As a bride and groom, you should be able to request as many songs as you want. The reason? It’s YOUR party! Some brides create a lengthy list because they’re afraid that the DJ doesn’t understand their preferences. But is it necessary to come up with a list of 50-100 dance songs for your DJ to rely on?
The short answer is, “No.”
Here’s why: when it comes to the dancing, your DJ’s primary job is to 1. Know your tastes and 2. Read the crowd. What songs are you actually dancing to at your wedding? What are your guests dancing to? What are they not dancing to? What songs is grandma tapping her feet to? This is what it means to read the crowd. If your DJ can’t do this, you might as well save some money and press play on your favorite Spotify Playlist.
The number one reason couples feel like they need to make 100-200 requests comes down to one thing– a lack of trust in their DJ.
Let’s approach this from a logistical standpoint. Over the course of 3 1/2 hours of dancing, your DJ will likely play around 60 songs. Let’s assume that you don’t want to pre-script all of the songs ahead of time. So then, what percentage of these 60 songs should be hand-selected by you and your fiancé?
In college, I’d often write a 10 page essay and my professor would always say the same thing- “This is good, but edit it down to four pages.” The process of editing was painful, but it always resulted in a better paper. This is the exact advice we give our brides and grooms.
Edit your 100 requests down to 35. It will allow for all of your “Must Plays” to be heard, but it will also give time for two more important occurrences: 1. Guest requests and 2. Time for your DJ to read the crowd.
With this said, our advice is simple:
Choose a DJ you trust, and give him or her around 35 songs that you can’t live without. Then, let him/her do the rest.
If you’re curious about what types of songs to request, see our 7 Tips for Dance Floor Song Selection to get educated in a jiffy.