When you’re in your mid-to-late-twenties, you quickly learn how many weddings you can fit into a single summer. My wife and I lucked out this year; we only had three to go to, but over the next few years, I fully expect us to average about five or six a year. And don’t get me wrong, I love weddings, but so many of them in such a short period of time is a little draining, especially since the formula for them tends to be pretty repetitive.

Short ceremony. Cocktail hour. Dinner. Speeches. Dancing.

After a few of these, the music begins to stand out, too. It’s always more or less the same. Some Cha-Cha Slide. Some Spice Girls. Some “YMCA”. Some Journey. Some inappropriate 2000’s hip-hop that’s ironically cool again because of nostalgia. Some Bon Jovi. These are the songs enshrined in the sacred pantheon of wedding hits that DJs across America rely on. And the faces on this wedding Mount Rushmore rarely change. There’s a formula, people, and it works. Sure, a song can sneak in here and there, but it takes a truly special song to become a wedding classic.

In fact, the only song I’m aware of from the last 10 years that I KNOW will be played at every wedding I go to for the rest of my life, taking its place next to “Don’t Stop Believing” and “Get Low”, is Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk” (featuring Bruno Mars, obviously).

The criteria to make it as a wedding song is pretty simple, even if it’s hard to actually pull off: everyone has to think it is FUN. Case in point: “Get Low” has been played at every wedding in the history of the world because there’s no one alive who doesn’t enjoy screaming “Aw ***** *****, mutha******” as loud as they can with their drunk Uncle Larry and laughing at Nana who doesn’t quite “get it.”

“Uptown Funk” has something for everyone.

It’s a great song to dance to. It’s got a bumpin’ horn section for those “I only like ‘real music’” people (in fact, I first heard the song when one of my friends getting a Ph.D. in trombone performance played it for me because he loved it). It’s performed by maybe the smoothest man in music right now, Bruno Mars, so it’s got a legit “cool” factor that’s hard to deny. And perhaps most importantly of all, the lyrics are unadulterated, unapologetic, unabashed cheese.

And you know what’s pretty fun? Showing off your sick (read: embarrassing) dance moves while singing cheesy, self-aware lyrics about how awesome you are. It’s a harder to NOT have fun with this song than it is to just give in and dig it. Check these lyrics out:

Stop, wait a minute
Fill my cup, put some liquor in it
Take a sip, sign a check
Julio, get the stretch!
Ride to Harlem, Hollywood
Jackson, Mississippi
If we show up, we gon’ show out
Smoother than a fresh jar of Skippy

 

I’m too hot (hot damn)
Called a police and a fireman
I’m too hot (hot damn)
Make a dragon wanna retire man
I’m too hot (hot damn)
Say my name, you know who I am
I’m too hot (hot damn)
I’m bad ‘bout that money
Break it down

No self-respecting person seriously talks themselves up by saying that they’re smoother than Skippy and hot enough that they make dragons retire. That’s so lame. But it’s the cheese here that makes it so much damn fun. If you’re trying to write the next immortal wedding song, take notes.

You just have to be fun.