Wedding Blog
There are a whole lot of things that you can do at a reception to surprise guests- unusual desserts, an unexpected tribute to a family member, or fun activities (like a photobooth!). Or you can do what a fellow blogger did:
How awesome is it to pull off a “spontaneously” choreographed dance? Basically, the bride and groom choreographed the dance with the members of the bridal party that lived in town, sent out instructional DVDs to everyone else, and rehearsed it the night before the wedding. More detailed directions are given here.
Mr. Dahlia and I had originally said no cheesy group dancing (seriously, this was on our list of “have nots” that we made before we even told our parents that we were engaged), but seeing this dance has made us (at least temporarily) reconsider.
What are your thoughts about group dancing at weddings? And do you have any fun surprises planned that you don’t mind sharing?
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Neither my fh or I are the best dancers so we aren’t planning anything of that sort. We are planning on having casino games (craps, blackjack, and poker) at our reception though. We both love gambling and thought it would be fun for people to do, especially those who aren’t into the dancing like us.
Well because it seems like I research weddings for a living now I feel like the group dance thing is a little played out, however, I realize my guests do not look at wedding stuff all day long and it would probably be the only wedding they ever went to where it happend so they’d probably love it. Honestly, though, with all the other wedidng stuff to do who has time to choreograph, rehearse and perfect a dance routine with the entire wedding party?…esp. when all of mine are out of state.
If one were to do one I think that then it would have to be really good…if people messed up a lot, shuffled their feat, or were only half into it then it wouldn’t be as cool. Precision is what makes it good.
Did you guys check out the blog? She used origami bouts. How cool is that? (Just tucking that little gem away for my crazy wedding-made-of-paper idea)
I LOVE IT, but I wouldnt want to take the time to execute it for my own wedding…and all the “male” parts of our wedding party are SO not into this kind of stuff. I wouldnt want to force them to do it.
I love seeing it, and i would love to be a part of it in someone elses wedding….I see a lot of these videos and it kind of makes me sad that I wont be doing something like this for my own wedding, because it ends up being so memorable, but again, it would basically be me forcing lots of people to do something they didnt really want to do.
Umm I would rather die, I think its super cheesy!
I agree with Ashley! Despite the fact that the dance in the video is very well executed, something about it still strikes me as very cheesy. Plus, I don’t think members of my wedding party would appreciate having to learn a dance (or having to learn HOW to dance, for some of them).
One thing I would do if i were to do something like this is to keep it short and sweet. A 1-1.5 minute long routine would have a great impact, and you could make it RAZOR sharp.
….and I’m a super cheesy person! I just think back at the weddings I’ve been to, my favorite moments that I remember have been pretty orchestrated. The bride and groom do a tiny little routine in their “first dance”…even if its as simple as a twirl and a dip, its so adorable. Or if the groom sings to the bride…or the wedding party busts out into a routine. I never remember what I drank, what the favor was, what I ate, what colors they used. Only these special little moments 
reminds me of the movie with freddie prinze jr at the prom. cheesy then, cheesy now! but cheese does make for good weddings…
oh man. my bridesmaids would quit as soon as they got the instructional dvd in the mail.
Our surprise “look how talented our wedding party is” idea was to have all the music at cocktail hour be recordings of us and our friends. We took some tunes from a groomsman’s podcast, one of the bridesmaids and I were in an a cappella jazz ensemble in college, her current band has a great CD of original jazz, we threw in a recent recording of me and another bridesmaid singing a piece her husband wrote, and of COURSE we had to include the officiant’s son’s emo band. Because nothing says weddings like emo.
It was great. The podcaster confessed to being a little weirded out by hearing himself (especially since he was performing “Complicated” on accordion), and how could we have known that one of the original jazz tunes had taken two days to record, so the bridesmaid was well and truly sick of hearing it? But the officiant thanked us–with tears in his eyes–for including his son’s band. (Honestly, “Cindy’s Song” by Meredith Bragg and the Terminals would make an awesome first dance–appropriate lyrics, and very short.)
Then, after much deliberation and at least half a dozen mutually-exclusive playlist ideas, we ended up using one of the CDs from the band I work for, straight through, as the dinner music.
Mr. Jasmine and I strongly considered choreographing an Indian dance from a popular Bollywood movie for us and our friends. But when we realized how much time it would take and how impossible practicing would be because our friends are all over the country, we nixed that idea.
