The Wedding Dance Specialists

We left feeling like we could've learned more. We felt the moves we learned were cheesy and didn't fit our style, but that there was no room for compromise. Deborah Joy is very passionate about the wedding dance and her profession; I do not agree with her philosophy or style of dance. Not worth our money.

We had Deborah for to lessons. We had a lot of fun at our lessons but they started late both times and were not extended. We did only two lessons due to price and time left until the wedding. Since we had only two lessons, Debbie taught us a beginning, finale and walk off and a variety of moves. We were left to choreograph he dance ourselves with these moves. Luckily, I was a dancer for my entire life, but if I was not we would've needed more than two lessons. Needless to say it wa fun And we looked great!

My husband and I really wanted to avoid the middle-school sway during our first dance, so we called upon The Wedding Dance Specialists to try and make us look respectable. This was no small feat considering that my husband doesn’t have an ounce of rhythm in his body (he will attest to this). We worked with Migle over the course of 5 dance lessons. Migle is extremely talented and a lot of fun to work with. She was very encouraging and had lots of suggestions for us along the way. She tailored our first dance to our ability level and vision and even recorded our dance in-studio so that we could practice at home. Migle understood that we didn’t want a completely choreographed dance (we were afraid it might look too cheesy) but rather wanted to learn a beginning and end and then some moves that we could throw in during the middle for a natural feel. That’s exactly what she gave us! We couldn’t have been happier with the final result—an absolute transformation from when we walked in for our first lesson. In addition to having a blast together learning to dance, my husband and I had a great time performing our dance at our reception. We literally had folks on their feet clapping! Needless to say, we received countless compliments and kudos from our wedding guests. Several weeks later, many of them are still talking about it!

The folks at the Wedding Dance Specialists are real pros and we highly recommend them! From Judy in the office to Migle our teacher, everyone was an absolute delight to work with. In addition to having fun learning to dance together, you’ll enjoy impressing all of your wedding guests with your new moves!

My now-husband and I scheduled two lessons to prepare for our first dance. I had an extensive dance background but not with a partner, and he was a novice. We had to cancel our second lesson but one was enough! Deborah showed us a few simple moves and my husband felt a lot more confident when we left. We practiced what we learned, picked our favorites "moves", and arranged them into our short dance. It was a pretty simple dance but we had a great reaction from the crowd at our wedding to our assorted spins and twirls. We also had fun! The staff was flexible in working around our ever changing schedules as well.

Me and my husband enjoyed every minute. We were nervous at first but ended up at the end loving the experience. Our dance at the wedding got lots of compliments and it was one of our highlights of the wedding.

Deborah Joy was fantastic. She took two people who can't dance at all and made us look fantastic in front of all of our guests! She was part pre-marital counselor (who knew the leader/follower aspect of dance could be so stressful!), part dance instructor and part word of wisdom giver. They have a great website with tons of tips and it was a good value for the money.

We started with this vendor by joining in the group classes which helped us learn the basics. The instructor was kind, yet made sure to let you know when you needed to work on certain areas. From there we knew that we wanted to work with this company to ensure a perfect first dance.

When signing up for private lessons, they were very helpful in locating an instructor and setting up meeting times in a local dance studio. The instructor we had for private lessons took the uncommon song that we chose and choreographed a great dance for our wedding. The instructor worked with us amateurs to make sure the dance was great. We enjoyed learning many different dance steps and heard tons of compliments on our first dance such as "Best first dance ever!"

I just took the "One Visit Guarantee" with Deborah Joy and it was well worth the investment. My wedding is six days away and I did not want my new groom and I to do dreaded the 8th grade slow dance. Deborah choreographed a simple and elegant dance for us to our first dance song. We videorecorded our final run through and it turned out great. Deborah also makes sure you get good shots for your photographer throughout the dance! I gave it 4.5 stars because they didn't have the Arlington location like I'd hoped, but the Falls Church/Alexandria locations were also close. Thanks Deborah!

I can't say enough good things about Deborah Joy Block and the Wedding Dance Specialists. My bride and I took four lessons with Deborah and in that period of time (and with a bit of practice), we went from knowing nothing to having the confidence to put on a great show at our reception, and the compliments still have not stopped. I 100% recommend the Wedding Dance Specialists - it made for a great Valentine's Day gift, too.

This is one of the best experiences we had while we were planning our wedding. We booked 5 lessons with The Wedding Dance Specialists, and it was wonderful! Even after just one lesson, you learn how to avoid what I called “the bear hug shuffle”. You know what I mean – just standing in the same spot with your arms around each other, swaying back and forth. Hideous.

Our dance instructor was Upendra, and he was FABULOUS!!! Every week we had a great time, and he was so patient and great at teaching us techniques. He takes the time to work with you and make sure you are comfortable for your first dance. Upendra was a great coach for my husband, who really loathes dancing, and we went from something that was incredibly awkward to something that felt natural and enjoyable. Of course we made a few mistakes, but we thoroughly enjoyed our first dance. We had a fun time, and our guests gave us a standing ovation at the end!

