When planning your Colorado wedding reception, a lot of thought goes into the timeline. How long should cocktail hour last? When should you have the First Dance? When do the toasts happen? The wedding reception timeline serves as a road map for your wedding vendors so we can keep things moving along. If you are working with a wedding planner/coordinator (which we strongly recommend), they will plan out the order of events with you and make sure there are no “dragging” moments. As Denver Wedding DJs, we work hand-in-hand with your planner & other vendors to make sure we are all on the same page before we make any announcements. The timeline serves as our guide so we can keep guests informed on the important events, such as to when they should take their seats for the Grand Entrance. Our friends at The Knot recently posted an article about the Basic Wedding Reception Timeline and it covers a lot of the elements. Here is a link to the full article:
Basic Reception Timeline
Most of the receptions we DJ here in Colorado follow a slightly different order, though. Here is a basic rundown:
-Receiving Line (Haven’t seen this very often, but it’s popular in other parts of the country)
-Cocktail Hour (Usually lasts 1 hour while the couple & family are taking pictures)
-Grand Entrance of the Bride, Groom & Wedding Party
-Dinner
-Champagne Toast (Begins after the last table has their food – about 30 minutes after dinner starts)
-Cake Cutting (Immediately following toasts)
-First Dance/Father-Daughter Dance/Mother-Son Dance (Immediately following cake cutting)
-Open Dancing
Obviously, you can customize this order and timing to whatever you want. As the Master of Ceremonies, our job is to keep the flow moving smoothly and not have guests saying “Man, this is really dragging along.” So, we’ll all work together to put together a wedding reception timeline that makes sense and keeps everybody on track.
When it comes to entertainment for your Denver wedding – or any event for that matter – some people feel that an iPod connected to a couple of speakers is all that they need. It’s just music, after all. Well, that’s not entirely accurate… Music is an important piece of your wedding reception entertainment, but there is so much more that a professional DJ/MC provides than the music. Our trained, professional Wedding Disc Jockeys from Denver, Colorado take great pride in the experience we deliver to your wedding guests. Check out this great article from a wedding planner in Toronto who speaks from her own personal experience.
You’ve had your First Dance, Father-Daughter Dance, and Mother-Son Dance. Now, it’s time to pack the dance floor & party! The DJ plays <insert best song ever here>, and nobody moves. Let’s face it – nobody really wants to be the first peron on a dance floor. We love using the Wedding Party Dance to fix this. We invite all of the bridesmaids & groomsmen to join the bride & groom on the dance floor and play a fun, upbeat song for them to dance to. About 1 minute into the song, we invite all the other guests to come join them. And they do! The dance floor is packed, and the party has begun!
This is one of the most special moments during a wedding reception – when a new Bride get’s to share a special dance with her Daddy. A lot of thought goes into selecting a song for this, and while looking through our Father-Daughter dance selections over the years, the classic songs really seem to still be the most popular. Here are the Top 5 with YouTube links, as well as a list of the top 50 from last year. (Photo Credit – 
