The Secrets of a Confident First Dance

The secrets of a con­fi­dent first dance

As with most things in life, a lit­tle con­fi­dence goes a long way, but if the thought of your first dance fills you with dread, find­ing your con­fi­dence is eas­ier said than done.

Why is a first dance so nerve-wracking?

Danc­ing badly, being embar­rassed and feel­ing a fool are all typ­i­cal con­cerns. It’s com­pletely under­stand­able see­ing as there will be eyes star­ing, cam­eras poised, cam­corders at the ready and the pos­si­bil­ity of an unwel­come YouTube appearance.…

The sci­ence of confidence

The rea­son for low con­fi­dence is con­cern about a neg­a­tive out­come. To find your con­fi­dence your brain needs to be able to draw on a suc­cess­ful expe­ri­ence, which will dis­solve your wor­ries and make you believe you are capa­ble of a pos­i­tive outcome.

Let’s solve some typ­i­cal first dance problems…

Prob­lem no.1 – “I’m wor­ried I’ll dance badly”

The only way to get bet­ter at any­thing is to prac­tice. Grab your fiancé / fiancée, put on some music and just have fun danc­ing together. Either at home, in a club, at a salsa night in a pub, at a ball­room dance class or pri­vate wed­ding dance lessons.

Prob­lem no.2 – “Every­one will be look­ing at me”

Yes they will, just as they have been all day, so noth­ing new there. Your guests are not going to care if you stand on your new husband’s toes. They are not going to stop lov­ing you if you dance out of time, in fact they will prob­a­bly love you more.

Prob­lem no.3 – “What if I make a fool of myself?”

To avoid feel­ing fool­ish, stay in your com­fort zone. Choose a song that you both love. Sorry Sina­tra, but there’s no rea­son to choose a song just because it’s wedding-y. A great short dance is bet­ter than a mediocre long one. There are no rules, so if you want to dance for one minute, that’s fine. If you’re shy do some­thing sim­ple and clas­sic, you don’t need to impress any­one with fancy moves.

A real-life first dance full of confidence

Recently my good friends Amy and Dar­rell did one of the most con­fi­dent first dances EVER. There were no dance lessons or fancy moves, but it was plain to see they were absolutely lov­ing it – and so were all their guests! There’s noth­ing bet­ter than see­ing peo­ple enjoy them­selves and that’s what guests love to see when they watch a first dance.

Photo credit Phil Bourne www.e-motionimages.co.uk

Amy and Dar­rell love to party, there­fore they’ve had many suc­cess­ful danc­ing expe­ri­ences and didn’t feel self con­scious or embar­rassed, as there was no rea­son for them to expect a neg­a­tive outcome.

They fol­lowed the golden rule of stay­ing inside their com­fort zone and danced to a song they both love, Caught Up by Usher. Dar­rell had impres­sively mixed the acap­pella ver­sion of Caught Up with the stan­dard ver­sion, cre­at­ing a unique first dance tune! After they had enjoyed their first dance for a few min­utes the music changed to Candy by Cameo and their wed­ding party and some guests rushed onto the dance floor to do a group dance. This is a great top tip for ner­vous cou­ples, there’s no rea­son why you can’t get some danc­ing back up from your wed­ding party!

About today’s guest blogger

My huge thanks to Amy for writ­ing this arti­cle for Eng­lish Wed­ding Blog. Amy Nel­son is the founder of Wed­ding Day Dance UK. It’s quite nor­mal these days for cou­ples to boost their con­fi­dence by call­ing in the pro­fes­sion­als for first dance assis­tance. Wed­ding Day Dance UK pro­vide pri­vate wed­ding dance lessons across the nation. Their qual­i­fied, pro­fes­sional dance teach­ers are expe­ri­enced at work­ing with com­plete begin­ners and after a few lessons they will have you danc­ing together with con­fi­dence! For more infor­ma­tion about their ser­vices see www.weddingdaydanceuk.co.uk. Photo cred­its to Phil Bourne of www.e-motionimages.co.uk