How Long Should the Dance Floor be Open at a Wedding?

A question wedding planners get often when helping couples create their event timeline is “how much time should be put towards the open dance floor?” Many couples may think they want it to be as long as possible but that’s not always the best approach. We typically recommend 1.5 to 2 hours. Here’s why:

Too Much of a Good Thing Isn’t Always a Good Thing

Yes, a lot of us love an awesome dance party. But one thing to keep in mind when considering making the open dance floor longer than 2 hours is that is a looooong day for some people. The complete day is typically 5 hours in total. When you think of your older guests, and everyone, in general, some of them are going to be exhausted with the thought of a 3-hour dance party.

Your Grand Exit

Typically you want a lot of people for your Grand Exit, however if you have a dance party longer than 2 hours the crowd could be a fraction of what it was by the time you leave. This could lead guests to duck out before your exit or drift to other areas of your venue leaving your reception feeling a bit empty.

Budget

DJ’s are typically $100 an hour, however, you may have to also pay bartenders, event planners, and other vendors extra as well.

Know Your Family and Friend Group, and be Flexible

I’m not saying every wedding I’ve personally DJ’ed struggled with doing more than a two hour dance party. Some groups are extra rambunctious, party animals and dancing machines. So in that sense, adding extra time can be somewhat of a gamble on you knowing them, and guessing if a group of people will party to the very end. So a middle option you can do is to be flexible. You can choose to add an extra hour but know that if people start leaving early you can do something called a ‘fake exit’. Where you take the grand exit picture when you have a huge group, and then for those who want to stay till the end can come back afterward.

Hopefully this advice was helpful, and you learned something about calculating the open dance floor time. If you are interested in learning more or getting free guidance contact us today.