Its been a great year for Dance Company. I have worked with a large number of couples from across the Bay of Plenty with their wedding dances. I’ve taught a handful of Fathers of the Bride enough partner dancing to look wonderful dancing with their daughters.
“Thanks again for last night, Ben and I said in the car last night that the lessons has been by far our most favourite part of organising the wedding.” Ben & Nat
I have taught ballroom, new vogue, 1930’s styled partner dancing and Modern Jive to couples and singles who want a little extra styling in their dance.
I have also judged dancing competitions across New Zealand.
Finally, I trained two local formation teams, and taken them to competitions in Wanganui and Auckland.
Thank you to all the people I have taught this year. Its been so much fun.
Dance Company is now fully booked until early January. I will be back teaching on Tuesday the 8th.
Its that time of the year when couples start planning their spring and summer weddings.
I teach quite a few wedding couples, Fathers of the Bride, Mothers of the Groom and complete wedding parties each year. The songs that couples used have been as diverse as Flume, Talking Heads and Motley Crue through to Frank Sinatra, Jason Timberlake and Elton John. The inspiration for a wedding dance always comes from the music and any style of music is perfect if it means something to you both.
I have lesson times available in Tauranga after work on Monday and Wednesdays.
Last year Aaron and Kelly decided to take up the opportunity to have a wedding dance created especially for them. They wanted a non traditional wedding dance that would WOW their guests. There were also a couple of logistical issues as they weren’t sure of the amount of space they had to dance in, or what the floor surface was going to be.
Despite the challenges they did an amazing job and I am so delighted to be able to show you their wedding dance to Sugar by Maroon 5.
Do consider booking your wedding dance lessons in advance – that means one less thing to worry about closer to the actual day. If you are looking for some help, do call or email.
Every couple has some specific questions, however these are two of the more common ones:
How much time do we need to put in?
This depends on what exactly you want your first dance to be. If you want something that’s fairly formal, or with complicated moves or a very slick performance you will need to put aside about 3 months of weekly lessons. If you want something a little more casual you could set aside 4-6 weeks. If you just want a few simple moves you could have just one lesson.
You do need to be able to practice between lessons too. Not hours and hours, but enough so each lesson can build on what you both already know. Practice also gets rid of the need to count, look down and all those things that will make you look unconfident.
When should we start?
Its a good idea to have your choreography done at least 2 weeks before the big day if you can – then you have less to stress about. You can also learn your choreographed wedding dance well in advance and come back for a final run through in the week before their wedding – and that works well for some couples.
Do consider booking your wedding dance lessons in advance – that means one less thing to worry about closer to the actual day.
Dance Company teaches Wedding Couples, Wedding Parties, Brides and Dads and Grooms and Mums in Tauranga. Its your wedding, contact me if I can help you make it even more memorable.
Sometimes I’m called upon to work with a different type of “wedding/first dance” brief. Mehak and Bharat came to me with that type of proposal. They wanted a choreographed dance that they could use for their pre-wedding video.
They intended to create a video that showed their guests how they met, how they fell in love and how he asked her to marry him.
I am so delighted to show you what this lovely couple did with a beautiful song. The choreography is woven through the video, sometimes its in a studio and sometimes its not.
Dance Company has planned something a little different in May. Group classes in Ballroom and Latin for couples are being offered in Tauranga. Numbers are very limited, so if this is what you are looking for do call or email.
I do enjoy being sent videos and photos from the couples I work with. Every couple is special and every wedding is special.
Sadly copyright laws mean that I can’t share Kelly and Simon’s wedding dance to You’re The Inspiration by Chicago. It just doesn’t look the same with the music muted.
Instead have some cell phone photos.
They also sent the following testimonial:
For a couple who had never done any sort of formal dancing, Elly made us feel very relaxed and at ease within all of our sessions. We were always excited to come to our lessons to learn the next part of our routine. Elly has a wonderful way of breaking it down and explaining how to do each move, also demonstrating each move – both female and male version. We had so much fun with her learning and practising our routine. Another thing we didn’t realise prior to our lesson, is that Elly gave us our own “showcase” dance routine.
We turned up thinking we were going to learn a bit of something or how to dance nicely together, and came out with lifts and dips and all sorts of amazing moves that we felt so confident doing as she had taught us so well.
We highly recommend Elly to anyone looking for a dance instructor – Elly is very talented!
Thank you so much Elly!
Kel and Si Cunliffe
If you are also looking for something either a little traditional or a little different for your first dance, limited numbers of private lessons for couples are now available.
