Summer 2026 | Sam Hill Entertainment
The Wedding Playlist Index
The only wedding music ranking built on first-party data from real couple requests.
No surveys. No streaming algorithms. No guesswork.
30,571
Song requests analyzed
How we built the Wedding Playlist Index
Sam Hill Entertainment has been booking live music for weddings and events across the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast since 1995: more than 50,000 events across three decades, from Washington, DC ballrooms to Eastern Shore tents to historic Carolina estates. Every couple plans their music in the Sam Hill Hub, filling out a detailed event profile: songs they want played, songs they don't, dedications, and free-text notes. That data is the backbone of this report.
The Wedding Playlist Index is built entirely from first-party data submitted by real couples planning real weddings between January 2023 and April 2026. We refresh the analysis twice a year as new events come through the Hub, so the numbers here reflect the most recent season of weddings rather than anyone's hunch about what couples want.
Song requests
Special dance picks
Couple comments
Weddings
Dataset window: January 2023 through April 2026. Source: event profiles submitted through the Sam Hill Hub. Next refresh: winter 2026.
The big five
These five songs have held the top spots across all four wedding seasons in our data, with play rates from 89 to 98 percent. Popularity this consistent puts them somewhere between a request and a requirement.
I Wanna Dance with Somebody
Whitney Houston • 1980s
627 plays
98.4%
Hear it live from:
K Street Union
Hear it live from:
The A-Town A-List
Hear it live from:
'Round Midnight
September
Earth, Wind & Fire • 1970s
605 plays
95.9%
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Hear it live from:
Young Hearts
Hear it live from:
The Retreat
Hear it live from:
Seven Til Sunrise
Mr. Brightside
The Killers • 2000s
422 plays
90.6%
Hear it live from:
Tidewater Drive
Hear it live from:
The Life Atlantic
Hear it live from:
Rhythm Arcade
Signed, Sealed, Delivered
Stevie Wonder • 1970s
219 plays
96.9%
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Hear it live from:
The Block Party Experience
Hear it live from:
Free Spirit
Hear it live from:
Affirmative Groove
Proud Mary
Tina Turner • 1960s
213 plays
88.8%
Hear it live from:
Affirmative Groove
Hear it live from:
Crystal Clear Band
Hear it live from:
The Grand Party Experience
Source: event profiles submitted through the Sam Hill Hub, January 2023 through April 2026. Percentages reflect how often each song appears as a play request versus a do-not-play request when couples mention it. I Wanna Dance with Somebody at 98% means that when couples bring it up, it's almost always to play it vs. not to play it.
The pop culture pipeline
Movies, TV, TikTok, and the Grammys create ripple effects that show up in wedding requests 6 to 18 months later.
Unwritten
Natasha Bedingfield
Dormant for years until Anyone But You made it a cultural moment again. Billboard reported a 156% streaming spike.
Hear it live from:
The Significant Others
Pink Pony Club
Chappell Roan
From zero requests in 2023 to 10.9 per 100 events in 2026, the fastest-rising song in Sam Hill history.
Hear it live from:
Seven Til Sunrise
Bye Bye Bye
*NSYNC
The Deadpool & Wolverine opening sent streams up 382%, per Billboard. A modest but real wedding bump followed.
Espresso
Sabrina Carpenter
Crowned the most-streamed song of 2024 in Spotify Wrapped, with more than 1.6 billion plays. Not one negative mention from our couples.
Hear it live from:
DC Synergy
A Bar Song (Tipsy)
Shaboozey
A rare country and hip-hop crossover with broad appeal. This one looks like it has staying power.
The do not play list
40.8% of all requests in the Hub are do-not-play instructions. Couples are just as deliberate about what stays off the setlist as what goes on it.
Source: event profiles submitted through the Sam Hill Hub, January 2023 through April 2026. Percentages reflect how often each song appears as a do-not-play instruction versus a play request when couples mention it. Shake It Off at 97.9% means that when couples bring it up, it's almost always to keep it off the setlist.
Genre & decade analysis
Couples overwhelmingly want vintage music performed live, and the decade they most want to skip is the 2010s.
Play rate by genre
Play rate by decade
The most polarizing songs
These songs rack up serious numbers on play lists and avoid lists alike. One wedding requests it, the next one bans it by name.
Uptown Funk
Bruno Mars
Get Lucky
Daft Punk
Party in the U.S.A.
Miley Cyrus
I Gotta Feeling
Black Eyed Peas
Don't Stop Believin'
Journey
Sweet Caroline
Neil Diamond
Wagon Wheel
Old Crow Medicine Show
Special dances
9,241 special dance selections across 2,656 weddings. Where reception requests lean toward energy, special dances lean toward emotional resonance.
Joy of My Life
Chris Stapleton
At Last
Etta James
Let's Stay Together
Al Green
All of Me
John Legend
Can't Help Falling in Love
Elvis Presley
The trend is clear: the traditional first dance standbys are giving ground. Can't Help Falling in Love slipped from 8 selections in 2023 to 4 in 2025, while All of Me and Let's Stay Together keep climbing. Couples are gravitating toward songs that feel emotionally raw rather than classically romantic.
In their own words
2,861 couples wrote free-text comments explaining their musical vision. Here's what a phrase-level analysis of those comments says about their priorities.
Top phrases
Genre mentions
When couples write about what they want, they reach for vintage genres. Oldies, rock, and soul consistently outperform pop and hip-hop in unprompted mentions.
Top themes (2023 to 2025)
Anti-cheesy/corny
1% to 2.8%
Anti-line-dance
5.7% to 6.5%
Diversity/crowd-range
12% to 13%
Chill/lounge
9.3% to 8.6%
Artist sentiment
We analyzed the sentiment around every artist mention in those comments to see who generates enthusiasm and who generates friction.
Most beloved artists
These artists have the highest net sentiment, positive mentions minus negative as a share of the total, among artists with at least 10 mentions.
Most polarizing artists
These artists draw significant positive and negative commentary alike, which means different couples feel very differently about them.
What's next
Based on trajectory patterns, couple comments, and pop culture trends, here are the songs and shifts we expect to gain momentum in 2026 and 2027.
Pink Pony Club
Chappell Roan
Could crack the top 10 by year-end.
Espresso
Sabrina Carpenter
68% positive sentiment from couples, with zero negative mentions.
Risk It All
Bruno Mars
Early requests point to the wedding anthem of 2026.
Unwritten
Natasha Bedingfield
The Anyone But You pipeline keeps delivering.
A Bar Song (Tipsy)
Shaboozey
Country crossover with broad appeal.
The big picture
The wedding music landscape is shifting in a clear direction: couples want authenticity over familiarity. They're reaching back to the 1960s and 70s for soul, funk, and classic rock that feels timeless, and they're passing on the overplayed 2010s pop that feels like it belongs to someone else's party.
The new hits that do break through (Pink Pony Club, Espresso, A Bar Song) share a quality: they feel current. Couples connect with them because they reflect the music of their generation, not just the songs that have defined weddings for the past decade.
And for the first time, we can hear it in their own words. The 2,861 comments in our dataset add emotional texture to the structured data. When a couple writes “we love Motown and classic rock, keep the energy high and skip the cheesy stuff,” that's a brief for the most important night of their lives, and it's the job of every Sam Hill band to deliver on it.