What Makes The Perfect

First Dance Song.

Hi Everyone, my name is Shannon and I am one of the female vocalists for The Beat Freaks. I know from personal experience how daunting a first dance can be, because I was you nearly 3 years ago. Suddenly after many years together my husband and I couldn’t think of a single song we both liked enough to be our first dance. We knew we didn’t want it to be related to work, he’s a musician too, and we knew we wanted all of our guests to get up and dance with us after the first chorus. The thought of dancing on our own for a whole song scared us, and if you can do it great, I have seen so many beautiful choreographed first dances while performing with The Beat Freaks. But my husband steps on my feet when we’re dancing in the kitchen, and I really didn’t fancy have bruised toes on my wedding day. Sorry…..our wedding day.

We spent months throwing ideas around, and we did pick some bangers, but none of them felt like “the one”. There was always one song we’d both sing at the top of our lungs but the song made us laugh because we found what the lyrics were actually about, and in our immature teenage like brains we still find it hilarious to day.

However was is appropriate to play at a wedding? If you didnt know what the song was really about you’d think it was a love song, all about getting to know each other and slowly falling in love, none of this “love at first sight” business. Which was perfect for us. But we also know our friends and they know what the song is about, so it couldn’t be our first dance, but it would be the second song on our playlist.

The song was “Growing On Me” by The Darkness… and if you know what the lyrics are actually about, then you’ll understand why we thought we couldn’t do it.

We finally settled on “Baby, I Love Your Way” - by Great Big Mountain, its a such a fun song, and with it being reggae it was very easy to just sway too.

We practised in the kitchen, I watched my toes, and we were settled on it. Until “Growing On Me” came on our playlist, we both looked at each other mid chorus “You’re Really Growing On Me” and said, this is the one. The older guests don’t need to know what its really about and our friends will just have to hold it together for 4 minutes on the night.

And there you have it, our first dance was chosen and by the time the first dance came around my husband had a few gins in system, so no ones toes were safe and everybody at our wedding had an absolute ball dancing to our favourite song, and we had a great time watching everyone dance to a song that is about…..go and google it.

So what makes the perfect first dance? In my opinion it is a song that means something to you both, a song that makes you laugh or bringss back happy memories, a song you can listen to time and time again. You don’t have to be a dancer, as long as you can bob in time to the music you’re on to a good one, and seeing you and your loved one with a smile on your faces is all anybody will be really watching.

Still struggling with your First Dance ideas? Here is a little blog I wrote for our friends at Farnham Castle back in 2021, in which I list a few of our favourite songs that we have performed as a first dance in past. Maybe they could inspire your descion.