DIY wedding music

yeah it was kind of like:
"you may now kiss the bride"....
BU DUH DAA NAAA
DO DOO DO DO DOOOO!

I even edited the file to start at the sweet spot.

Yeah, where it starts for GOB.

damn thats even better

abbott i hope u know if youd actually bothered to marry me i wouldve given it the same level of thought!!!

My cousin's wedding was a couple of weeks ago and along with the invites they included a little form for each guest to put down 3 songs that they would like to suggest to be played at the reception. They didn't promise to play all the selections, but there were definitely some and I guess that it gave them plenty of ideas at least. I thought it was a nice touch.

Umm... just found out last night that I have been tasked with making a 2.5 hour playlist for the wedding reception of my best friend (I am the best man). They are doing the "friends in shifts" thing and I am the last shift, and DJing longer than everyone else combined for the "reception off the hook and crucial hits" (groom's terms) portion of the night. I guess he trusts me to bring it.

Suddenly feeling nervous about this. I had an inkling I'd be DJing a portion and thought I could kill it, possibly on the sheer force of my own enthusiasm, but 2.5 hours of "reception off the hook"!?! Also I found out that most people there will be the bride's family and friends in their 20's and 30's. I know nothing about them other than they don't really drink much alcohol if any at all. That's admirable to live clean but makes the DJing task much more difficult.

I've DJed/playlisted weddings before and killed it every time without playing anything obvious, because the grooves are sick and the people are drunk and feeling very happy, but this demographic is largely not my friends/people my age (I'm 43). Do unknown 20-somethings know New Order - Temptation? Do they know Easy Lover?

I guess if I know the 70's disco/funk hits, why wouldn't 20-somethings know the 80's pop hits? They probably know Easy Lover, but does that sound like corny old-person-music to them?

Second thing making me nervous - I would totally play Robyn - Dancing On My Own and Dua Lipa - Don't Start Now, but how much should I pay attention to the lyrics? Are those too inappropriate? I figured it would be okay to slip in some inappropriate dance bangers here or there. I think lyrics don't really enter into most people's brains when dancing.

I guess if my target audience is the groom, I am confident I will kill it. If my target audience is the majority of the people there (bride's family/friends) I am worried I will be playing a bunch of shit they don't know, and I am not sure I even know what to play that they will know aside from the standard corny junk which I refuse to play unless someone requests it. I don't want to alienate most of the people there while me and the groom and 5 of our friends are going apeshit. But maybe that will be infectious and get the people to dance to the unfamiliar music.

Please advise. Wedding is in a week.

It’s easier than you might think, you just have to hit them with the corny obvious bangers. At a wedding the people in the crowd are not dance club people, they’re random people who might wanna dance if they’ve got something familiar. The cool kids will get into it ironically but have a blast anyway. Big cheesy fun stuff like ABBA and Queen - music has become so balkanised in the last decade or two that there are few unifying anthems anyway.
I went with “cred picks” for my own wedding and every time I think about that mixtape I sweated over, I shudder at how mis targeted it was.
Also - make 2 playlists, if one is going wrong flip to the other?

you just have to hit them with the corny obvious bangers

otm. but don't reach back further than the mid-70s. anyone old enough to dance to stuff older than 1975 will have run out of steam already

when i made our playlist we had added a song request to our RSVP so i had a bunch of stuff i knew at least someone wanted to hear. after that i did blocks of a couple tracks that were somewhat linked and targeted at a certain demo--one for like, my aunts, one for our college friends, etc. the hope was that there were no floor-clearers. you do need a couple corny bangers strategically placed. i wanna dance with somebody gets everybody going. that shut up and dance w/me song is punishingly good at its job.

i was sensitive to lyrical content like you, i agree most people don't notice but it bugs me personally so i avoided some stuff because of that.

matttkkkk otm throughout.

I've DJd a ton of wedding receptions. Very few became "off the hook."

Play a bunch of the "standard corny junk" (if that's your perception of Abba/Queen) plus some groom/bride requests. They very often spend so much time conversing with friends and family they won't much know/care. Wedding receptions are not an ideal place to showcase your musical erudition.

