Take Dance Instruction for Your Wedding

Dancing at Your Wedding

If you want to add a special memory for your wedding guests, dazzle and impress with a choreographed dance routine. In order for you to create this special memory, you should think about taking some dance instruction. You can blow your wedding guests away, look like a great couple that really belongs together, leaving a good first impression with your spouse's family that you are meeting for the first time. Not only will you have a fun moment at your wedding, you will have acquired a life long skill. You and your partner will have the ability to dance at any event for the rest of your lives together.

You have probably seen this routine at a wedding. The first dance is announced by a disc jockey, the bride and groom shuffle to the dance floor, looking red in the face and feeling somewhat embarrassed and lean on each other as the music plays. They look like a couple of limp rag dolls shuffling along going back and forth. It seems like the minutes lasts forever as the wedding guest's attention shifts to ordering a martini.

Would it be better, the first dance is called, and it becomes the highlight of a very special evening. The first couple livens up their audience with a grand entrance. Create a well choreographed two to three minute wedding dance routine that ends with a dramatic finish. You will need to coordinate dance songs with wedding musicians or disc jockeys to be sure your song is part of their repertoire and you need to cue photographers and videographers to let them know what you are up to. Your wedding guests will surely enjoy the special moment and witness a "special and fun" wedding tradition.

You can approach getting dance instruction in two different ways. The recommended way is to take wedding dance lessons at a dance studio or you can learn to wedding dance from a wedding video by downloading wedding dance lessons from your cable service or pick up a wedding dance DVD. If you take dance lessons at a dance studio, make sure the studio is geared to wedding dance lessons.

You can find wedding dance studios by downloading a wedding planning app onto your iphone, ipad, or android and other mobile devices. You can also find dance studios from online wedding directories or find them using search engines by inputting "wedding dance lessons" or "wedding dance instructions" and include your town or city. Ask family or friends about them or find dance studios finding them using the yellow pages.

Types of Wedding Dances

Wedding dance can also be called ballroom dancing. Ballroom dancing involves couple moving to music using step-patterns and rhythms that melds up to the character and beat of a song. There are basically two types of ballroom dancing which are smooth/ballroom style and Latin/rhythm style.

Smooth/ballroom style of dance involves moving about using the entire dance floor in a counter-clockwise fashion. The couple is constantly moving about on the dance floor, smoothly transitioning from one pattern into a dance of another pattern. Examples of this type of dance includes the foxtrot, quickstep, tango, Vienese waltz, and the waltz.

The Latin/rhythm style of dance involves pretty much of the wedding couple staying in one spot in an area of the dance floor. The dance is an energetic dance that evokes what is called syncopated rhythm of music being played. Examples of this type of dance includes the cha cha, disco hustle, merengue, paso doble, rumba/bolero, salsa/mambo, and swing.

How to Approach Dance Instructions

There are different approaches in taking dance instruction for your wedding. How you approach dance lessons depends on the time you have available and your wedding budget for dance lessons. Ideally you should take 8 to 10 classes with your partner with a wedding dance instructor in order to learn a choreographed routine very well.

There are other ways to approach dance instruction too. You can recruit a bunch of friends to take dance lessons with you, it's your last hurrah with the old gang. If your partner can't attend, focus on learning your steps and have the instructor write down a checklist of dance steps that you can practice with your partner in private.

You can just take 1 or 2 lessons and learn the basics. You won't learn a full choreographed dance routine but the two of you can hold your own on the dance floor and at least do dance steps together. At dance studios you can either get individual attention or learn to dance in a group. Usually individual attention costs a little more and dance with a group can cost a bit less.

Some individuals are very shy about taking dance lessons in front of a bunch of other individuals, they are afraid of looking like a fool in front of other people, or don't want to embarrass themselves in front of their partner. This is a very common feeling. Often what happens, after one or two lessons, an individual starts to feel a little more comfortable in their dancing and this insecure feeling goes away.

