What Songs Do I Play For My Parents At My Wedding To Make Sure They Dance?
What Songs Do I Play For My Parents At My Wedding To Make Sure They Dance?
The key to being a great wedding DJ, is to remember that you are there to entertain all of your couple’s guests. Look out at those tables of guests – if there are 15 tables in front of you, probably only 3 of them are guests who are the couple’s age. The rest of those 125 guests are probably their parent’s age. So, if the average age of our couple is about 28, then the average age of the rest of the guests is about 56.
The most formative years for someone’s musical taste are generally between ages 11 and 24, with a particular emphasis on the teenage years. Research suggests that:
Ages 11-14: This is when people start forming strong emotional connections to music. Middle school is a time of self-discovery, and music often plays a big role in identity formation.
Ages 15-18: The high school years are crucial—people often develop deep nostalgia for the music they loved during this time. Songs from this era tend to stick with us for life.
Ages 19-24: College years and early adulthood expand musical horizons, as people are exposed to more genres and social settings that shape their taste.
After the mid-20s, musical preferences tend to stabilize, and people are less likely to seek out new artists or genres as frequently as they did in their younger years.
So, the key to getting EVERYONE out on the dance floor at a wedding is not only to play the key music of your couple’s age and liking, but also to weave in those songs that are cross-generational and match those informative years of the parents and aunts and uncles in attendance.
Here are ten of the most popular songs from 1983 to 1987, based on chart performance and longevity at weddings:
1983-1987 Top Songs (Current Parent Age Formative Years)
“Billie Jean” – Michael Jackson (1983)
“Footloose” – Kenny Loggins (1984)
“Africa” – Toto (1983)
“Walking On Sunshine” – Katrina & The Wave (1985)
“I Wanna Dance With Somebody” – Whitney Houston (1987)
“Livin’ On A Prayer” – Bon Jovi (1987)
“Come On Eileen” – Dexys Midnight Runners (1983)
“(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” – Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes (1987)
Want to hear what an 80s set might sound like from one of our luxury DJs?
This is probably why many of these songs still fill the dance floor (with both the young and the young at heart) at weddings. It’s easy as a wedding DJ to play the 15 songs the couple asks us to play, it’s more of an art to be able to blend them with those throwback tunes that really fill your dance floor and energize your wedding day. If you really look at many videos posted on Instagram from other wedding DJs, you notice that there really are only about 20 younger guests dancing all the time in the videos. Where are the parents and older guests?
Do you really want only 3 out of 15 tables of your wedding guests to dance at your wedding? That might be OK for a wedding band to only have a small percentage of guests dancing, but a seasoned wedding DJ, it’s all about getting 50% or more of your guests up and dancing the entire night.
We understand that you don’t want to play those over-played cliché’ wedding songs or “Oldies” for the most part at your wedding, but playing a few songs over the course of your 2+ hours of dancing geared toward your older guests won’t detract from the energy or feel you are looking for, it will enhance it with some dancy throw-back songs like your parents might hear at their 80s high school or college reunion weekends.
So, when you are working on your play and NO play lists for your wedding dj, be sure to ask your parents when they graduated high school and what songs they would get up and dance to at your wedding. After all, why invite older relatives unless you want them to be a part of your celebration, and for most of our couples, it’s all about the dance party!
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