Choosing Your First Dance Song

The first dance is the one moment of the reception when every eye in the room is on the two of you, and it’s the song couples agonize over most. It needn’t be the “best” love song ever written. The right choice is the song that makes both of you feel something — the one playing when you met, the one from the long drive, the one a grandparent loved — and that you can happily hear for the rest of your lives.

Finding the song

Start with your own history. Songs from the first date, a concert you went to together, a trip, the kitchen at midnight. A song with a story behind it is always better than a song chosen from a list, including this one.

Read the lyrics. All of them, closely. Some of the most popular wedding songs are about breaking up, unrequited love or a stalker. Search the full lyrics before you commit.

Listen for the tempo. Slow ballads are easy to sway to but can feel long. A mid-tempo song is easier to dance to properly, and more fun to watch. If you’d like to start slow and finish with a surprise, a DJ can mix a second song in partway through.

Think about the room. Your grandparents and your college friends will both be watching. A song with mild language is fine for some families and not for others; only you know which kind yours is.

How long

Two minutes is plenty — long enough for the photographer to get everything and short enough that nobody, including you, gets restless. Most songs run three to four minutes, so ask the DJ to fade out at a natural point, or have the bandleader invite the parents and then everyone else onto the floor for the final chorus.

Lessons, choreography and swaying

You don’t need a routine. Most couples simply hold each other and turn slowly, and that is lovely. But two or three lessons with a dance teacher, six weeks or so before the wedding, make a real difference even to a simple sway: where your hands go, how to turn, how to move in the dress and shoes you’ll actually be wearing. Practice at least once in the wedding shoes, and if the dress has a train, work out how it bustles before the dance, not during it.

Choreographed dances — a slow start that switches to something fast and rehearsed — are a delight when they’re done with conviction. If you plan one, rehearse until it’s easy, because nerves take away about half of what you know.

Live bands and covers

A band will play your song in its own arrangement, and it may not sound the way you expect. Ask to hear it in advance, confirm the tempo and length, and make sure the singer knows which verse to cut. If the recording matters more to you than the live version, it’s perfectly normal for the band to play the track through its sound system.

The first dance list

Below are the first dances Today’s Weddings readers told us about over the years, from the classics of the 1940s to the power ballads of the late ’90s — a period piece, but full of songs that still fill a floor. The Listen links search for each one. For the other dances of the evening — the parent dances, the entrance, the cake and the last song — see reception music, moment by moment.