Dancing required?

[cocolaw]

This was in another post on destination weddings but I can''t find it at the moment! We are having a very small, family plus friends wedding and reception at my family''s home in CA. Between 20 and 50 people will probably attend. We will have a seated dinner, and I had planned on having light music (maybe some stringed instruments) in the background during dinner. I am wondering if we need dancing after the seated dinner or if the dinner is enough? I don''t want people to be bored, but at the same time I could really care less about having a band and dancing! What do you think??

 

[rubybeth]

Hi coco! We had a similar event to what you''re describing--a formal seated dinner with 50 guests. We had music provided by our venue (violin and piano) and it was lovely. No dancing. I guess you''d need to think of a couple things. Are people really going to want to dance? Our guest list only included a small handful of guests who would have danced anyway. More importantly, are you going to miss out on a ''first dance''? DH and I kind of swayed together to one of the last songs played, and we called that our ''first dance.'' It was nice: no pressure to perform or have some high-energy boogie session that wasn''t really ''us.'' We ate, drank, cut our tiramisu, had coffee, talked, etc. It was very nice, and nobody asked, "When''s the dance?!"

Whatever you decide, good luck!

 

[iheartscience]

I think it just depends on what you think your guests would like best. (As long as you''re not totally anti-dancing or pro-dancing.) I LOVE to dance so I would probably be bummed if I went to a wedding without it. However, your wedding seems small enough that it wouldn''t be super weird to leave it out.

 

[glueck]

We are also doing formal dinner with light music. We will use pianist and we want Viennese walzes during cocktail hour (getting married in germany) and during dinner we want Cole Porter type music, light jazz... FI will choose a song from this era to do our first dance. Same for Father Daughter dance. Once we get past the "formalities".... we will probably switch to ipod music from the same era. We want the meal and the conversations to be the focus. If you dont want it, dont do it!!

 

[katamari]

I think it would be awkward to expect a group so small to dance, so I think leaving it to conversation and refreshments would be perfectly fine.

 

[KimberlyH]

We had a small wedding (in CA also), our guest list was about 30. We hired a guitarist/singer who played at both the ceremony, cocktail reception, and meal. He was there from start to finish (7pm-11:30pm) and was the perfect entertainment for us. He was truly amazing and I''m so glad we chose that for entertainment as opposed to dancing, which most of our guests wouldn''t have been comfortable doing in such an intimate setting. I wouldn''t change a thing. If you''re in the L.A. area I''d confidently recommend our musician to you.

 

[Winslet]

I agree with everyone else so far - small weddings don''t really need dancing. But I do think it would be really sweet if only you and your new husband danced together for an instrumental song either at the beginning or at the end of the reception. Like others have said, I think it would be kind of awkward for a small group of guests to be expected to dance (especially since a lot of people don''t like to dance unless the dance floor is already full!)

 

[indypitty]

We had a destination wedding in Mexico with 23 guests. We did have a Mexican Trio play during the ceremony and cocktails, and had music playing during our seated dinner. We did not expect anyone to dance, and nobody did. I agree that it would be odd to have dancing with such a small group. My new hubby did pull me up and we danced to one song together, but nobody else danced. It definitely was not missed!

 

[Tuckins1]

I don''t think it''s necessary to dance, especially if it''s not something you want to do!

 

[luvthemstrawberries]

I''ve been recently wondering about this too. We''re active people and like to have fun to music and stuff, but have never really had the chance to dance together at anything public before. Our ceremony may require just an instrumentalist or two (don''t know if electricity will be available), and I''ve thought about just using them for the reception too. Or just have someone play light jazz/fun instrumental music that can be background music but that we can dance to sometimes too if we want. I''ll have ~75 people or so, but I don''t think the majority of them are "party-ers" and will want to dance to a DJ for hours.

I think the suggestions/stories so far have been great ones.

 

[elrohwen]

I don't think dancing is required at all! At small weddings where I know a lot of the people, I'd much rather mingle than dance. I think dancing is more fun at big weddings when you don't know many people, so you need something to do other than mingle.

It does depend on your crowd though and whether or not they would miss it, but if you really thought they were super into dancing you probably wouldn't be asking this in the first place

I say skip the dancing if you don't want it. Heck, I know FI would skip the dancing at ours if I let him

haha

 

[panda08]

Cocolaw, I''m glad you started this thread, I asked you this question about your reception when you responded to my post about something else. The responses have been helpful!

 

[Mediterranean]

We also have a small wedding (<50) planned, and we aren''t having any formal "setup" for dancing (as in, "No, venue, I''m not renting your dance floor for $2500 AhThankYouVeryMuch"). We''re also doing strings for the ceremony/cocktail hour, iPod for the reception.... We honestly don''t expect anyone to miss it, nor do we expect anyone to dance. Since it''s small, and we''re very close to our guests, we know everyone well enough to know that dancing isn''t their thing. Frankly, it''s not really our thing, either. We don''t live close to our extended families, so I''d rather have the time to catch up with them, take pics together, chat, etc.

 

[April20]

We had a smallish (120 people) wedding that was semi-formal. We didn't have dancing. The main reason we didn't have it was because we were trying to keep it simple. I honestly didn't want to plan out the music for it or hire someone. Lame, I know. Add that to the fact that neither one of us is big on it and our crowd was older (mostly 30s and up), it just didn't make sense to allocate the time, space and money for it. We had a couple of CDs (Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, some classical) that we keep on a loop during the reception. It was great and I don't think anyone noticed the absence of dancing- people were having too good a time chatting with everyone else that was there. It also gave us time to really mingle through the crowd and talk to everyone.

 

[Pandora II]

I had 120 guests at our wedding in July.

For music I hired a guy who played the piano and sang - he did a mixture of everything from society jazz to contemporary.

We did a first dance and a few people danced a bit, but generally people just sat round and chatted.

I knew from my friends weddings that on the whole nobody bothered dancing and there is nothing worse than an expensive band, empty dancefloor and music that is so loud people can''t talk!

 

[Rhea]

We had 40-50 people in attendance and people danced. I''d say it''s a good number for pulling off whatever kind of wedding you want. It wouldn''t be odd not to dance. I like the idea of dessert, coffee, and chatting like someone said earlier.

 

[Octavia]

I recently went to a small wedding (~60 people) where it was just the ceremony, cocktail hour, and then dinner, with no dancing. It was perfect for the couple and the style of wedding they had, and although I love to dance, it was their day and what mattered was that they were happy with it! So if you don''t want dancing, don''t have it

 

[NewEnglandLady]

Add me to the list of those who had a small wedding (we had about 35) and no dancing. I love dancing in my living room to the oldies with a vacuum in one hand, but for my wedding I really wanted something more like a fun, fancy dinner party and not a typical reception.

Like you, we had a mostly-family wedding and we were having it at a private home. After the ceremony I really just wanted great food and wanted to really be able to talk with our families...I live half way across the country from my family and wanted to use the time I had with them to catch up and laugh. We had a lot of Billy Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sanatra, etc. playing, but it was just background music. Toward the end of the night my neices used the stereo system to create a choreographed dance, which was hilarious and fun, so in the end the kids who wanted to dance did and the adults just enjoyed each other''s company. I loved it.

 

[bee*]

I think that it really depends on your guests and whether they would expect there to be a band and dancing. I love dancing at a wedding but if you''re having a small reception I''d say that people would be ok with talking together.