Weddingbee Blog

Music. The easiest decision of our wedding. Actually, it’s something we decided on before we were even engaged. Contra dance!

Source

Those of you who haven’t spent much time in New England might not be too familiar with this form of dance. Picture square dancing in long lines where you switch partners all the time and every man you dance with tries to prove how macho he is by spinning you faster and faster. It’s so fun.

Source

Mr. Veggie and I aren’t really huge contra dancers. It’s kind of a subculture unto itself that we haven’t fully been inducted into. And needless to say that neither of our families (mine being from New Jersey and his being from Detroit) have much experience at barn dances, either. So why have a contra dance at our wedding?

Well, we like it. And we think its fun. And we think our family and friends will have fun, too. Oh, and one of our first dates was to a friend’s barn dance. That night, in the middle of one of the songs the caller worked into his ramblings: “Swing that girl with the long red hair” and later that night Mr. Veggie told me I was the belle of the ball. It was the first time realized that I was actually falling in love with this crazy Veggie farmer living off-the-grid. Sigh.

I researched bands that play in eastern Pennsylvania in hopes of finding a band that wouldn’t have to travel too far to get to our venue. Eventually I found one from Ithaca, New York. A bit far from the carbon-footprint viewpoint at 2.5 hours away, but still relatively close in the scheme of things, and they’re going to carpool. A few emails later, a bit of price negotiating, and we have a band! They are called the O’Shanigans (not the Oh Shenanigans, Mr. Veggie). Aren’t they rad?

Source

They’ve also offered to let us use their sound equipment for the rest of the night, in exchange for accommodations at the camp. That sounds good to us!

What I haven’t figured out yet exactly is the timing of the evening. The band will play for 2 1/2 hours. So, I suppose they will start well after dinner so that people have time to digest before spinning their dinner all over the floor. So, what do we do during dinner? When do we do our first dance? Where will speeches fall? How long after dinner should we wait for the band to play? Hmm… there is lots to think about still.

Have you ever been to a contra dance?