Timeline for our wedding: First Dance & Family Dances, And Speeches!

Hi everyone! Wow thank you so much for all of your opinions! This is really helpful as it really allows me to start visualizing the timeline!

Thanks everyone!

Our reception timing worked out great for the dances, speeches right before the meals were served. The order of schedule went this way: Grand Bollywood entrance with wedding party Mother/Sons dance First dance to be done though it was way later in the party time the DJ got everyone to stand in a circle for us. This was done last though its a great idea in the beginning. Speeches limited to 2 minutes each person with myself to be the last person to speak for both of us. Cake cutting to be served with dessert for seated service. My cousin and her husband had it another way: Grand entrance of wedding party and family along with the couple Introduction by the MCs (each side chose someone that knew the bride and groom very well). Speech made by each parent followed by a dance. A family dance was done by the siblings and parents Final speech by the groom Dinner served buffet style

Hello Amanda 👋🏾
My fiancé and I actually had this conversation last night, to go over the schedule. We decided to do our first dance after dinner as well as Father Daughter dance. My fiancé’s close family is not here and we’re not too sure as yet if he will want to dance with my mum or his aunt.

We are doing our first dance as soon as we are introduced at the reception but we also aren't planning on doing any parent dances.

If people are hungry, they'll want food asap and having three sets of 3-5 minute dances plus introductions and whatever hype the MC whips up can feel like forever. While these moments are lovely to you, it might be pushing some guests patience. That being said, it does flow very well since you're already up on the floor from having entered the room but not yet seated. If you're serving enough food during cocktail hour, you may be able to stave off hungry guests enough to do this. All eyes are also glued on you at this point since there's no food in front of them to distract guests.

If you want to delay the dance, you can either do it during dessert or after the whole meal is done. If you do it during dessert, people can be distracted from eating. If you do it after, people won't be distracted by dinner but people tend to take bathroom breaks and run to the bar to replenish drinks after the meal. It's also super awkward if nobody jumps on the floor right away to start the dance party if you use the slow dance as the segway.

Pros and cons to each and you'll have to figure out what works for you.

We did our first dance after we were introduced as we've seen it both ways and decided to do it this way... We had no interest in doing a grand entrance for our wedding party so it made sense for us to be introduced and go straight into our dance. We felt it created a nice break between cocktail hour and dinner. We also had breaks for dancing between speeches and courses (guests were allowed to slow dance with their partners) - this is typical with my background and love that it breaks up all that seated time. Our parent dances were after their speeches. If you do your dance to open the dance floor later... I'd just do your parents dances randomly after that. There's no wrong choice!

I think at every wedding I’ve been to the first dance is what opens the dance floor. People typically do parent dances later on during the dancing part.
If you’re having a typical wedding schedule (ceremony, cocktail hour, dinner, dancing) you’ll be introduced when you arrive at the reception so at some point during the cocktail hour or once everyone has taken their seats for dinner. I think your partner is suggesting a fairly standard order of events that everyone will be used to and expect.
If you wanted to do something out of the ordinary though you could be introduced with your first dance and then go into dinner and the rest of the reception?