I love the old big band swing and romantic crooners from the 1930s to ’50s.  I can think of nothing more romantic than dancing to these classics  in front of a glowing fire, and I knew I wanted to do this at our wedding reception. There was only one small problem: I didn’t know a thing about dancing. Neither did Matt.

Lessons were kind of out of the question, because Matt was still living in Tacoma at the beginning of our engagement, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to get home anywhere from 9:00-11:00 at night. Weekends were consumed with running errands and getting things done that we couldn’t get done during the week, or just plain sleeping in and recovering from the week.  So how were we going to learn how to dance?

Via DVD, of course. We purchased Shaun Trautman’s “Dance Lessons 101: The Basics and Beyond”.  It includes basic instruction on various dance styles, including the most important to us: waltz and swing. We figured those were the two dances we were most likely to do.

It was a learning experience, that’s for sure, but I’m not sure if we learned more about dancing or how to work through frustration as a team.

I didn’t find it too difficult to pick up the steps and learn the moves, but it didn’t come to Matt as easily. He would try the steps, but would get flustered and frustrated when it didn’t go as smoothly as it did for the dancers on-screen. I tried to help him by occasionally taking the lead, which of course ended up with us bumping into each other and  looking about as graceful as marionettes.

There were several points during our lessons where Matt simply declared that he could not do a particular move, which I refused to accept. These were not particularly difficult moves, mind you. I wasn’t asking him to toss me over his head, or pull one of these:

It was a simple quick step, and I knew he could do it, even with his bum knee.  Matt got frustrated, but I made him keep trying. And, what do you know, he eventually got it! Then it was on to the next step, where we repeated the cycle while practicing turns.

We didn’t have as much success with turns. Matt thought too much about where to place his feet, got anxious about when to start the turn, and forced the turn to happen. I could tell he was trying very hard. Too hard. He wasn’t relaxing and listening to the music. He ended up placing his feet in the wrong places at the wrong time and it felt completely wrong.

Yet, I still held out hope that, with practice, we might be able to do some basic dancing (with turns) at our reception. I didn’t want to just blandly weeble wobble back and forth. I wanted to actually dance with my husband.

In the few days leading up to the wedding, we practiced. And got nowhere. We had gone weeks without practicing, caught up in other things that needed to be done, and we were in the same rut as before. Matt was still trying too hard, I was still trying to take the lead. I gave up hope of the perfect first dance, and embraced the reality that we were just going to try the best we could. No matter what it looked like, we would have fun and enjoy each other.

A little bit of magic happened as Matt and I walked onto the dance floor for our first dance as husband and wife. We looked at each other with huge smiles and began dancing, and Matt’s countenance was different from when we practiced dancing at home. He was relaxed. Before I knew it, we made an effortless turn. And another. And another!

I looked proudly on the face of my new husband, so thankful for everything that he is, and everything that we are as a couple. We feel like kids when we’re together: unselfconscious, gleeful and giggly, ready to go on adventures and explore the world. We go together like a wink and a smile.

A&M dance HD from Doug Hanson on Vimeo.