First Dance Songs For Your Wedding

How to choose a first dance song

• Aim for 2:30 to 3:30. Anything over four minutes feels long to a standing room unless you invite others in.
• Check the lyrics all the way through — a surprising number of romantic-sounding songs are about breakups.
• Play it once at full volume in a big room. Songs feel different on speakers than in headphones.
• Avoid songs with a long ambient intro; you will be standing still through all of it.
• If you are not dancing, pick something with a strong steady beat you can sway to at 60–90 BPM.
• If you are choreographing, pick the song at least 10 weeks out so you can rehearse.
• Invite the wedding party or parents in at the two-minute mark on any song over 3:30.

Classic and timeless first dance songs

Modern and pop first dance songs

• Die With A Smile — Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars (4:12)
• Perfect — Ed Sheeran (4:23)
• Lover — Taylor Swift (3:41)
• Beyond — Leon Bridges (3:33)
• Until I Found You — Stephen Sanchez (2:56)
• Adore You — Harry Styles (3:27)
• Say You Won't Let Go — James Arthur (3:31)
• Golden Hour — JVKE (3:29)
• Yellow — Coldplay (4:29)
• All of Me — John Legend (4:29)
• Lost in Japan — Shawn Mendes (3:20)
• Sunday Best — Surfaces (2:39)

Country and folk first dance songs

• Speechless — Dan + Shay
• Die a Happy Man — Thomas Rhett
• Yours — Russell Dickerson
• From the Ground Up — Dan + Shay
• Amazed — Lonestar
• Then — Brad Paisley
• Tennessee Whiskey — Chris Stapleton
• The Luckiest — Ben Folds
• First Day of My Life — Bright Eyes
• Home — Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

Upbeat first dance songs (no slow swaying)

An upbeat first dance is the single easiest way to get the floor busy early. If you go upbeat, keep it to about two and a half minutes and have the DJ invite everyone in for the second chorus.

• You Make My Dreams — Hall & Oates (3:11)
• Signed, Sealed, Delivered — Stevie Wonder (2:42)
• Lovely Day — Bill Withers (4:14)
• I Wanna Dance With Somebody — Whitney Houston (4:52)
• Crazy Little Thing Called Love — Queen (2:43)
• Valerie — Mark Ronson ft. Amy Winehouse (3:41)
• Best Day of My Life — American Authors (3:14)
• Marry You — Bruno Mars (3:50)
• Can't Stop the Feeling — Justin Timberlake (3:56)
• September — Earth, Wind & Fire (3:35)

Parent dance songs

• Cut parent dances to 90 seconds — a full song is noticeably long for a watching room.
• Do both parent dances back to back, not spread across the night.
• Warn your DJ if a parent has died so they can handle the moment carefully.

How to cut and cue the track

• Send your DJ the exact version and artist — live, acoustic, and radio edits differ by up to a minute.
• Ask for a fade at a chorus end, never mid-verse.
• Practise to the edited version, not the original, if you are choreographing.
• Agree a hand signal with the DJ for an early fade if the moment runs long.
• Line up the next three floor-fillers immediately after so the energy does not drop.
• Confirm whether the photographer wants the room lights up for the dance.