Sometimes, there are wedding nightmares that are unavoidable.
Natural disasters, a missing member of the bridal party, or a nationwide strike by wedding DJ's - it's hard to prepare for those unexpected wedding mishaps.
The sad truth is that when it comes to your wedding dance, most of the problems are completely avoidable. Knowing that, running into them would be a nightmare.
5 Totally Avoidable Wedding Dance Nightmares
NIGHTMARE 1: Falling Over
Falling during a dance performance happens less often than YouTube may make you think. Nevertheless, it does happen, and while you can't always account for random accidents that involve the groom slide tackling his new bride after stepping on a banana peel - some of the more typical dance falls are absolutely avoidable.
Solution - Stick to the Script
Unless you are a professional cake artist, you probably aren't making your own wedding cake. So take the same approach with your first dance. Most first dance falls occur when amateurs take a do it yourself approach to partner dancing. Often times, this includes failed attempts at copying movements from trained professionals on sites like YouTube.
Bottom Line: Most first dance falls occur when amateurs take a do it yourself approach to partner dancing.
NIGHTMARE 2: Forgetting Everything
Dancing or not, everyone has had the nightmare of standing in front of a microphone and blanking out. Knowing what to do is important, but being able to deliver your wedding dance in front of an audience is the challenge. Unfortunately, the fear of blanking out stops many potential wedding dancers from even starting.
Solution - Pressure Test
To build your memory, you've got to challenge your memory. This can be done with some carefully constructed lesson plans by your instructor. The day of your wedding you'll have too many things whirling through your head, so you won't be in the same state of mind you're in after rehearsing your dance 76 times in a row. The solution is to do the dance version of a cross training workout. Hitting your dance, then shifting over to some easy reception dances will reset your mind, and set up a great mental and physical test each time you return to your first dance.
Bottom Line: You don't need to make your feet bleed for your brain to remember your routine.
NIGHTMARE 3: Panic at the Disco
You may not have heard it yet, but Ballroom Dance lessons can actually reduce the stress of wedding planning. Now, all of that stress reducing goodness can get chucked out the wedding planning window if you postpone your lessons until the last minute (we've had people come in as late as the day before).
Solution - Planning Early
With the production value looking more and more like a competition on Pinterest, you'd think this wouldn't be an issue. Nevertheless, most people don't have an internal time line for how long it takes to learn a wedding routine. So we recommend getting started sometime after you propose, and sometime before your family arrives from out of town for the big day. All kidding aside, how cool would it be to announce to your family at your engagement party that you're signed up for lessons.
Bottom Line: Arthur Murray can work miracles, but the miracles are far less stressful to pull off with at least 8 weeks of lead time.
NIGHTMARE 4: Practicing at Home
It seems counter-intuitive, but practicing at home can do more than have you bumping into things in your living room. Similar to working out without a spotter, it would be difficult to avoid doing more harm than good when working without a teacher. The unfortunate truth is that the process can be less enjoyable when two amateurs are correcting each other without the help of their instructor.
Solution - Practice Parties
The Practice Party is engineered for supervised practice. In addition, it is an opportunity for you to pressure test your first dance in front of an appreciative and supporting audience. Now, this isn't the cost of admission, and most practice parties are included in your dance program, but they are built so you can dance, have fun, and learn in a practical, and controlled, environment.
Bottom Line: It's far easier to program your dancing than it is to reprogram it.
NIGHTMARE #5: Not Dancing
If this sounds crazy, then you're already making progress. The reality is that this is one of the nightmares that is easiest to avoid, yet somehow it continues to live on like the Boogie man, the monster under your bed, or Jason from Friday the 13th.
Solution - As with any nightmare, sometimes all it takes is turning the light on. Whether that is with this article, our Wedding Dance E-Book, or starting out with a free wedding consultation. The sooner the mystery is taken out of the process, the sooner this nightmare can be over and done with.
Bottom Line: Not dancing would be the worst nightmare of them all.
Final Thought
Something got you to this point. Whether you had to endure someone's 7 minute high school slow dance to the extended version of "Always and Forever", or you caught a First Dance Fail video on YouTube - you realize that learning to dance is important.
Now it's up to you to avoid the avoidable, get started with your lessons, and end the nightmare before it begins.
