08/29/2026
When planning your wedding, the music you choose should be a reflection of the couple you are. No two weddings are exactly alike and your soundtrack should be uniquely yours.
Some couples are "Country" while others are Hip Hop, Pop or Indie Rock. We always recommend that our couples follow a tried and true planning formula that leads to success and we cannot stress the importance of this formula. It's very straightforward...
1. Choose the vibe for your pre-ceremony prelude as guests gather. Modern weddings often choose classical versions of today's pop hits performed by wonderful groups such as the Vitamin String Quartet, Piano Guys, Piano Dreamers, etc.
2. For cocktails and dinner, this is where YOUR personality shines! Choose your genre or vibe, including songs and artists that have meaning to you. The best of any genre will surely be a hit and often times, a deep appreciation for obscure titles is analogous to adding spice to food. Just a touch makes it perfect, but too much may ruin the meal. This is the time to impress your guests during background portions of your wedding when it reaches beyond the typical boundaries of pop music without impacting your dance floor.
3. For dancing, PLEASE keep in mind that there are time parameters and the math doesn't lie.
A five hour reception will include one hour of cocktail music, one hour of dinner music, and then thirty minutes of formalities. That leaves just two to two and a half hours for dancing. At that point, EVERY selection counts, reading the crowd and building dance sets around the must play list from our clients. With an average song being 3 minutes, perhaps 2 - 2 1/2 when mixing, that limits you to approximately 50 songs total for the dance portion of your celebration.
Page 3 of our planner is the most important page in planning, yet many couples skip that and send their "Spotify Wedding Playlist" that has been growing for 18 months!
Providing your DJ with 200 random songs you "like" is actually counterproductive! We welcome these lists for reference and to stay within your parameters, but there's a formula that works and we highly recommend following it to ensure a personalized, fun experience with an energy and vibe that you and your guests will remember fondly for years to come!
We often run into couples years after their wedding and the best compliment, and one that we hear often is that "all of my friends said that our wedding was the BEST they've ever attended". The reason is simple. It was planned well, personalized and executed flawlessly, but it ALL begins with proper and realistic music planning.
Being limited to 2.5 hours, here's the formula:
Fill out the questionnaire rating each genre of music listed, from 10 meaning you love it to 0 being do not play. Great examples are Line Dances, Taylor Swift, Rap and Country. Some clients put these as a must play and an equal number of clients do NOT want these categories played. Where do you land? This 2 minute task will assist your DJ immensely as a reference point of what you do and don't like.
Provide 15 ABSOLUTE MUST PLAY TITLES and an additional 15 as your wish list as this guides us and provides a "base" starting point for success.
These will ALL be played and programmed at the appropriate time and this represents
more than 50% of the total dance portion of your celebration. We will then build the evening around those two lists, following cues from requests and the overall energy on the dance floor.
Most importantly, please provide a DO NOT PLAY list to ensure we stay away from genres or specific songs you do not want played. It will be prominently printed and the DJ will have this handy for reference, and ALSO to show that one pesky Aunt (every wedding has one) when she's had her third glass of wine and INSISTS on the Electric Slide when that's something you do NOT want played. Part of our role is acting as a filter for YOU, screening the requests you do not want played.
It's all about YOU, the client, and personalizing your experience. Those who follow our well thought out planner are always the most satisfied as many years of trial and error have gone into perfecting our craft. If our planner is completed properly, your wedding will be EXACTLY on point and you'll love the music because it was planned with intent, leaving boundaries for your professional to fill in the gaps with the best choices possible based on the ground rules established in advance and his or her expertise and intuition in programming when every choice matters!
