Everyone was expecting glitter, fireworks, and spray tan. What we gave them was totally different.

There we were, husband and wife. The DJ announced us, we walked onto the dance floor and everyone cheered. We couldn’t hear a thing.

It was one of those numb to the world moments. The music started and we… swayed. Yep, we were rising to the top of our competitive dance career, the owners of a top dance studio, and we swayed like it was the junior prom. Why?

For us, it was the first dance we ever did in public that was just “for us”. We danced to a beautiful song by Louis Armstrong, “We Have All the Time in the World” from one of my favorite James Bond movies, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”. It was intimate, simple, and exactly what we wanted. We also had a surprise up our sleeves.

The reception had, actually, started with a surprise for our wedding party. Entrance Music.

We picked songs that captured the “essence” of each of those in our wedding party. Everything from classic hip-hop, salsa, and “My Heart Will Go On” - as a joke. As they entered, their music played - complete with a bio read by our DJ, and many began dancing once they heard their song.

IDEA: Wedding Party Entrance Music

The next surprise took place when we decided to turn our money dance, into a group wedding party dance number. This was not planned, or choreographed, but it might as well have been. We didn’t like the idea of people standing in line to dance for us, so instead, we decided to put on a show.

IDEA: Wedding Party Group Dance Number

On the traditional side, we stuck with the father/daughter and mother/son dances, which were very meaningful and special.

After greeting everyone, eating a fraction of our meal, and doing 24 toasts… we performed one of our competition routines. Bolero. Daisey changed into something more comfortable (not a dance costume) and we performed our routine in front of the most important crowd ever assembled - our closest friends and family.

IDEA: Perform a second wedding dance

The rest of our reception was a blast, but nothing truly got the party going and got everyone involved more than the merengue. It’s the easiest crowd pleaser of a dance, and it got even the least likely to dance, on the dance floor. We did conga lines, tunnels, line dances, and came up with some bizarre new renditions of the popular latin dance.

IDEA: Merengue gets the crowd dancing

The old saying “remember, it’s your day” never really made sense until we decided to do all that fun stuff at the reception (and there was that ice sculpture of a matador I asked for). A reception can easily feel like someone hit the “repeat all” button from someone else’s wedding. But hopefully this article gave you some ideas and will show you that:

With some great music, and plenty of dancing, you can turn an ordinary reception..into an event.

Happy Dancing!