Weddingbee Blog

Unfortunately, we will not be having dancing at our wedding.

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While many backyard weddings do rent out a dance floor and have a DJ setup, we can’t really afford that.

My parents have weighed in on the importance of having some form of entertainment after we cut the cake. My mom wants some old lady she knows to come sing. That’s incredibly random and a little scary.

What does my dad want? OK, picture this. An intimate backyard wedding in an L.A. suburb, with a Japanese theme. Cherry blossoms, paper lanterns, paper cranes, the works. And an English Sunday roast for dinner. Candles everywhere and the new night sky casting a glow as friends and family who haven’t seen each other in years talk about old memories and catch up. And then…

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Don’t get me wrong—I love mariachi. On our second anniversary, we had a mariachi serenade us with some Selena while we were eating bomb carne asada and sipping tequila. But maybe, this time, not for our wedding.

So, no dancing, no weird singing lady, and no mariachi. What’s left?

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People can eat our yummy homemade desserts, fill up their cups, listen to some music from our iPod selection, and hang out. The guests can start to leave whenever they’d like. I’ve mentioned my love of Beer Pong and King’s Cup; those kind of games could happen here. Because we are having a backyard wedding, we have to think about the neighbors. We don’t want to turn our backyard into a rowdy, “Livin’ On A Prayer” blastin’ noise complaint. And with only 50 guests, half of whom are family people and would like to get home to their kids, we don’t expect anyone to wanna hang out all night in our backyard. Considering I haven’t been home in two years and most of my friends and family friends have met Mr. Glasses only a handful of times, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to replace dancing with good old fashioned conversation.

Since we won’t be having dancing, we’d better make sure to have an awesome playlist so that our guests don’t get bored. We are going to play upbeat, fun songs that aren’t too explicit. Essential to our list are:

• Jack Johnson
• The Beatles
• Frank Sinatra
• Outkast
• The Black Eyed Peas
• ABBA
• The Beach Boys
• Oasis
• Beyonce
• Michael Jackson
• The Pet Shop Boys
• Elton John
• Queen
• Elvis Presley

Check out Hi-Fi Weddings’s list of popular wedding tunes. This list really helped me out!

Mr. Glasses and I have very different tastes in music, but we’ve agreed that we’ll leave the altar with The Darkness’s “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” and be introduced with Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” (which is our song, btw!).

We are also foregoing the garter toss because believe it or not, none of our male guests are single. I think it would be kind of fun to do the bouquet toss because a lot of my girlfriends are single, but I’ll have to see if the single ladies are interested.

Are you forgoing any wedding traditions? What’s on your must-play list?