Kristine and MIchael during salsa lessons with Noelia.
Your big day is approaching and it’s only natural to feel nervous and apprehensive ahead of your first wedding dance. Most people aren’t dancers and now you have to dance in front of your wedding guests. Here are six first wedding dance tips to make your first wedding dance go smoothly.
1)Plan Ahead & Start Early:
There is no substitue for planning ahead. Doing anything at the last minute is always a recipe for failure. Dancing isn’t easy. Especially if you’re not someone who dances. Like anything else, you can’t look good at something if you’re not comfortable doing it. How early should you start your wedding dance lessons? Four to six months ahead of you wedding day in a good target. The closer you get to your wedding day, the busier you will be with all the other arrangements you need to take care of, and won’t have enought time to practice your first wedding dance. Better to start as early as possible.
2)How You Dress:
Make sure your attire will work with your dance moves. Certain dresses or suits will limit your movement and won’t allow certain dance moves. If you are wearing a mermaid dress, you will have to take smaller steps. If your wedding dress has a train, you may have to bustle it up. If you have a big, full dress, you will have to dance further away. Off-the-shoulder design will limit some moves. Certain suits will limit other dance moves.
Shoes are also a consideration. High heels, leather soles, suede or rubber soles will all feel and move different. Best to wear the same shoe or type of shoe that you are going to wear on your first wedding dance. So, don’t practice in sneakers and then wear high heels on your wedding day. Bad idea.
3)First Wedding Dance Song:
Choosing the right song is very important. There are a lot of great songs that would make a terrible first wedding dance song. We recommend that your bring a large selection of songs with you to your first wedding dance lesson, and then the instructor can review them with you, and help choose which would work best. Some songs will be easier to dance to than others.
4)Event Space:
The size of the dance floor, the type of floor, how your guest are seated are all things to consider. You want to match in your first wedding dance lessons as closely as possible what your wedding dance venue will be. If your venue has a small floor, don’t practice on a large floor. If all the guest are seated facing one direction, make sure your first wedding dance is facing in that direction. If your guests are seated all aroung, with the floor in the middle, your first wedding dance should face all the different directions.
5)Choreography or no Choreography? That is the Question:
Remembering a 3 minute first wedding dance routine isn’t easy. It may be better to learn a few moves and then dance those moves in a more free flow way. If you are not used to dancing a choreographed routine, you may go blank, freeze up or forget parts. This is something you need to discuss with your instructor. Great first wedding dance routines are usually choreographed, but make sure you have pleanty of time to practice if you plan on doing it this way.
6) Practice, Practice, Practice:
The more you practice your first wedding dance the better. Your moves should be muscle memory. Also, how you practice is very important. It’s very normal to get nerves and performance jitters if not use to performing in front of people. We recommend doing a few practice session in front of an audience. The other student in the dance school. This will get rid of your performance jitters.
All this is important, and keeping these first wedding dance tips in mind will help make your first wedding dance a great experience.