I love anything different at the reception - because ultimately that’s what guests will remember. We’re considering having a salsa instructor at the reception to have a short lesson - or have it the day before the wedding so we can play some salsa songs at the wedding.
i showed a video to my bf and before it was even over he said no. and i didn’t even ask him if we could do one. lol.
Okay, I don’t know about doing this if it were my wedding, but I’d be busting up if I was a guest.
We hired a ballroom dance instructor to teach a couple dances at our reception. We only had 50 guests - so I thought this would be fun. It went over OK. I’m not sure if I would do the same thing again.
this is awesome! the cheesiness of the choreography matches the cheesiness of having a wedding dance.
that was awesome! the choreography was great- I’m impressed that they were able to do get such a big group coordinated enough to do it even though they all were not living in the same city to prepare for it. I love stuff like this at weddings! I only wish I could have pulled something off like it at my own years ago.
We’re not having any choreographed dances at our wedding reception but one of our parties earlier on in the week will have some dances put on by friends and family. It’s a cultural tradition, and it’s something I’m looking forward to!
I would have loved to have done that at our wedding… I even send my fiance links to the “Thriller” bridal party dance and the couple who did the final scene from “Dirty Dancing”… but seeing as my now-husband hates all dancing in general, there was no way that was going to happen at our wedding!
Looking back, we really wouldn’t have had the time to come up with something, and send DVDs to our out-of-town bridal party members… All the same, I think it’s fun!
Dancing wasn’t a focus or feature of our wedding, but I have to say, that was the BEST group dance I’ve ever seen.
And really, why isn’t that girl a bee? She should apply — her blog ROCK and it’s all about green weddings. I don’t think we’ve had a “green bee” yet, have we Mrs. Bee?!
perfect. it’s absolutely perfect and funny, and yes, cheesy, but in a fabulous “look how cheesy we are” kind of way.
and you would never forget it, which as i recall, is one of the reasons we spend so much time personalizing our weddings.
my husband i had our first dance choreographed, not because we wanted to do something cheesy, but because he was a TERRIBLE dancer, and he wanted to. I thought it was a little strange myself, but after our dance, and still some three months later, I still get compliments on how touching it was.
Cheesy yeah okay if cheesy means freaking awesome!!! Now I personally would never have the balls nor talent and it would not fit my theme very well but this dance was super cute very well done and if I was a guest at the wedding I would’ve been blown away! I love how it looks spontaneous it was pulled of amazingly! Something like this makes your wedding unique and will be something your guests will always remember! This bride Rocks!
Holy cow, that was the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen! So well executed! Thanks for posting. I’m pretty sure my wedding party wouldn’t be up for it, but I’m inspired that hers was willing to go along with it and do a great job!
Hi folks!!! Thank so so much to whoever posted the link to our dance 
I don’t know why I never joined this website…is it too late??
I just wanted to quickly respond to a couple of comments so you all can have an idea of how/why we did the dance. First, we absolutely did not force anyone in the wedding party to do it. It was completely voluntary because we love our friends and how awful would it be to be made to do something like that in front of a bunch of total strangers if you didn’t want to! But we have really funny artsy friends so they were all totally into it which was so awesome!
I love the comment referring to the dance from She’s All That because that is exactly what we were going for. Those “spontaneous” dance scenes in movies are so ridiculous so we thought it would be hilarious to replicate that in real life because of course that never happens in real life.
Anyway, thanks for all of your nice comments!! We had so much fun doing it and our guests absolutely loved it. It was worth every bit of time we spent planning it. Wait, I mean what planning? It was totally spontaneous of course 
That dance was definitely awesome. It has made me consider a fun dance for the first dance with just my fiance and I. Let’s see if I can connvince him…
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Ms. Dahlia, Detroit/Cleveland
Age and Occupation: 24, PhD Student
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, IT System Administrator
Engagement Date: December 31, 2006
Wedding Date: May 2008
Blogging Since: September 19, 2007
Venue: United Methodist Cathedral & historic downtown hotel in Cleveland
About Me: I enjoy cooking, dancing and swimming. I am a geek and apply game theory to my everyday life. Winter is my favorite time of year, especially when spent curled up with good coffee and a book by Madeleine L'Engle.
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