Timing of dance lessons?

[sunnygirl]

Hi girls!

I really want to take dance classes with my FI before the wedding and he hasn''t said no when I''ve brought it up which means "Yes" to me! I mean, I don''t think he is dying to do it but he knows how important it is to me, which is very sweet of him. Anyways, when do you all think we should start? Our wedding date is 9/6/08. I don''t know if there is such as thing as too early (don''t want to forget stuff) although theoretically we should keep up with practicing. Also, i don''t want to cram it all in the end. We are (well, I am) thinking of doing a choreographed or semi-choreographed first dance but haven''t picked our song yet...

Any ideas or experiences with dance classes you would like to share?

 

[ephemery1]

I know there are lots of people on here who have done dance lessons and loved them, so hopefully they'll give you some good feedback. I, on the other hand, HATED THEM. And this is from somebody who grew up dancing (for about 8-10 years). And DH was pretty good too!

My MIL bought us a set of 6-8 lessons, and we started about 2 months before the wedding, which was wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too stressful. There was just too much else going on, and every week when the instructor asked if we'd practiced, it was all I could do not to run screaming out of the room. Sure, lady... we slipped in a couple hours of practice in between finishing my grad program, ending a counseling internship, working part-time and planning a rather large and elaborate wedding... plus DH's full-time job.

We choreographed a lovely routine anyway, but on the day of the wedding, the LAST thing I wanted to do was add another thing to be nervous about... after all the stress and craziness, I just wanted to dance close to my new DH, not worry about remembering steps and counting out each note of the beautiful song we picked. Would have totally ruined it for me. So we did a regular old slow-dance instead, and talked and laughed and kissed and held each other, and it was absolutely perfect.

 

[sumbride]

I did dance lessons too, but I actually really liked them. I think the instructor you have and your goals for the outcome have a lot to do with whether you enjoy them or not. We weren''t going for choreographed, we just wanted to not hurt each other... and it took at least 3 lessons to get to that point! We had 5 lessons, 1 a week, and we finished about 2 weeks before the wedding. Yes, it was kind of hard to work them in there, but we turned it into a date... first we danced together, then we went for Thai, next door to the studio. It was really fun to have that time to focus on each other and nobody else.

You don''t want to do them too early, but make sure you have enough time to get them all in. You may need to decide how many lessons you want and can afford to take. When we showed up at the studio for our first appointment, she asked "when is your wedding?" and I said "in 7 weeks!" and she said "Good, I thought this might be a rush, but we''re fine!" Apparently people often go the WEEK before their wedding expecting to be able to learn... talk about stressful!

Our instructor was really fantastic and relaxing, and it helped a lot that she looked like Natalie Portman. DH was fully entranced and listened to everything she said. And it really helped us relax on our wedding day to know the steps and not have to think about it, which is why we didn''t choreograph. He knew the steps and how to lead and I learned how to follow him. I''m glad we did it. It was one of my favorite parts of the wedding prep.

 

[lliang_chi]

I think it''d be best if you pick out your song first. That will probably be the first thing your instructor asks you. But I wouldn''t worry about remembering steps or anything, just learn some techniques/tricks and dance however you like to on your big day.

 

[sunnygirl]

Thanks for the input! yeah I havent decided on the choregraphed thing...if it looks like we can learn a dance well enough to just do something on our own spontaneously, I would rather do that.

In terms of songs, we don''t really have any songs that are special to us (especially not appropriate for a wedding!)
We were thinking "The Way You Look Tonight" the Sinatra version, because it is just such a wonderful song but it is also a little overdone. But who cares, I guess! I love his voice and the words to that song. Its a little fast and I read somewhere that foxtrot is the best style for that song. I don''t know how challenging that would be....

He told me last night that he is looking forward to it (which is really weird, i would never guess he would say that!). I would love to turn dance lession nights into little dates!