Mobile DJ Tips: Wedding Timelines | The best TIMELINE for your WEDDING

Here in Iowa dance sets don’t start until after all formalities.
Introduction
Dinner / cake cutting
Speeches
Special Dances
Open Dance (1hr)
Bouquet/Garder Toss
Open Dance
I always try to suggest special dances and a short open dance right after the grand entrance but the caters are always scheduled to serve right away!

If you do a timeline as shown at 8:12, then older people will tend to leave earlier in the evening because most of them will get tired and may not stay for cake and cake activities and dancing.

For our weddings, it's usually grand entrance, dinner, then bang out all the formalities to get to one long dance set as soon as possible.

Wow! I’ve never seen timelines like the first two! In Chicago it’s intros, cake cut, prayer, toasts, dinner then we open dance floor with first dance, father daughter, mother son and then invite guests. Sometimes first dance for b&g dance on intros but I’d rather have them lead the dance floor later in the evening! A lot of drinking out this way and they want to eat THEN party…those other line ups sound like ALOT of crowd control! Hour of cocktail, hour and 15 min for dinner then2.5 -3 hours dance time has been the standard for my 30 years…Do they close the bar during dinner out your way?

Everything up front and 6 hour receptions is standard here. 3 hours of dancing is pretty normal. Seeing dancing in gig logs before dinner in gig logs is VERY strange to me. I'm not positive people would do that here but I'd like to try it.

Yea i guess its just depending on the family. You get the gist 😏.

Most West African weddings timeline, they cut cake during dinner.. good stuff guys.🙌🏾

I'm in Atlantic Canada on the east coast and we do the all-up-front timeline with a 4-5 hour dance at the end. As you both mentioned… ALWAYS challenging to keep good numbers on the floor for that length of time. I try to break up the dance by throwing garter/bouquet, shoe game etc. in periodically to bring the energy back up a bit. Not much else we can do with it.

You guys are wonderful thank you for this

It’s definitely different everywhere.. Here in San Antonio they do intro first then dinner …

Bouquet! Not bouqet.

what about wedding games? what's your favorite? 🙂

Every region of the country will have their own traditions/norms that are followed. This hits home the need to sit down with your couples to understand their vision. I'm in the west and occasionally I will provide service to an east coast couples that want this timeline. In the west we tend to do all non-dance activities first and build momentum/energy towards the dance floor throughout the evening vs. having dance sets intermingled throughout the timeline. Most DJ's in the west general approach is: "once we get them on the dance floor we want to keep them there". The up and and down energy; stop and go approach to the east coast timeline is what I struggle with. Bottom line – know your customer and be willing to adapt according to their needs/wants.

My team does about 25 weddings a year, and the best strategy we use is to get all of the formalities out of the way. Grand entrance, first dance, parent dances. These are all stoppages in time where people have to stop, look and observe. You wanna minimize the amount of times that happens during the reception. We always contact the venue or ask the client what time the venue has set dinner for. We cannot finalize our timeline without that, and we cannot makeup our own time for that. Some venues go right into taking orders so dinner can start right away, and other venues have dinner that may start later, so then your first dance set can start right after the formalities. Some clients opt for a buffet style dinner, but regardless, the chef and their team will communicate if they are ahead/behind schedule for whatever reason, and we are able to manipulate on the fly. We do toasts during dinner since they are sitting down eating anyway. Doing formalities right after a dance set can get tricky because if the dance floor was lively, guests will see the stoppage as an opportunity to do everything but focus on the formality (bathroom break, smoke break, hit the bar, etc), when this is the time to focus on the couple. It’s creates a bad visual, especially if the bar is not the same room as the reception.

Dj bar. Love ur videos but when i ask a question. No never answer, 🤔

Midwest is normally intro, cake cut, welcome/prayer from Father or someone, dinner, toast, first dances, and then it leads to open dance. Most of the time it’s because of the food people and cake needing to be cut. But that’s with 3-4hr reception.

Some crazy timelines where you are from.

Some great tips guys! in New Zealand most timelines is everything first then after dessert (around 8-9pm) First Dance's – then Main Dance, I have never done a first dance any earlier than just before the main dance. THE GOOD: once first dance is over the dance floor is ready to party THE BAD: The crowd can be tuckered out and a bit "Overs" by then so they dance for a bit then muck round. And thats where you have to use your DJ skillz and mic work, fancy mixing etc.

Most of my Weddings in South Central Tx: 5pm – Intro, 6pm – Dinner, 7pm – cake, 7:30pm – toast, 8:00pm – Grand March, 8:15pm -First dance, parent dances, 8:30pm – open dance floor, 9:30pm – boquet/garter, 9:45 continie dance til 12am

I just had this conversation with a couple coming out to Northern California from the East Coast. Because they are using 4 locations at the same venue I suggested a casual entrance into cocktail hour. Plus their wedding party is already enjoying cocktail hour.. Then while we invite their guests into the dining area we line up then wedding party and B&G for their formal introduction.
Personally I feel it’s better that way because you have all the guests seated and have their full attention. A lot of our weddings are buffet style which goes a lot faster than plated dinners so there is no break for salads and the main course. Depending on how many guests there are I’ll wait 10-15 min after the last guests goes through the buffet line before starting to pour champagne for the toasts. By the time the champagne is finished being poured the last guests should be close to being done eating. Right after the last toast I have the bride and groom say their thank you’s and any acknowledgments they’d like to make at that time wether it’s family and friends from out of town. Sometimes it’s someone’s anniversary or birthday.

A typical Northern California timeline looks like this

4:00–5:20 Extended cocktail hour. Allows for time Incase pictures run long. Also allows the B&G a chance to freshen up and use the restroom before greeting their guests
5:20–5:30 seat guests for dinner
5:30–5:35 introduction
5:35–6:30 dinner
6:10–6:20 pour champagne
6:20–6:30 toasts
6:30–6:45 first dance and parent dances
6:45–10:00 dancing (first hour of dancing I play a wide variety)
7:45–7:55 cake/bouquet/garter toss

After cake I start to cater more towards what the B&G personal taste. Older guests tend to leave after cake.

I use cocktail hour and dinner to play a wide variety of music as well. I keep the music up beat (not dancing music) so by the time dancing starts most of the guests would have heard music they enjoy giving them faith that they will also enjoy the music I play for dancing.
The reality of it all is that if you can read the crowd and play music that creates a connection with them then you will have a successful night.
When couples ask me what separates me from other DJs….I say we all have the same 20,000 songs but what separates all of us is the way we play any given song and the order we play them in. Being able to read a room and getting everyone to dance from their oldest guest to their youngest guest.
It doesn’t matter how many songs we have if we don’t know how and when to play them.