And don't forget a slow song or three. I've been to so many weddings that just keep spinning bangers one after the other. You'd be amazed what fitting in something like "At Last" by Etta James will do.

lol@"cred picks". otm post. but you can have your cred picks if enough of the crowd is into them and you space em out

our wedding song was a sentimental thing no one else really knew at all... right into Pretty Woman

i made 2 playlists for my wedding last summer & it was very useful & convenient to be able to switch between bangers & midtempo "we all just wanna chat now" grooves

Hahaha thanks everyone. I just needed a perspective adjustment and you all gave it to me. The groom is wanting 2.5 hours of "reception off the hook" and I was wondering how the hell I would pull that off. Answer = I can't.
Nobody can! I have been to, and DJed, some pretty off-the-hook wedding receptions though, with the bulk of the people dancing wildly. But not sustained for 2.5 hours. That's unrealistic.

Also he wants it to be a playlist that I DJ off of as I deem necessary, so like a hybrid playlist / live DJ. I guess in case shit needs to shift. Nobody's dancing? Macarena time! Here's Mambo No. 5! Just messin' with ya.

"Standard corny shit" means what people were talking about upthread about hired DJs playing the Macarena even though they told the DJ not to play it, because they can't break from their standard wedding template. Everyone's been to those weddings. I have zero problem playing Whitney Houston or Prince or Madonna or ABBA or Queen and I will at this wedding if the other DJs haven't already done so. In my experience I've found the real magic happens when you pull out a song that the bulk of people love but had forgotten about. Then sprinkle in some they don't know at all but sound great in the moment.

That said, it can be a gamble. I like music a lot more than most people. All of us here do. So sometimes I think a song is known by everyone and it's... not at all. Cyndi Lauper and Madonna? Safe. Nu Shooz and Taylor Dayne? Maybe not??? But then again Nu Shooz could be that "OH SHIT I LOVE THIS SONG!" magic moment.

I do have to throw the groom some bones though. Robyn's gonna happen even if most people won't know it.

i sustain. when's this going down?

this may be an oddball piece of advice but i would just go with the people getting married want. imagine making them feel really happy at that time, and then trust that all the other people that you don't know, whose music taste you're trying to guess at, also share a connection to the couple getting married, and that if they see them dancing and having a wonderful time, they'll want to join in on the fun

and if all else fails just play daft punk

philosophical question: if the couple getting married loves some categorically awful stuff, and the cool hip attendees of the wedding like cool hip music, which one do you play while they're all dancing?

for me, i'm playing the worst shit of all time that the people getting hitched love, trusting that the cool hip people will also be willing to sacrifice one night of music exploration for a night of hanging with the friends getting married instead

then again, i'm probably playing computer love and just enjoying it by myself. it depends on the night, depends on the crowd!

karl is more of a rehearsal party dj

It stings because it’s true! Haha

"worst shit of all time" means the standard wedding stuff that they are ok with, i think? that's otm

I've been to more than one wedding with no dance. anyone else? can you believe that shit?

i have as well

it's a time of great reflection among all attendees

probably play gasolina. that's my only advice.

xp what culture(s)

i still would prefer to believe there was an afterparty we didn't make the cut for

probably play 'bring in the katz'

We had neither drinking nor dancing at our wedding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY_1RdxXNt4

i got married in january in a hotel room with 4 other people present besides us. no one drank. we all danced to 'love at first sight' by kylie minogue on my bluetooth speaker and then got dinner downstairs.

congratulations!

i meant crowd situations.. though i neglected to say

congrats map! (didn't know you got married!)

crowd and dinner situations

like when do we pull these tables aside

and

nope

:/

Thanks everyone. I think I am good now. Karl raises some good notions. My priorities are 1) groom/bride wheelhouse (they will add a few crucials to my playlist) 2) bulk of the wedding attendees that I know nothing about 3) our friends 4) cred picks (I will grant myself a few and get some cred)

Check out the rehearsal dinner i.e. "welcome party": groom and myself and another groomsman and the groom's bandmate that the groomsman and I have never met are forming a cover band (groom wanted this at his wedding but we talked him out of playing drums during his own wedding reception, so we're playing the night before and things got a lot looser and more carefree). We're are practicing once together up where they live on the street outside of his building, with a power cord lowered out of his 2nd story window. What could go wrong with any of this?!?

Stoked. Playing some Mary Chain, Cure, Springsteen, INXS, New Order, more tba. It's gonna be a blinder.

groom wanted this at his wedding but we talked him out of playing drums during his own wedding reception

you did a good thing

honestly need a full map wedding mix (even if it didn't precisely happen that way)

Stoked. Playing some Mary Chain, Cure, Springsteen, INXS, New Order, more tba. It's gonna be a blinder.

i mean, to me, i'm attending and i'm extremely happy :D

philosophical question: if the couple getting married loves some categorically awful stuff, and the cool hip attendees of the wedding like cool hip music, which one do you play while they're all dancing?

the couple getting married, dumbass.

sorry, that last part wasn’t cool.

weddings bring out a lot of emotions

groom wanted this at his wedding but we talked him out of playing drums during his own wedding reception

you did a good thing

This was a big philosophical question for us. He was so stuck on this vision of a live band at his wedding, but there was no available drummer aside from him. So we were faced with a quandary: do we just do what the groom wants? Or talk him out of it?

