Selecting the Best Music for the Wedding Reception
A wedding reception party will probably be the biggest event in any couple's life and going all out to make it as grand as possible is the done thing. With all the planning and organizing a wedding entails, something is bound to get overlooked or paid little attention to. Music strangely enough often features at the bottom of the wedding checklist more often than not.
Music is what makes the party rock and without it things can fall rather flat. In fact, good music often helps gloss over the little hiccups that happen to even the most carefully planned receptions. Have you ever noticed how things and people tend to be a little stiff at the start of the party and then begin to warm up as the band strikes up? Music is a fantastic ice breaker and good music will soon have your reception guests" boogying the night away.
Here is some insight about the kind of music used for the wedding reception. The following tips are useful in helping you select a variety of fast and slow numbers to make sure everyone in the crowd regardless of age has a rocking good time.
You have a room full of people, each one a unique individual with distinct tastes and preferences. Whom do you please when selecting the music for your reception? The best way to do things is to play a selection of songs from various periods to cover every age group in the room. Let us assume your older guests come to the floor for a lively number from the 60s, a period they can relate to. They are going to have so much fun few of them will want to leave when Shakira comes on. Mixing up the music will have feet tapping and people twirling around the floor.
The music you choose for your reception party should be the life of the party. It should get the guests to relax and let their hair down, step out onto the floor to dance and generally remove any initial stiffness people usually feel.
How well do you know the people you are inviting to your wedding reception? You should know your immediate family and close friends well enough to play their favorite music. There is no harm in getting people to give suggestions on the kind of music to be played. You have the whole evening and will probably be able to cover most suggestions.
Are you planning on having a live band to provide the music for your reception? A great way to get the guests involved in the spirit of having fun and making the reception a resounding success is to have the guests hand in song requests. You could place a small song request pad on every table with a mini pen or pencil. Let the guest write out the request, tear it off the pad and hand it over to the wait staff to deliver to the band.
If you use this suggestion you are going to see your guests really bopping around and having fun – that's what music does to people. It was Shakespeare who said, "if music be the food of love, play on,…" What better place to put that line to practice than at a wedding reception!
One thing that you need to consider when making out your seating plan, don't put elderly people too near the band and dance floor area. Start off the music with hits from the 40s then progress to the 50s and 60s early in the evening, then start mixing them up with current hits. Lots of old time favorites have fantastic beats that will make anyone young or old want to dance. The reason for this suggestion is that older people generally put in an appearance first and also leave earlier than the young crowd. There’ll be time enough to play all the current hits as the evening progresses.
One way to get the crowd going is to start the music early. don't let your guests sit around getting bored while you follow the tradition of starting the music after the cutting of the cake. In fact it may be best to have dance sessions interspersed with toasts, dinner, cake cutting and all the other festivities you have planned.
When your guests enter the reception venue to be greeted by lively music, it can really set the tone of the evening.