When it comes to music requests, there are a lot of questions that a bride must ask herself before she decides if she is going to let her guests make music requests on the biggest night of her life. While I cannot give you the ultimate answer on whether you should or shouldn’t allow requests, here are some pros and cons of both decisions and an approach that might be a good middle ground.
Reasons you SHOULD allow guests to make music requests at your wedding.
By allowing requests, the DJ can accommodate a much more comprehensive range of tastes than just that of the newlyweds. When a couple plans their music, they might not realize that a relative or friend might secretly like a style they didn’t prepare for. Most of the time, the guest isn’t trying to take over the night; they might want to slow dance to a country song or two with their loved one.
Allowing requests can give the DJ an idea of what the crowd is in the mood for and their energy level. If the DJ plays a more high-energy style set, the guests might get tired quicker than the DJ realizes. If the DJ is playing more down-tempo music, but the guests have been amped up for dancing for 2 hours, allowing the guests to make requests can let the DJ know it’s time to turn it up!
Allowing requests gives guests a sense of participation and involvement in the vibe of the night. Typically when a request is made by an individual and is played, the person that made the request will grab a few of their friends to hit the dance floor with them as they enjoy their song.
Reasons you Should NOT allow guests to make music requests at your wedding:
Guests might request songs on your “Do Not Play” list. The “do not play” list is typically the list of songs that DJs will not play, no matter what. You might have songs on the do not play list that are “good songs” to others, but you do not want to hear for whatever reason. Your typical guest won’t know those reasons. Guests can feel alienated or disappointed when they ask for songs on that list and their requests aren’t played.
Guests might request inappropriate songs or songs at the wrong time of the night. This is usually not done out of spite. Still, some guests don’t understand the golden rule of “wait until grandma leaves” before you start getting into songs that might be considered questionable to older guests.
Crowd requests might not fit the overall vibe you are going for on your wedding day. Some guests might have a preconceived notion of what wedding music consists of and won’t understand the planning you and your spouse have put into making your perfect playlist for YOUR wedding.
A “Middle Ground” approach:
One way to accommodate your guest’s requests AND to make sure requests stay within the vibe you want for your wedding is to allow the guests to make requests that you screen BEFORE the wedding. This is what I like to call a middle-ground approach.
To do the middle-ground approach, you ask your guests to give you 2 or 3 songs they might want to hear at the wedding. This can be done in the invitations or save the dates, in social media groups such as a wedding page for your wedding, via email, etc. Since you will see the lists of requests before the DJ, you can simply filter out the songs you don’t want to hear and submit the rest to your DJ in your planning materials.
This can keep songs you don’t want to be played from ever becoming an issue and make your guests feel involved in planning your wedding.
When their song comes on, they will feel extra special because they will know it was their addition to your wedding.