Surprise First Dance At British Wedding

Wedding Date: 14th August 2010
Location: Church wedding at St James' in Poole Quay and reception followed at Hotel Miramar in Bournemouth, Dorset (UK).
Our names: Miss Charlotte McGuiness (now Mrs Fitzgerald)
                   Mr James Fitzgerald

It took me three years in total to plan my wedding and I knew all along that I wanted to attempt a wedding dance to surprise our guests in the evening. The one problem was that James and I both have two left feet when it comes to dancing and neither of us are choreographers in any shape or form! So I had my work cut out for me. We chose the music tracks together and then James edited them into one track. I spent ages trawling YouTube for ideas on routines and impressive moves. I was so impressed with the effort some couples go to! James and I both work shift work so didn't have much time to plan and practice the routine, so time was against us. I also knew the design of my dress and shoe height was also going to restrict the moves and wipe out any chance of lifts/ swings. I eventually put a short routine together using lots of ideas from the net, and ideas of my own. I began teaching James the moves and after 3 weeks we had it looking moderately good!

Doing your own wedding dance routine appears not to be very common in the UK. I think the trend is picking up, but of the 100 or so guests at our wedding, the majority had never seen or heard of anyone else doing a dance routine at their wedding; they thought it was an American trend!

Unfortunately I was ill the week before the wedding and so could not practice the dance once. I was terrified of forgetting the moves when it came to the evening, but I just had to go for it and hope I remembered it all. For people who cannot dance or have no experience of dancing, the routine feels like your about to put on a 3hr show! Luckily it went to plan and I even kept my veil on! Our guests absolutely loved it and so did we!