The cover band playing at the "welcome party" the night before is the compromise. Can't tell how bummed he is about it all but we pretty much refused to let it happen at the wedding. Hopefully he'll think it was the right choice after everything's said and done.

i think someday, with the benefit of perspective, he will look back and be thankful that he spent his reception with his new bride instead of playing drums with his pals.

for our wedding we had extensive convos with our DJ about what we wanted him to play during the dancing portion, and what we wanted him to *not* play (equally crucial imho). we made sure to include in the former category stuff that we remembered dancing to w/ our friends who were attending, stuff we both personally liked and wanted to dance to, and a couple of “classic” songs for the scant number of boomer-aged ppl in attendance. ironically, after all was said and done i can name maybe four or five songs that i remember dancing to that night because it was all such a blur (and not even a drunken one! i had maybe three drinks that whole day).

last wedding i DJed the couple gave me a curated playlist to work off of which was like 75% 2000s NY hipster dance stuff that the couple was obviously nostalgic for and 25% 21st century stuff like Miley & Kelly Clarkson which arent ABBA but certainly still feel like standard meat & potatoes type wedding jams. i tried my best to split the difference but pretty quickly found myself caught in the "who do i please" conundrum as aunts & uncles were vocally annoyed with anything from the hipster column & dgaf about the fact that these were the couples favorite songs that they asked to hear. i deferred to the couple bc they were having the time of their lives & it was worth it for the moment near the end of the night when the bride dragged her grandma out onto the dancefloor and asked me to play Lightning Bolt and they both headbanged together

honestly need a full map wedding mix (even if it didn't precisely happen that way)

― mookieproof, Friday, April 15, 2022 2:55 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

honey child every mix i do is a wedding mix

i'm going to be that guy for a second on this thread and say weddings are weird and overblown and maybe not entirely congruent with the spirit of love. but my baby has good health insurance now which was tbqfh the most important part of doing it.

i was such a dumbass during my wedding that i ended up djing my own wedding because the guy who was going to do it was too wasted. prince had just died so i played a bunch of that in a row, with extensive outros that left people shuffling around while making fun of me. it was a great time

please tell me you dropped “Automatic”

i still have my playlists in itunes! this is how things kicked off

https://i.imgur.com/gnUQlAB.png

honestly i would have been happiest with a complete purple rain LP listen party, but compromises were made.

anyway, going back to the thread, sorta, i think most of my friends were happy to dance to a bunch of prince songs in a row. not because we used to do that together - i'm not much of a dancer and hadn't really danced with friends on a regular basis since my early 20s - and not because prince is awesome - although obviously that - but because it was me and my partner's night, and we were very happy to be dancing to prince and hoped that they would be too. i don't know. maybe i'm alone in that, but if i go to a friend's wedding and he's super into ben folds five, then for that night i am going to channel my BFF fan days and hope that they play a deep cut from whatever and ever amen

I'm currently planning on doing this for my own wedding (DIY DJing from my own playlist(s)) so this thread has been useful food for thought. Unfortunately, I lost the argument that our first dance should be to "Feel U Up" by Prince and we are instead opting for the more palatable "I Only Have Eyes for You" by the Flamingos so I will definitely goose the playlist with loads of Prince, including "Feel U Up" somewhere deeper in the mix.

My husband and I made our own playlists and got my cousin to be in charge of switching as needed. We had time period playlists ie before dinner, during, first few hours after, “people are drunk now” and for the most part the decades went in line as well- 40s and 50s stuff before, 60s during dinner, start dancing with the 70sish. We kicked the dancing time off with Rockin’ Robin and made sure to have Crazy in Love. Around midnight, I sequenced a rick roll to cut off California Love. Ben Folds loving husband had our first dance be to The Luckiest. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ We did have song requests on our invites so everyone had a small say. Even our friend who always requested NIN’s Closer.

Best laugh to me was us using Then He Kissed Me/Then I Kissed Her back to back for garter and bouquet toss. Whichever was second, someone rushed up to me concerned that the song was starting again.