factors can help you decide what kind of music maybe more appropriate for the atmosphere you are trying to establish.
Guests:
The one thing I try to emphasize to couples is that they have to consider everyone who is coming to the wedding, young and old. The particular guests you have invited, as well as the number of guests may dictate what music you may wish to choose. If it is going to be a predominantly younger crowd, say mostly your college friends, and people closer to your own age, you may want to choose more top 40 and modern day artists. If it is more intimate wedding with mostly just family and close friends you may want to choose more classics and standards as well as Jazz. The other thing I like to emphasize is that you may love country music, however, most of your guests may not. It is best to take your guests into consideration, rather than to only choose music that you want to hear.
The Vibe of the party:
The vibe you are trying to establish is as important as anything else. Are we shooting for romantic, modern and sophisticated, or casual? Is it your goal to have everyone dancing? Is there a dance floor at all? Is your reception going to be mostly a cocktail and heavy hors d'oeuvres affair? Are you expecting all your college friends to come and party like it is 1999? Do you want your event to be more like a meet and greet and less like a dance party? Take time and think about how you want the event to flow and how you envision people interacting during the event.
How do you want the night to evolve:
With any event there will be an energy that grows during the course of the event. Our DJs are masters at controlling the energy so that it builds right up to the end of the event. We suggest thinking about how that energy and sound is going to develop. A strategy we often use it to spin the oldest music first, and then move forward through time so that as the night goes on, so the music gets newer. This evolution of music works well especially when it comes to the dance party portion of the night. Generally we will start with everyone on the dance floor at the begging of the dance party, but as the night goes on, the average age on the dance floor will get younger, so the music will get newer. We also try and save the top hit songs for the end of the evening so that the energy builds right up to the very final song before the last dance. Think about it if you play all the hits too early in the night you have nowhere to go from there?
