Wedding Reception Music
 

Before you start hitting that search button, I know that there have been a few threads on this before. However, wedding music needs to include some brand spankin' new hits along with the golden oldies. Anyhow, auto is getting married in June and his one (ONE!) responsibility was to pick out the music by the end of March. Now it's due and I don't know if I have exactly what I need. I don't go to a lot of weddings so I'm not sure how the mix should be between different types of music.

I specifically am having trouble deciding on an appropriate first dance song, mom/son song and dad/daughter song.

I would like to stay away from some of the super cheesy songs you hear at a lot of weddings but I realize that you want people to have fun and dance as well. My initial thought to have exclusively Sigur Ros tunes was shot down. :)

Anyhow, here is a list of contenders. Let me know what you think of these and please add more. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

(apologies for the formatting)
Runaway" by The Corrs
Sweetest Thing by U2
Crazy by Gnarls Barkley
You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything(Even Take The Dog For A Walk, Mend A Fuse, Fold Away The Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Short Comings)" by the Faces
Baby, Dream Your Dream by Tony Bennet
Bob Dylan - "Wedding Song"
Ben Folds - The Luckiest
Jeff Buckley- "Hallejuah"
eric clapton wonderful tonight
Beatles - Here There Anywhere
Etta James - At Last
How Can I Tell You" by Cat Stevens
If I Should Fall Behind" by Bruce Springsteen
Taking you Home" by Don Henley
Into Your Arms" by Nick Cave
Madness - Our House
They Might Be Giants - Birdhouse In Your Soul
Thank You' by Led Zeppelin
Pump it Up - Elvis Costello
Come What May" from Moulin Rouge
It Had To Be You by Frank Sinatra
picture in a frame by tom waits
Bob Dylan - I Want You
Beach Boys - Gold Only Knows
Maybe I'm Amazed - Paul McCartney
Something - Beatles - Abbey Road
Your Song - Elton John - Greatest Hits
Dance me to the end of love by Leonard Cohen
Lou Reed's cover of "This Magic Moment"
Neil Young- Harvest Moon
Holly Cole's cover of Tom Waits' "I Want You"
This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)" by Talking Heads
Lou Reed - Perfect Day
The Verve's- Sonnet
I've Found A Reason by the Velvet Underground
Northern Sky by Nick Drake
The Way You Look Tonight (Frank Sinatra
As Time Goes By (from Casablanca)
When I Fall In Love (Nat King Cole)
Dance Me to the End of Love," Madeleine Peyroux
Al Green Simply Beautiful
Yo La Tengo - You Can Have It All
Don't Give Up by Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush
Bob Dylan - Man in Me

you hate your guests, don't you? people wanna dance at weddings.

at the risk of aging myself horribly:

Yaz - Only You
Frankie Goes To Hollywood - The Power Of Love

and something from this century:
Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea


Kudos on Nick Cave's Into My Arms. That's usually my standard suggestion...



I was assuming this was for cocktail/dinner music, before the drunken dancefloor madness begins... :shrug:

anything but tiny dancer.

Nice list we actually used a few of those songs at our wedding too, I've seen At Last by Etta James work well as a first dance or father/bride dance at other weddings.

Here's a couple more that served us well:

Tom Petty- Wildflowers (our first dance song)
When in Rome- The Promise
Rob Base- It Takes Two
Big Audio Dynamite- Rush
Prince- Let's Go Crazy
Steely Dan- Peg
Beck- Beercan
Outkast- Hey Ya

Remember you don't just need sappy love songs, but crowd movers too!

YES!!! There is nothing more romantic than "I'll protect you from the hooded claw. Keep the vampires from your door."

What can I say? I was married in '86. We played it during our ceremony....

norah jones - come away with me... one of my friends used this as their first dance and i was like "FUCK, now i cant use it in the event some woman is dumb enough to marry me"

Admittedly, I'm no good at this shit. That's why I got you people involved.