Happy anniversary to us, August 31

RECORD STORE TALES #1152: Our Wedding Songs Do’s and Don’ts!

I take pride in my music, and I wanted my wedding to reflect that.  I wanted nothing but music with integrity.  Unfortunately, DJ services didn’t want to deal with that.  I learned that with wedding music, you have to compromise.  Though the day may be about you, it’s also not.  It’s about your spouse, your family, their family, and close friends too.  The DJs want them to fill the dance floor, not sit eating wedding cake with sad looks on their faces.

I sent out lists of songs to various DJ services, and got crickets back.  Nobody wanted to play my pre-selected list of music.

Eventually we found one called Skip A Beat.  The DJ we ultimately chose furnished us with a spreadsheet.  It was a list of the most popular dance floor filling songs of the year 2008.  I was told to mark down any songs that were good to go, and any that were not to be played.  You can see my coding in the spreadsheet below.  I also added some songs of my own.  I didn’t get my Helix, but I got most of what I wanted.

• Green = play it!
• Yellow = meh.
• Red = over my dead body!

Some “over my dead body” music did get played.  Why?

Uncle Paul.

I still remember the DJ coming up and me and saying a man was asking her for all kinds of my banned songs.  I asked, what man?  It was Uncle Paul!

He loved to dance.  So I relunctantly cut him some slack. “Macarena” was played.  Shania Twain was played.  I know “Y.M.C.A.” played because ultimately, I danced to it.

Take a look at my list.  What would be your no-go’s?

 

For years after, Uncle Paul told me it was the best wedding he’d ever been to.  The lesson is, compromise!  Even on crappy crappy songs, try to compromise.  The happiness of your guests is just as important as yours.