Ok, this could get some brides thinking I am a militant hyper opinionated dj and business owner. Well, the truth is it’s really more about helping my clients have a great wedding. Here is the tip and a little background.
1) Michigan has the longest wedding receptions in the country already with 6 hours as the norm. Even New York is at 4 hours.
2) People with kids and those married over the age of 25 generally speaking, not always have some sort of internal ding that says “get to bed my midnight”. I didn’t create this ding – it just is.
So, if you do have the usual 6 hour Michigan Wedding Reception, consider that 6 hours is 2 times longer than you ever, even in your college party days, spent dancing. “Oh but Dan, my friends and I used to get to the club around 10 and dance until it closed”… OK OK – but the club didn’t have to play music for people of all ages. They often just played to that core target market and that is a whole lot easier than keeping 150 people going at a wedding where people have diverse tastes and stamina. I am not suggesting you cut back to less time but I sure hope you can see that 7 hours is for 99% of the crowds too long. The best weddings are the ones where the floor is still packed at closing time and that is way harder to do when the dance window goes from 3.5 hours to 4.5 hours. Not impossible (I’ve done it) but the law of diminishing returns comes to play.
Remember I mentioned the midnight and people’s internal ding? Here is a tricky way to use that to your advantage. Start your Michigan Wedding Reception at 5pm and go to 11pm. Now, everyone is home on time for their sitter and are surprised when the last dance comes an hour earlier than expected. Now, you have a full house at closing time. This is a good way to end. As a Michigan professional wedding dj, I am only suggesting that you’ll get more out of your night by having more people there for the entire evening than if they start rolling out to get home by midnight. For more great wedding reception tips check out the video below.
