First Dance- Cutting it Short

NJMom050911

I don't want to cut our first dance short, however our DJ suggests cutting father/bride mom/groom dances short, I feel it's a bit rude, as in our dance was important and dad/mom your's wasn't....

What is your take? How short are you keeping it?

anika6200

Our first dance song is really long right now like 6 minutes, so we will likely be cutting that a little. As for the others I haven't decided yet, but I will probably do a short song and/ or cut.

My feeling is dances, toasts,  cake cutting, bouquet etc all break up the party. I want my guests to be able to enjoy themselves as much as possible. With the entrances and dinner, I don' t think dancing can even really start until like an hour and a half-2 hours in which only leaves 2 or 2 1/2 to dance/mingle etc.  When I go out on a weekend I am usually about for 4 hours or so without dinner.....

rinski04

About how long are the songs?

Our first dance, father/daughter, mother/son dances are all around 4 minutes so we decided to keep them all full length. I think it really matters what you and your dad (FI and his mom) want. My dad insisted on the full song because the dance was particularly important to him.

cherylanddan0706

Why did your DJ suggest you cut it short? Are they really long songs?

Our Dance we had the DJ tell people to join us, we didn't have our BP do it because I didn't want them to have to dance with people that weren't their SO's.

Unless you have like 6-8 minute songs for all three dances I would ask why is he saying you should do it?

If you feel uncomfortable thats a different story.

cvl105

All our songs were cut short...I actually asked that ours be cut because towards the end it just keeps singing the same thing over and over with a lot of music in between.

When he says "cut it short"...he doesn't mean he's going to just cut the music.  They fade it out really nicely so you don't even realize it.

The shorter songs are better....when the dances are too long, guests get bored and don't even pay attention.  Plus it allows the party to get started sooner.

dmoney79

i couldn't tell you if our song was shortened or not, the bridal party and our parents joined us towards the end...i wasn't sure about that b/c i thought it would be weird for the married ones to dance with other ppl, but they didn't mind, and it was cute to see my neice and nephew dance together...
the parent dances were shortened....my dad and i danced to somewhere over the rainbow, and its a long song....and he asked when we picked it if it would be short and i said yes, and i told the dj, and while we were dancing, it seemed like forever and dad asked "can we stop now?" so i caught the dj's eye and he ended it....and i'm pretty sure my mil didn't want the whole song either....

mbcdefg

Our song is long and it has a pretty stretched-out instrumental intro, so we're going to ask the DJ to start it at the important part and then invite people to join us after a minute or so (we don't like being center of attention for too long).

Not sure about the Father-Daughter dance yet, but my dad also isn't into the spotlight so I imagine ours will be shortened somehow as well.

If the concern is that people aren't going to want to sit through entire songs, you could do the parent dances during the salad/appetizer course. So that people aren't just sitting there and staring at you.

jaimelody

It could get really boring for your guests. My cousins wedding had a full length dance for bride and groom, mother/son, uncle/neice and neice/nephew. Boring IMO. We're going to dance for the first half of our song and then invite our BP to join in and then invite everyone at the end. I'm dancing with mom and will also invite the other guests in for half of it. I mean how much can people really enjoy watching you dance? But that's my opinion.

brad1431

we are cutting all the first dances short, ours, and with our parents, nobody wants to stare at you for 9-12 minutes dancing with each other or your parents.  do it long enough to get the good shots for the photo and video and end it, we get the point.

uppereastgirl

Agree with Brad and Jaimelody.  It can get really boring for guests.  And, honestly, for the participants (or maybe that's just me?).  If your parents don't mind, I would cut them a little short.  

jtheiss

I agree that it can be really boring as a guest to have to watch all of these dances drag out (especially if you're delaying my food until after you're done dancing!). Our DJ also said that he CAN cut it short if we want him to, so I'm sure your DJ was just letting you know that it's an option if you don't want to bore your guests, or if there's a long instrumental, or if you feel weird being in the spotlight, or whatever reason you may have. If you want to be out there in the spotlight for the whole time, so be it. We're doing the whole song for our first dance because it's less than three minutes, but we're shortening the father/daughter dance and mother/son dance.

Partymixx27

Our father/daughter and mother/son dances were cut short but only on the refrains/instrumental parts at the end of the songs.  Our own song was played all the way through but we had our guests all join us on the dance floor halfway through so it wasn't like they were standing there watching us for like 6 minutes straight (or however long the song was).

NJMom050911

I haven't picked any of the songs yet except for our first dance so I'm not sure how long they will be, I'm all for cutting them short (except for the our first dance) but I just don't want to offend my dad or my FMIL.....but sounds like this is the norm, I don't want my guests to be bored.

kewltif

I had all of the songs cut short.  I will be honest, it is extremely awkward to dance in front of other people watching you.  I was really uncomfortable with the idea and I felt like I was boring everyone to tears.  I wanted to keep it short and sweet.