In case you don't know what the Dollar Dance is this is what it is: guests pay $1 (or more if they choose) to dance with either the bride or groom for about 30 seconds; it's a chance for the couple to get some more money to use for whatever (honeymoon, house, savings, etc.).
Both of my sisters had a Dollar Dance at their weddings, and I would love to do that at our wedding. There's a problem though, my FI doesn't like dancing in front of people unless he's drunk, so he REALLY doesn't want to do a Dollar Dance; I finally got him convinced that we should have a first dance together. I'm trying to think of something that is the same idea, but doesn't have anything to do with dancing. One sister suggested that they could pay $1 to limbo with us, or let them pay $1 to get their pic taken with us. We are going to have a designated place outside the barn for them to get their pic taken for the guestbook, so I'm not sure I want to have to pay $1 to get a pic taken with us. Do any of you have suggestions? Thank you for any ideas.
After reviewing the first few responses, I can see that I need to clarify a few things:
My FI just doesn't want to dance. I wanted suggestions about different ways of doing this, other than dancing. I want to keep the tradition, but since he doesn't want to dance I'm trying to figure out a compromise so that we are both happy. I did NOT ask for your opinion about whether or not you agreed with Dollar Dances. It's not like we're forcing people to pay anything. If we did do the Dollar Dance, it would last maybe 10 minutes, and then people can spend the remaining 3+ hours dancing as much as they want. Except for the two VERY elegant weddings that I've been to (ours is NOT going to be an elegant wedding because it's not our personality), every wedding I can remember going to has had a Dollar Dance. People actually EXPECT there to be one. Again, I am asking for ideas about a different way of doing this without dancing; I didn't ask if you agreed or disagreed with the tradition. I just wanted to clarify those things. Thank you.
Further clarification is apparently needed since people must not be too familiar with the custom unless they are from Iowa, so I now apologize for the lenght of my post.
Again, I was asking ideas different from dancing, like the two my sister suggested. He told me that we could do it if we want to because it's my wedding, but it's his wedding too. The whole point was to compromise with him by coming up with something different with the same basic idea as the Dollar Dance. That's what couples do when they disagree on something; they compromise. I just haven't found an idea yet that I've thought was absolutly fantastic! Again, I was NOT asking for people's opinion on wether they disagreed with our custom or not. If we went with the picture idea, I never said that they could never take a picture with us without paying for it; it would be for just a set period of time during the reception, like for 10 minutes or something. Again, it's NOT forcing anybody to do anything they don't want to. If they don't want to pay the $1 they can wait until the time is up, and they can dance with us all they want. However, some people are like me when they go to weddings; they are too shy to just ask the bride or groom for a dance any other time during the reception except for during the Dollar Dance. Besides, we won't be seeing any of our guests (except immediate family) until the reception starts so doing something like this gives us a chance to mingle with people in a short amount of time so that we have a better chance of getting to say "hello" to everybody personally. Also, there would be people that one of us will hardly know that would want to dance (or whatever we decide to do) with us, so it would give us a chance to meet and talk to them a lil bit. It's not just about the money; the money is just part of the tradition.