Wedding Invitations

If you are having a Mardi Gras or New Year’s Eve theme wedding, audience participation dances may be more appropriate than at a formal sit-down affair.

Be sure to select a few songs that appeal to every generation attending so that all guests will feel included and inspired to get up and dance.

Have your wedding coordinator, groom, or best man be the middleman between you and the band if you have any comments you’d like to make during the reception. The bride shouldn’t need to be going up to the stage to chat with them.

If you are unhappy with some of the band’s antics, their volume, or their level of involvement with the guests (too much or too little), communicate that to them via your middleman throughout the course of the night.

The same goes for your pleasure with their performances. If you praise them, they will continue to work hard.

Some computer-savvy couples of the new millennium are using an MP3 player at their weddings, which can organize preselected songs via a computer and play them at the reception or during the dance portion of your celebration.

If you and your fiancé are the more daring sort, seek out a singing celebrity impersonator to add some fun and humor to your wedding reception. If you two are big Elvis, Frank Sinatra, or Barbra Streisand fans, your city should have someone who can liven up the party.

If you or your fiancé are musically inclined, consider writing a song for each other to use as your wedding song or just to sing at the reception.

If someone from your wedding party or a close friend will be singing during your ceremony or at the reception, discuss this in advance with your band or DJ. Put your singer in touch with the musicians prior to the wedding so they can discuss key details of accompaniment.

If both your and your fiancé’s parents are still married (or if just one set if married and this would not be awkward), arrange to have their wedding song(s) played at some point during the reception. This will please them.