Weddingbee Blog

Mr. D and I are music junkies. Combined we probably have about 10,000 songs on iTunes, enough to almost play for two weeks solid without repeating a song. We are one of those couples who make these crazy mixes for our road trips too. “Bumpity bump mix 2″ is one of my particular favorites with a little vintage Bones, Thugs, Harmony on it. And naturally you can’t forget “Rock it all night mix 6″ with Zeppelin, Hendrix, and Clapton on it.

However, despite the tons of music that we have, we don’t have a song.

I can’t believe I finally admitted that out loud. Mr. D and Miss Doily do not have an official song.

Which is why choosing a first song was such a pain in the rear for us. You think it would be so easy, but since we do not have a song that we have considered “ours,” we weren’t sure where to even start. Mr. D was discouraged before we even started. It was difficult to get him interested in choosing. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, it’s that he’s kind of nervous about dancing in front of everyone, even if they are our nearest and dearest.

After several months of attempting and failing to get Mr. D to sit and have a serious conversation about our first dance, I knew that I would have to come up with something brilliant to get him interested and participating.

I’m sure I easily could have picked a song and he would have been fine with it, but after 7 years together, we are finally going to get “our” song and I wanted to make sure that both of us were involved in the decision.

So I took what Mr. D loves most after me, and used it as fuel to get his fire going. What exactly did I do? Well, I took his deep love of sports and competitiveness and applied that to our first dance decision.

Mr. D during his college playing years. Look at his little butt!

So what exactly did I do to make him want to jump back into tackling (sorry, no pun intended!) this dilemma of ours?

Remember back when I said that Mr. D and I play in a fantasy football league every year? Well there is another sporting event that we participate in. My friends, welcome to the madness.

Image via NCAA Men’s Basketball

We also are bracket nuts. Every year we participate with a group of friends, filling out our brackets and being super competitive. I usually beat him, much to his displeasure, since it’s all luck and never skill.

But what does this have to do with our first dance? Well, it gave me the vehicle I needed to really get him to think about what song he would like. So I made this up:

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a bracket full of first dance hopefuls. Mr. D and I each picked 8 songs that we would like each other to consider for our first dance songs and we ranked them from our most favorite at seed one, all the way down to seed 8. Then I matched them up with each other.

So how does it work? Well, each day we could tackle a part of the bracket (four songs at a time). We would listen to the songs, debate about why that one should be a contender. Then we would vote. If we stuck to our guns, and neither of us could be swayed, we would email our closest friends and family and have them give some thoughts. We would discuss it again, and each time we were able to decide which song made the cut. After two weeks of discussions, of taunts, of jokes, of laughter, of love, we were able to pick OUR song.

So which one made it? Well, you will have to wait to find out! Any guesses in the meantime?