First dance jitters...

laylasaurus

FI was asking me last night what song we should do for our first dance...we've got a few good ones but it got me thinking.  I really don't want a first dance in the traditional sense.  It would make me really nervous to be the center of attention like that for what I feel is a rather intimate moment.  If people want to watch, that's fine, but I also want it to be totally okay for anyone else to dance as well.  I'm thinking we should just skip the whole announce the first dance thing, just have music and let people dance at their leisure then at some point we can tell our dj to work the song in and we'll just dance to it when it comes on. If people notice fine, if not, fine too.  I don't even need it to be our first dance, I would rather we just be out on the dance floor with all our friends to begin with. 

FI thinks we will just end up confusing everyone, like they won't know that it is ok to start dancing until we do our first dance.  Or as soon as we go out to dance, people will treat it like its our first and we'll end up having the floor cleared and everyone watching while we awkwardly dance by ourselves to something completely random like Beastie Boys..  

I don't know.  Anyone else decide to skip the whole first dance thing?

ElcaB

You could do a traditional first dance, but have the WP join you after the first chorus. 

krizzo17

Could you maybe make it an anniversary dance? We did one of these right before our cake cutting - the DJ calls out all married couples to dance, then asks the couple married less than an hour to sit, then less than a year, and so on, until the last couple standing is the one who have been married the longest (get your picture taken with them, it's cute!) This way, it will be a celebration of marriage type thing without you being the center of attention.

laylasaurus

We had talked about the anniversary dance thing...however, we thought it might not have the intended effect.  Both sets of parents are divorced, only his father has remarried and there is bad blood between the two sides on that front.  We will be lucky if his stepmom and mother are able to sit in the same room and behave together.  All the elderly people that will be there have lost their spouses, and only a couple of our friends are married.  I'm afraid it will just be a couple sets of aunts and uncles, then our parents all glowering at eachother.

And I've also just realized how high the divorce rate is between our two families...comforting...

KeptInStitches

Piggybacking on @ElcaB, you could do it as a first dance, but have the DJ open the floor after the first chorus. Get a few friends to head out there so that it's all very clear because otherwise people might not join you.