Here is a conversation I have had hundreds of times. A groom tells me, weeks before the wedding: "Please, whatever you do, don't play Mr Brightside." Then on the night, three drinks in, his best mate requests it. I drop it. And there he is, centre of the floor, arms wide, singing every word at the top of his voice.
So what happened? Did the song suddenly get better? No. He just stopped worrying about what liking it says about him.
That tension between what people say they like and what actually gets them moving is something I navigate at every single wedding. And it is far more interesting than most people realise.
What Actually Makes a Song "Cheesy"?
Think about a track like "Dancing Queen". When ABBA released it, it was a genuine pop masterpiece. It topped charts worldwide. Nobody called it cheesy in 1976. But play it at a wedding in 2026 and some guests will roll their eyes while others sprint to the floor.
The song did not change. The context did.
A song usually earns the cheese label through overexposure. It gets played so often, at so many events, that it loses the surprise it once had. "Uptown Funk" went through this cycle in about eighteen months. "Valerie" took a little longer. "Single Ladies" landed somewhere in between. The pattern is always the same: fresh and exciting, then ubiquitous, then "cheesy", then, for some crowds, a beloved classic again.
This cycle is not unique to pop music. In every genre there is a pocket of fans who quietly look down on the commercial hits. In the soul scene, the rare groove collectors will wrinkle their noses at anything that charted. In dance music, the deep house heads think anything with a vocal hook is shallow. In indie, admitting you like Coldplay can lose you friends.
But here is the thing: the songs that charted often did so because they connected with people on a gut level. Good marketing helps, sure, but marketing alone cannot keep a song alive for forty years. There is something real in those melodies, even if admitting it feels uncool.
The DJ Fatigue Factor
Club DJs who work five or six nights a week have a different relationship with popular songs than most people do. When your crowd demands the same tracks every night, songs that started out fresh can become tiresome within months.
A wedding DJ hears these songs less frequently, maybe once or twice a weekend, so the fatigue takes longer to set in. But even we develop blind spots. I have to consciously remind myself that the couple on the dancefloor are hearing this song in this moment for the first time at their wedding. My feelings about the track are irrelevant. What matters is whether it lands for them.
That is a discipline, not a talent. And it is one of the differences between a DJ who plays for themselves and one who plays for the room.
"Tony completely understood the vibe we wanted. No cheese for the sake of cheese, but he still got every generation dancing. My nan and my uni friends were on the floor at the same time, which I genuinely didn't think was possible."
-- Hannah & Luke
The Coolness Trap
Coolness is a moving target, and it can be a trap at weddings.
I have seen couples build their entire do-not-play list around what they think is uncool. No Beyonce. No ABBA. No "Come On Eileen". They want their wedding to feel curated and sophisticated. And I understand that instinct completely.
But a wedding is not a curated playlist in your living room. It is a room full of people aged eight to eighty, with wildly different musical lives, all hoping to have a good time together. When your uncle hears a song he loves, he does not care whether it scored well on Pitchfork. He just wants to dance.
The skill is not avoiding every popular song. It is knowing which ones will land with this specific crowd on this specific night. Some rooms genuinely do not want "Sweet Caroline". Others would riot without it. Neither is right or wrong. It is just reading the room.
What People Say Versus What They Actually Do
There is a consistent gap between stated preferences and actual behaviour on a dancefloor, and it is one of the most fascinating parts of my job.
Couples tell me they hate a song. Then I play it at the right moment, when the floor is warm and the energy is high, and they dance to it without even noticing. Because in that context, surrounded by people they love, the song is not "cheesy". It is communal. It is a shared language. Everyone knows the words, everyone knows the moves, and for three minutes nobody is self-conscious.
That is actually what the best dancefloor moments are made of. Not obscure tracks that impress a few people, but songs that give everyone permission to let go together.
Every Genre Has Its Snobs (And Its Guilty Pleasures)
I have DJed around the world across dozens of genres, and every single scene has this dynamic. The reggae purists who scoff at dancehall. The techno heads who dismiss anything with a piano riff. The jazz fans who think smooth jazz is an abomination.
And in every scene, there are songs that cross over, songs so good they break through the snobbery and make everyone move, whether they want to admit it afterwards or not.
Weddings concentrate this effect because you have got soul fans, indie kids, pop lovers, hip-hop heads, and people who only listen to Radio 2 all sharing one dancefloor. My job is to find the songs that work as bridges between those groups. Sometimes that means a song everyone calls cheesy. Sometimes it means a deep cut nobody expected. Usually it means both, woven together so the transitions feel natural rather than jarring.
"We gave Tony a pretty eclectic list of favourites and a short do-not-play list, and he somehow made it all work. The dancefloor was full from the first dance until the last song. People who never dance were dancing. That's all you need to know."
-- Megan & Callum
The One Question That Matters
Whenever couples ask me "Is this song too cheesy?", I ask them one thing back: "Will it make the people you love smile?"
If the answer is yes, it belongs on your dancefloor. No genre policing required.
Your wedding is not a statement about your music taste. It is a celebration with the people who matter most to you. And if "Dancing Queen" is the song that gets your mum and your best friend singing together with their arms round each other, then it is doing exactly what music is supposed to do.
If you want to talk through your song choices, what to include, what to leave out, and how to handle requests from guests, check your date. We will map out a dancefloor that feels completely like you, guilty pleasures and all.