Before dance instruction, some people think they can't dance, it's not that they can't dance, they never received proper dance lessons. The thing they say, is learn to relax and have fun when you learn to dance, you are learning a new skill. The other thing that is great about taking dance instruction, it helps get the couple in good physical shape for the wedding.

If a wedding couple or one of them is too shy to dance in front of others, you can hire a private dance instructor, who can teach you to dance with no one around either in the studio or in your own home. What some couples do, that take dance lessons in private and tells not a soul they are taking dance lessons, and at the wedding their dance routine is a total surprise and makes the wedding event even extra special.

How does a dance studio generally operate? When you first meet with a wedding dance instructor, he/she starts explaining the characteristics of the dance you are learning and the type of music played with it. The instructor will show body and arm positioning for each dance partner, the instructor will show the foot work and the timing on how to count the movements of the foot. Typically the dance is practiced without music in the beginning of each step. The instructor dances with each partner first and then brings the partners together then introduces the music.

The instructor, after the couple masters the prior piece pretty good, introduces the next step sequence, learns the step, show them with each partner, let the partners try the piece together, and then adds the music, repeat, repeat and have the couple practice and practice until the couple has the dance mastered.

The dancing at a wedding typically begins with the wedding musician, disc jockey, or master of ceremonies announcing the first dance and the first couple takes the stage for the dance floor often to a special song which is called their first song. After the couples first dance, you have the father-daughter dance, then the mother-groom dance and then the dance turns into a good party with many wedding guests hitting the dance floor.

The wedding couple should choose a song that has special meaning to both of them. It could be a song that you heard one of the first times together or it could be a song that has special meaning to the couple. Maybe it's a song that describes special feelings to one another.

If you have not decided on a special song, the two of you should spend an evening listening to wedding music together and brainstorm ideas with one another. Find some wedding music by searching the internet, you both will know when you have found the perfect song that will become your song. A song that each of you will cherish and when you hear it, it will remind you of your partner.

Make sure the bride and groom have good dancing shoes. Try not to wear dancing shoes for the very first time at the wedding. Practice dancing in the shoes a few times to break them in. Often the brides will have ballet flats or slippers in their clutch purse and slip them on for a bit after dancing on their sore feet, when seated and not in full view.

Create Dance Fun for Your Wedding Guests

There are wedding songs that over the years have become classic wedding dance music. You and the wedding musicians or disc jockeys should discuss playing classic music songs. Some of the classic dance music you can play and gets almost your wedding guests dancing are Electric Slide, The Hustle, Cha-cha Slide, Chicken Dance, Macarena, Hokey Pokey, and Conga.

Whatever classic dances you plan for your wedding, have somebody there that knows the dance step routine and to take a few moments to show others how the dance is done, and then you add a great big memory to your wedding, make sure if you have someone with a camcorder capture the moment.

Some other dance routines you can have at your wedding. Many young folk have not had much exposure to line dancing or square dancing or you might add the latest craze at weddings called the wedding dance. You can approach these types of dance a number of different ways. If you have enough young people, you can have them put on a show of these types of dance, you can have the bridal party perform these dances are you can teach whoever is interested in the wedding party and teach them how to dosy-doe.

A wedding is not complete if you don't include the bouquet toss. The groom removes the garter from his bride's thigh. The bride then throws her bouquet to all the single ladies. Then in turn the groom throws the garter to all the single men. Whomever catches the lady's bouquet and the lady's garter are supposed to be the next ones to be married. Have a little fun with the single man putting the garter on the single lady.

At some weddings there is the honeymoon dance, discuss having the honeymoon dance with family members. The honeymoon dance is a time when the bride spends about 30 seconds dancing with male wedding guests leaving her with a little honeymoon money, sometimes the groom partakes too dancing with lady wedding guests. Some families are fine with the honeymoon dance and some families frown upon it, check with family members if this dance is alright with them.