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In general, we recommend starting wedding dance lessons sooner rather than later. If you learn your wedding dance early, you can stop taking lessons and continue practicing on your own. However, if you only allow a short amount of time to learn your dance, you run the risk of running out of time. You may need additional lessons or practice with no time left before your wedding day.
Wedding Dance Complexity Is A Factor
You also have to consider how involved you want your dance to be. This can be anything from a simple basic dance to a full blown “Dancing With The Stars” style routine. And everything in between. The simplest option would be to just learn the basic step of a dance that goes with your chosen music. This can be accomplished in as little as one dance lesson, but may take a few to feel comfortable.
The next step up would involve learning a few variations (turns, twinkles, walk-arounds, etc.). These variations would be sprinkled throughout your wedding dance with some basic steps danced between them. The number of variations and your learning rate would determine how many lessons this would take. This is what I call loose choreography and usually takes 2 to 5 dance lessons.
With a few more lessons, a special entrance can be choreographed for the song introduction and a final dip or ending pose. This format would begin with your entrance, dancing the basic step interspersed with some variations, and ending with a final pose or dip. I call this format semi choreographed. Expect this to take 3 to 8 dance lessons.
A Choreographed Wedding Dance Will Take More Time
For a fully choreographed wedding dance routine the number of lessons can vary greatly. A routine is where every single step is planned from the first beat of music until the end of the song. So, a minimum of 10 dance lessons would be required to learn a full dance routine. The average is a more realistic range of 15 to 25 lessons. Although, it is not unheard of for a couple to put 50 hours into a complex wedding dance routine.
To put this in terms of time, most people take one wedding dance lesson per week. Therefore, I recommend a few weeks for a simple basic dance. Three to six weeks for loose choreography. One to three months for a semi choreographed dance. And six months or more for a fully choreographed wedding dance routine. If you take more than one lesson per week, you can adjust these times accordingly.
So don’t wait. Get started on your wedding dance today!