Many of you will remember that first dance to your wedding song – likely a song you both spent hours choosing.
Hopefully, it was a song that your friends and family fondly recalled years after, reminiscing about you sashaying and gliding across the light dappled dance floor as you looked lovingly into each other’s eyes on that special night.
Hopefully, it’s not the song that led 75 per cent of marriages to stumble.
UK website OnBuy conducted a survey to see if there was a connection between divorce rates and first dance songs.
More than 5500 people worldwide were asked which first dance tune they chose and their current marital status.
From this data, OnBuy was able to rate the top 25 dance songs that led to marriage success or failure.
The most popular first dance song, with 10.5 per cent of votes, went to Elvis Presley’s Can’t Help Falling In Love.
The song most likely to lead to a happy marriage was The Lion King’s Can You Feel The Love Tonight by Elton John, with 77 per cent of those who chose it remaining in their marriage. Elton John was also the only artist with two songs in the 10 most popular first dance songs.
There may be something to that Disney motto ‘the happiest place on earth’ as 70 per cent of couples who chose a Disney song for their first dance are still together.
A Whole New World (Aladdin), You’ll Be In My Heart (Tarzan) and You’ve Got A Friend In Me (Toy Story) all feature in Disney films and all made the ‘happy’ marriage list.
To improve your chances of a lasting marriage, research says to avoid the song Little Things by One Direction, as 75 per cent of those who did ended up separating.
Unless you were married in the past 10 years, you should be safe, as Little Things was released in 2012.
The most popular first dance songs were:
- Can’t Help Falling In Love, Elvis Presley – 10.5 per cent
- Your Song, Elton John – 9.83 per cent
- Can You Feel The Love Tonight, Elton John – 9.2 per cent
- Perfect, Ed Sheeran – 7.6 per cent
- A Whole New World, Lea Salonga and Brad Kane – 7.3 per cent
- You’ll Be In My Heart, Phil Collins – 6.1 per cent
- I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing, Aerosmith – 5.5 per cent
- At Last, Etta James – 5.2 per cent
- (Everything I Do) I Do For You, Bryan Adams – 4.6 per cent
- A Thousand Years, Christina Perry – 3.5 per cent
The tunes that led to lasting marriages were:
- Can You Feel The Love Tonight, Elton John – 77 per cent remain together
- Isn’t She Lovely, Stevie Wonder – 75 per cent remain together
- The Way You Look Tonight, Frank Sinatra – 74 per cent remain together
First dance songs most likely to end in divorce were:
- Little Things, One Direction – 75 per cent split
- I’m Yours, Jason Mraz – 61 per cent split
- Chasing Cars, Snow Patrol – 56 per cent split
(Kind of serves you right, really …)
Which song did you choose for your first dance? Are you still happily married?
Read also: Sexiest songs of all time
