What music if any, is inappropriate for weddings

[Andy P]

First new post in a while...

Read a post today and was a little shocked. Won't labour on it but did stir up a question

What genres or styles or music do we feel are not appropriate for a wedding *unless the client specifically requests*


Me personally, my repertoire does not include any Rave or Metal, I try to stay this side of the 50's and limit the harshness of the Hip Hop


What are your boundaries

[Imagine]

First new post in a while...

Read a post today and was a little shocked. Won't labour on it but did stir up a question

What genres or styles or music do we feel are not appropriate for a wedding *unless the client specifically requests*


Me personally, my repertoire does not include any Rave or Metal, I try to stay this side of the 50's and limit the harshness of the Hip Hop


What are your boundaries

I have no boundaries and no shame.

The customer (the Bride and Groom) pay me to play what they want. I've done weddings with huge sections of Rave, Metal, and even Drum & Bass (never again on the latter).

I've even stooped so low in the past as to do an all night absolute cheese fest (and I'm talking YMCA, Cha Cha Slide, Oops Upside Your Head....you get the idea).

Obviously if left to my own devices I play to the guests with whatever's going to get them up and busting moves on my 'floor which is usually a bit of everything.

[Excalibur]

I have no boundaries and no shame.

The customer (the Bride and Groom) pay me to play what they want. I've done weddings with huge sections of Rave, Metal, and even Drum & Bass (never again on the latter).

I've even stooped so low in the past as to do an all night absolute cheese fest (and I'm talking YMCA, Cha Cha Slide, Oops Upside Your Head....you get the idea).

Obviously if left to my own devices I play to the guests with whatever's going to get them up and busting moves on my 'floor which is usually a bit of everything.

Exactly what he said, with one qualification. If under eighteens are present, explicit tracks will not be played. Otherwise, it's all grist to the mill.

[mattydj50]

I did steer clear of a request one night for Yvonne Fair's "It should have been me", and Band of Gold is one I shy away from being all about divorce.

Apart from that, anything with rudey dudey words in are verboten, though the clean versions, usually courtesy of Mastermix, DMC or Now are fine.

[Jim - Scotland's Party DJ]

Ooh how did I miss this thread?

It it works and is what my bride and grooms want then i'll play it unless it's grossly offensive lyrically, political (i.e. Loyalist / Rebel tunes) or football related unless the B&G support a team and expressly ask me to play it but even then there's a veto depending on the songs.

That being said, you wouldn't have liked Saturdays setlist.

7pm start (bride didn't even care if her evening guests had arrived or not, charming) through to 1:45 with 90% of it being dance music and I mean hard dance.

It was pretty fun for me because I got to do some tasty mixing for a change.

The oldies hated it and vocalised it to me. I explained that this was what the bride and groom wanted and any time I deviated from it, she would tell me to get back to the dance stuff and it was her wedding after all. One aunt challenged her on it and was told she could get one song from the 70s then could off (again, charming)

The majority of the crowd though who were off their face on all sorts lapped it up. I was REALLY against her wishes and let her know in a diplomatic way but for once (and with the aid of a load of class A and B narcotics) the "it's fine, we all love a dance" statement was actually true!!!


I had to caveat to a potential client today however that this setlist which is now on my homepage is nowhere near indicative of what I usually do.


I did have a barney on one of the Scottish forums a year or two ago because he took umbridge to me playing Chumbawumba as a 'One more song' number.

He was a DJ anyway but I'm not sure why he got so indignant about that being played at a wedding. It's a stone cold banger and works great with indie crowds. Maybe he's still playing his Aerosmith and Bryan Adams tunes at his weddings

[Nakatomi]

I don't think any music is really inappropriate for weddings as such. Certain types suit some customers & crowds better than others but really pretty much anything goes in my book. That said I still feel slightly uncomfortable playing tracks with sweary lyrics even though censored versions generally sound ridiculous to me.

For me there's no "you can't play XYZ" at a wedding, where XYZ is hiphop, rave, metal or whatever - with one caveat along the lines of Jim's comments about secularism/tribalism. Tracks like The Best & Penny Arcade can & DO cause major rucks & we have to be very careful.

So yeah I play Young Hearts Run Free & Band of Gold at weddings.. Heck a bride last year asked me to play Sash - Encore Une Fois for her ex & they both had a damn good bounce around to it as new hubby looked on smiling. Really, if many people cared that much about a song's lyrical content we wouldn't see Heartland - I Loved Her First as a father & daughter dance IMHO. My nickname for that track is along the lines of "I got there first".

Jim - I've just looked at your site & the list you mentioned didn't strike me as particularly ravey. A wee bit dance heavy maybe. Not too far from what I need to play about half the time at my gigs. But DJ Bad Boy.. What a load of ... crock! Just can't beat a good Jesse Bloch remix though! (his Paramore edit isn't one of his best IMHO). BTW If you wanna know about ravey at weddings.. one of my mates gets quite a lot of call for makina. Maybe that's one area I wouldn't go - but purely because I know so little about it.