Wedding First Dance & Dance Lessons
This post was originally posted on November 17, 2007
(click play to hear our first dance song)
I am not sure what year dancing went out of style - but what happened to those dances with random names like the Madison, the Swim, the Mashed Potato, the Twist, and the Watusi from the 50's and 60's?
I would guess a good majority of people between the ages of 10-40 do not know how to dance. No, that 7th-grade-turn-in-a-circle thing doesn't count as dancing, in my opinion. I didn't know what the heck I was doing either until I decided to take lessons to learn at least one dance to show off at my wedding.
Greg, surprisingly, was on board with the idea. We attended 5 lessons at The Social Dance Studio and learned the rumba. It's a really easy dance that anyone could learn. You learn the basic step and then add in a turnout here and a dip there and before you know it, YOU KNOW HOW TO DANCE! That's it. Well, and a bit of practice.
Find an inexpensive place to take dance lessons in your area - I hear that local rec centers and cities have programs with group lessons. Dancing is also great exercise and SO MUCH FUN! For $100, we know one dance and often dance to our first song, Better Together by Jack Johnson. And yes, we do the turn out and everything - even in our living room.
[photos of Aletha & Greg, copyright Jen Kroll Photography]
13 lovely comment(s):
That is such a wonderful song! I love it. Our song was "You Belong to Me" by Jason Wade. A close second was "Such Great Heights" by Iron and Wine. I love unique wedding songs.
Ooh, I LOVE Such Great Heights!!!!
love your lace cover-up that you put on for the reception...and your husband is a cutie!! =)
Love this song! I've never heard it before.
I wish I had spent more time finding a great "first dance" song for my wedding. My hubby and I didn't really have an "our song", so I just kind of randomly picked one so that we could have the traditional "first dance", but it doesn't really hold any special meaning to us. I don't even like to tell people what it was, because it's lame. :)
Yup--this is "our song". We even went to see JJ live in concert a few years ago and I've always loved this song--Oh, and he has another great love song, Banana Pancakes. Check it out!
you are SO right! we are taking lots of lessons to be very good dancers for our traditional first waltz, which we are dancing to "you and me" by lifehouse. i love knowing how to dance and i agree that it needs to be brought back into style!
OOOH!! Great song lady!!! Thats Jake & my song too!
MrsSaraGR
Another cool idea if it's in the budget for the wedding is to do dance lessons for the bridal party before the big day.
One of my friends that got married did this and everyone in the wedding thought it was tons of fun!
No problem Aletha! You don't even want to know how long my hubby and I took lessons for. Let's just say we were there almost every week and now we don't remember a single bit of it.
We aren't doing lessons because the FI is a seasoned dancer, but I know a few couples who should invest in dancing lessons. It's such a good idea!
The only problem I see with dance lessons is that most couples don't commit to them. So instead of being able to capture this great moment of amazing chemistry between two people on the dance floor we get images of them looking nervous and counting steps. My advice is to go for the dance lessons only if you are going to give 100% and if not then just wing it. Winging it always looks better than not giving 100%. :)
I agree, dance lessons were a wonderful experience for us as a couple - it may sound cheesy but it was another way to show how well we can work together. I wish we could have done them for the whole bridal party..that would have been fantastic. PS - Aletha, your wedding pics are gorgeous!
Harold - you make a great point! You absolutely have to learn to dance, so you're not 100% focused on counting steps. Looking natural is great advice :) Thank you for your input!
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