Jason and I love to dance together...I mean there is A LOT of dancing that goes on in our house. We both knew that we wanted our wedding dance to be more than a simple sway.
We wanted to create a simple wedding dance with a few goals in mind…
1 Date Nights
We thought creating and practicing a dance together would be a great excuse for more date nights during the busy whirlwind of wedding planning.
2 Professional Development (for myself)
I wanted to stretch my dance teaching abilities and learn how to choreograph a partner dance
3 Enjoy the Moment
Jason wanted to make sure we were able to be in the moment when doing our first dance together and not worry about how many cameras and eyes were going to be on us.
So in creating our first dance together we were able to accomplish these 3 goals even though our first dance on the big day did not exactly go according to plan…
I was a little ambitious in thinking the moves we had practiced could be done with the weight, length and layers to my wedding dress. We had practiced this dance for months and when it came to moments before we were to do the dance, we tried some of the more complicated moves and realized that it could not be done without me tripping and falling on my face.
I was FREAKING OUT. One of the staff ordered me a glass of wine right as I was telling Jason that we had no other choice but to essentially cancel our first dance.
I took a deep breath, had a sip of wine and then moved on with a game plan for this dance. We decided on a few moves that were doable and agreed to just go with the flow and enjoy ourselves. Our first dance turned out to be even better than what we had practiced and no one there had any idea it was not the same dance- we were both completely in the moment, laughing as we both improvised and planned out our next move.
To me, our first dance is an example of what Jason and I try to work at everyday on life’s dance floor- that is to adapt and find joy in the things that may not go according to plan and communicate with each other every step of the way.
This sparked a fire in me to help future wedding couples with their first dance.
There is a certain magic in the air with soon-to-be married couples that makes working with them such a pleasure.
I am now very thorough with every new couple I work with and check for ALL of the details- what kind of surface are they dancing on? Heels? What kind of dress will the bride be wearing...etc.
If my wedding dance went exactly according to plan, I would have never thought to touch on these details that I now know make a big difference when choreographing and dancing a wedding first dance. I also now have the confidence to tell couples that they are the only ones at their wedding that know the dance so even if there is a misstep or brain blank to just try to enjoy the moment with each other and keep moving- no one will ever know!
If you made it this far, check out the video below for snippets of the two different versions of our wedding first dance! What we had originally planned and practiced vs what actually happened in the moment.
Learn a one-of-a-kind first dance that is choreographed specifically for you and your partner. You do not need any previous dance experience. Just tell me a bit about you and your partner via the contact page. I will be happy to give you more info and get the two of you dancing in no time!