Go for music that would make you feel the excitement build at an event. For this couple, the Boston band’s brawling bruiser of a song as an overture and prelude to their quietly emotional choice of First Dance worked beautifully.Ĥ. This did indeed get the crowd stomping, and when we cut that music, introduced the couple, and began the sensitive David Gray ballad “This Year’s Love” – the contrast between the two musical pieces was stark and very effective. I edited the CD version so that the song’s instrumental section looped continuously, long enough for all the Bridal Party introductions. At a recent wedding we did at a posh NYC hotel ballroom, the couple asked us to play the recorded version of the instrumental introduction to the Dropkick Murphys’ “I’m Shipping Up To Boston”, which is kind of like a heavy-metal Irish reel (this was an Irish/Italian wedding).
Look for a song that “feels right” for your reception. The song chosen can be an instrumental or have a vocal chorus hook (best to have no vocals on the vamp section, since that usually distracts from the band announcer’s introductions).ģ. Make it a song that has a) a great instrumental “vamp” that can be repeated at a low volume as the band leader intros the individual people, and then can easily and quickly kick into, b) a short but powerful chorus “hook” that can come up and down in volume quickly as the introduced individuals emerge to walk into the room and take their places around the dancefloor. Even if you’re using a DJ instead of a live band (a subject I’ll explore in depth in a future posting), stick with one great song for this application.Ģ. The most effective play-on song is one that builds real momentum towards the big moment when the couple emerges from the wings, and it’s difficult to do that with 10-seconds blips from a wide variety of tunes that usually have no musical connection to one another. This is about the couple and their wedding, not the guests and individual family members.
I don’t recommend using different song snippets for individual bridesmaids, best men, parents, etc. So, cholesterol content aside, here’s how I think a song can work effectively to play on the Bridal Party:ġ. When done right, it’s dramatic, it raises the audience’s spirits and anticipation, and sometimes it just feels good. Speaking personally as a musician and as a bandleader, I like playing the Bridal Party into the room with music. Again, I don’t blame this song for what might have happened to it in the cultural meat grinder since it was first released.
What changed with that song was that the combination of its being used as the “First Dance” for the First Couple at the 2008 Inauguration, combined with Beyonce’s ubiquitous recorded/film version, made the song seem too “common”, a little too familiar, and, well, not “special” for use in something as intimate as a First Dance at a wedding. The same can be said of the Etta James classic “At Last”, which many music lovers would agree is one of the greatest ballads ever recorded. Likewise, I’ve had other couples tell me that “there’s no way we want to introduce our Bridal Party with music, especially with a “cheesy song like ‘Celebration’ by Kool & the Gang”, and on one level, I understand their concern: too much cheese can clog a party’s arteries and, perhaps sometimes, even leave a bad taste.īut isn’t that, to some extent, due to the song(s) used and their connotations at the time of the wedding? I’m old enough to remember when “Celebration” was on the charts, and back then I have to admit I liked the song – as Dick Clark used to say on American Bandstand, it had “a good beat, and you can dance to it.” But time and, perhaps, overexposure have probably made the song seem “corny” and yes, even a bit “cheesy” to a significant segment of the wedding audience. I’ve had couples say to me “we want to create maximum excitement and buildup before we come out and dance our First Dance as ‘man & wife’ what’s the best way to do that with music for introducing the Bridal Party?”. When it comes to introducing the Bridal Party with music, just before a couple’s all-important First Dance (versus no introductions and going straight to the First Dance at the beginning of the Reception), my informal polling finds that folks are pretty much split evenly on this issue.īy and large, the split is usually over what some might refer to as the “cheese factor”.