Weddingbee Blog

We love to dance. Love it. Neither of us has any dance skill or talent whatsoever, so it’s not like we’re fancy dancing. We’re more…arms flailing, hips shimmying with awkward, limb-y movements, and we will not be stopped.

We dance in the car, we dance in the living room and kitchen. If you invite us over, we’ll probably dance in your house, too. If you invite us to your wedding, you bet your shakin’ booty that we will dance.

In fact, we see every wedding invitation as a contract of sorts. When we sign our names on the RSVP card, we agree to the terms as follows: we watch you get married, you give us food and drink, we bust a sweet move on your dance floor all night long. And to be clear: alcohol has disturbingly little to do with our nonexistent dance inhibitions. We have danced at dry weddings with equal enthusiasm.

At every wedding we attend, there are always a few tables that are seemingly hellbent on NOT MOVING. If anything, they begrudgingly trot out for “At Last.” And honestly—this bums me out. I mean, the metaphor doesn’t sit right: these are the people that go through life watching other people dance. The truth is that no one is watching you, no one cares if your dancing is “good”—in fact, it’s better when it’s awesomely bad.

Dancing is almost uniquely human. With the exception of a few avian mating rituals, dancing is something we upright bipeds do to express joy, to feel the music, to celebrate life. I want people to dance at my wedding. Here is how I am going to make them:

Cold hard cash. That’s right. We, the bride and groom, will be offering a shiny Benjamin to the most enthusiastic dancer. Maybe you will win the moolah for being an awesome dancer; maybe you will win for being an awesomely bad dancer. Our guests have between three and four minutes, or the length of ONE SONG. We figure, after this activity, everyone will have already hit “shameless” and have nowhere to go but up. Hopefully, this will encourage them to stay on the dance floor all night.

We got the idea from a photographer, who said this little contest provided him the best dance-floor shots of his entire career. Plus, everyone who we’ve mentioned it to—from my brother to grandpa—has responded the same: I. am going. to win.

But what song? I consider this song choice as important as our recessional or entrance. Of course, it has to have a dance-worthy beat. I usually shy away from overly well-known music, but this song must be ubiquitous. I want equal-opportunity tail-feather shaking; everyone should know the song.

We have a front runner, but we could use your input. Kindly stand up. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Good. Now click play and bust it like someone might give you a hundred bucks.

How’d it go? Any other suggestions?