Your first dance at the wedding reception is one of the crucial aspects of your big day. It usually takes place just after the formalities are over, when it’s time to let your hair down with all your family and friends.
Choose Wisely
Traditionally, the wedding dance was often a waltz, but it’s not for everyone. Today, many couples choose a dance specific to them, their personality or their wedding day theme. This could range from the tango to the macarena and everything in between.
Don’t go for something that feels like it’s a world away from who you actually are and what you want your first dance to convey. On the flip side, don’t choose something that’s going to make you feel foolish. The best rule is to just sit down and have a really good chat with each other about it.
The Choreography Checklist
Our friends over at Hitched have some awesome advice if you want to choreograph your own wedding dance. A conversation with Michael and Gemma, professional choreographers, offered some very astute words of advice:
“Practise your wedding dance a lot – take a minimum of two classes and go over what you learnt at home for a natural looking first dance. Try to get in a practise session at your wedding venue if you can, so you can understand how much space you actually have to dance in.”
So, when it comes to the checklist, here’s how things should go –
- First things first, choose the perfect piece of music.
- Scour YouTube for any dances you both feel will fit the bill for that first dance.
- Start choreographing straight away.
- Teach yourself the hard steps first. The more you practice, the better you’ll both be.
- Always find at least half an hour a day to practice.
The Rise of the YouTube Choreographer
One of the most beneficial things about our digital age is that learning choreography require an expensive dance teacher. No, a quick search on YouTube and you’ll be able to find a wealth of videos that teach you the right steps, twists and turns to create a dance that will utterly mesmerise your family and friends.
One of the best examples of the YouTube choreographer is Michael Litko. His specific video on choreographing your first wedding dance is sublime!
If Michael’s style is not to your taste, then there are plenty more to choose from. With so many couples out there hungry to find the best wedding dance, it’s given rise to a healthy industry of YouTube choreographers. Explaining every style from the wedding classics to something a little more contemporary.
One of the best things is that a few choreographers have uploaded step-by-step guides to dances to popular wedding songs, such as this by Pierwszy Taniec, who has choreographed a beautiful dance to John Legend’s ‘All of Me’.
