Is a 5 minute first dance too long?

Basically agree with the above. We haven't picked ours yet but one of the stipulations is that it must be short! But if you're happy with it then go for it.

You could always get your bridesmaids and ushers to encourage people to get up and join you. Ours is fairly standard, about 3 mins, but I have already told everyone involved they must get up after a minute and join us! But maybe when you are dancing for the first time as hubby and wife you won't notice if it is 5 or 50!

To be honest, for an unknown song 5 minutes is a bit long.

Guests will normally get up and join in, but may need a bit more encouragement for a song they don't know.

From what I've heard, it is a nice song and will be easy to dance to, so less of a problem than some songs I've been asked to play.

Your DJ (with ushers+bridesmaids etc) should be able to help with this.

It may be possible to edit the song down (I've not listened to it in detail), but even if it can't be edited, and fairly simple voice-over whilst a 2nd dance is faded in can also help to shorten it.

Jason

What's been your worst? ?

If you want the first dance just to be you 2 with nobody joining in then yes i would say 5 mins is far too long, if you get people to join in after say a minute its not too bad!

any weddings i have been to, the first dance is always a bit of an akward moment where everyone starts to get bored after a minute so maybe get bridesmaids/ushers to encourage people onto the dance floor after a while or fade the song out early?

x

I would say that yes five minutes is too long. I think even you would get bored. Ours is 3.21 and we had a dance to it on new years eve and even then it seemed to go on for flipping ages! ha ha.

For me 5 seconds is filling me with dread but if you want 5 minutes you go for it!! xx

Lol! I won't go into details, but obviously songs that no-one else knows or likes (so not a typical "slowie") were difficult to get any guests to join in.

There was once instance where guests didn't want to join in at all - the B&G spent most of it alone - I cut it a bit short rather than prolong it (they were wrapped up in the moment -so it was very sweet!).

I always think the 1st dance is a very personal choice, and a 2nd dance is often something well-known. We had Ramones -Baby I love you. Its a bit of an oldie - the Aunts and Uncles knew the Ronettes version, and it wasn't too strange.
I don't really have any opinions about what is good or bad with this type of song choice - its not my place to, and really just what it to be perfect.

We can't decide on our first dance song. 'Our' song is Mardy Bum by Arctic Monkeys but we thought that was a bit tongue in cheek for the first dance so we're having it as our 2nd song. We were going to have Good Day Sunshine by the Beatles but that was more down to my taste than his so we're having a rethink. Still no clue!

Sorry for thread hijack OP!

Ours was about 5 mins long, but we had little bits from lots of songs to tell a story and we did a little routine with it which was fun and went down really well.

We're having that for our first dance! The Ramones version of course! ?

Thanks for the replies everyone, think I might have to make sure that bridesmaids and their partners get up as well, and get other guests up as I would like the whole song as its lovely but would feel a bit daft just being us for that long.