An Investment Worth Making: Why Every Parent of the Bride or Groom Should Take Dance Lessons
Written by: Barbara Haller
So you are about to throw the biggest party of your life for hundreds of people, right? Or if you have multiple children, one of the biggest parties. On the big day, the service has been planned and rehearsed, the photos, dinner, and cake cutting occur and the bride and groom perform their first dance as man and wife. (By the way, we are awesome at choreographing those, but I digress…)
Then what??? For the next few hours the band or D.J. plays wonderful, danceable music. If you do not dance or only occasionally slow dance those few hours can be the longest of your life.
HOWEVER, if you have invested time and tuition holding each other in your arms while taking lessons with your spouse, those same hours will fly by!! We are in the height of wedding season right now and so many parents are learning to dance in order to trip the light fantastic on their kids’ big day!!
Some parents do so as a surprise for the bride and groom. Recently we had two sets of parents do this, both attempting to blow their kids away. A word to the wise – one of these two couples had taken enough private lessons, group classes and party practice sessions that every faculty member and most students knew them. Then Dad decided he wanted to purchase lessons for the father/daughter dance and we were going to attempt to pretend we did not know him. This line of thinking was fraught with potential problems!! Fortunately, we decided the truth will set you free and the daughter learned about the parents’ lessons before she arrived at the studio! She was thrilled and so were we!
Here is the coolest part: Nearly all of the parents who begin classes find they enjoy the lessons so much that they continue on long after the wedding. We currently have a couple who started taking lessons for their son’s wedding, which was fourteen years ago!!!
Why? The closeness that good dancing brings to the relationship is sometimes referred to as “marriage insurance!” Additionally, sometimes the nest is empty after the wedding and most of the previous few decades have been devoted to parenting, leaving a void in the parents relationship which dancing fills😃. One of our couples told us recently that their lessons were the most enjoyable thing they had done together since their son was born! Additionally, dancing is an exercise that uses all the muscles in the body, tied with swimming for most effective toning. Speaking of exercise, the pounds tend to disappear as our couples take roughly 3000 steps per 45 minute lesson. We watch people literally metamorphosis before our eyes.
For example, one of our long time student couples brought their adult daughter in as a guest recently and she is now working on her own program. When asked what prompted her to start taking lessons she stated it was watching her mother turn from a mousy, timid lady to an elegant, sophisticated woman, graceful and poised. Need we say more?
Give it a whirl – we promise we will get you ready to dance to any and all music at the wedding. And who knows, maybe fourteen years from now you will still be dancing with us! If not, we expect you will still be using your dancing skills at other weddings, anniversary parties, on cruises and at local clubs !!