My husband and I are such bad dancers that he insisted we take dance lessons to avoid embarrassing ourselves in front of all of our friends and family. However, with Upen, our dance instructor, we felt like good dancers. We had fun learning our dance and have a beautiful video from our wedding to prove that we can, in fact, dance! We also definitely impressed our guests with our dancing!

We first attended the 2 workshops the Wedding Dance Specialists. The ceremony workshop taught us the basics, which helped us get up to speed when we started private lessons with Upen. However, the ceremony dance workshop was a bit intimidating since many different types of dances were covered in a short period of time. The reception workshop was a lot of fun.

We had 5 private lessons with Upen. I think 3 or 4 would be enough for most people, but we scheduled ours to far ahead of the wedding, so we needed a final review lesson 2 weeks before the wedding!

I really couldn't have been any happier with how our dance classes turned out. They were fun to go to (which we were not expecting) - and we really felt that we mastered our first dance. We went in only with the hope that we would not to embarrass ourselves - and instead many of our guests said it was one of the best first dances they had seen. And, it was one of my husbands and I favorite moments of the wedding (which we also were not expecting!) Deborah Joy was fun - and clearly is very passionate about her job and making sure that your first dance is a huge success. Well worth every cent!!!

If you don't want to look like you are at an 8th grade dance or prom during your first dance with your spouse I would highly suggest utilizing the services of the Wedding Dance Specialists. Deborah Joy gave us the tools and techniques we needed to make our first dance special and spectacular. We took two, two hour private lessons with her to really make sure we had it down. We were able to schedule these lessons only 3 weeks before our wedding and our dance was awesome!

Therapist or dance teacher? Deborah Joy is awesome. We booked her a bit last minute, but she was able to work us into her schedule. Amidst the snow storms and rush of the last minute wedding jitters, Deborah not only helped my husband gain confidence but also excitement at the prospect of our first dance.

My husband and I blogged our way through a He Said She Said series journaling how we felt from before our first lesson and our expectations to recapping the actual dance. (You can find that here http://www.relentlessbride.com/search/label/He%20Said%20She%20Said )

I can't tell you enough what Deborah had to work with. My husband hated dancing, he didn't think it was something he could do - let alone find enjoyable and on the day of, he was the one who insisted we do THE dance even though I was nervous and considered doing the high school sway. Nobody could believe that he did such an amazing job - and although we made our mistakes here and there, we enjoyed our first dance. We had fun and our guests LOVED it...

I can honestly say that without Deborah's Guidance, the tone that we set at our reception would have been completely different!

The Wedding Dance Specialists were great! I am a trained ballet dancer so I have rythum, but I'm not trained to dance with a partner, and then my husband doesn't dance at all. At weddings we usually slow dance to one song and it is basically just a swaying back and forth. In order to avoid this at our wedding, and avoid boring our guests, we decided to try dance lessons. Well, I decided and convinced my husband to join. :-) He is a very private person, so he just wasn't too excited about being around other people and feeling embarrassed.

The dance company made it really easy though and didn't make us feel stupid or silly at all. We took two private classes and really enjoyed it. They just helped us learn a very basic dance step and taught us how to spin and how to dip. I learned tons about how to let the man lead and we found the whole experience to be great.

You will be in a room with others, but everyone is focused on their own lessons and not paying attention to you. They actually played our wedding song over the loud speaker once, instead of just the iphone we were using, so we could get used to hearing the music loud. Everyone else continued their lessons using our song, so that was kind of fun.

We loved our dance and felt very confident going into the reception. I wish we would have had time for a third lesson, but we ran out of time before the wedding. I say definitely do at least two if you have the time, but three would be more ideal just to make sure you feel 100% confident.

Our wedding was over two and a half years ago, but friends and family still comment on how much they loved our first dance!

Thank you!

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best, our experience with wedding dance specialists was an 11! If you live in the DC metro area, the grand champion of wedding dance teachers is definitely Migle from the Wedding Dance Specialists. At least that's what the trophy says that we gave her at the end of our series of 6 lessons. That's right, she was that good that we got her a TROPHY! She took my fiance from not knowing a single step of formal dance to looking like my own personal Fred Astaire. She worked with us extremely well, mixing in some moves that we had created on our own, and giving us new ones we never would have thought of that are BEAUTIFUL! When we asked to put in a lift, even though she'd never had a couple ask for one before, she put one in that we could execute well, that looks impressive, but that is safe, and takes into consideration my strapless dress. Migle also had a GREAT sense of humor and made the lessons fun. Each time she thought of a step that at first my fiance didn't think he could possibly do, she would break down the steps into the simplest components and walk him through it, giving him helpful pointers to remember. Migle even helped him with musicality! Our song had some strange timing in it, and we were having problems stepping at the right time, so she listened to the song over and over and found certain elements for us to listen for that helped us nail it each time. We could not possibly be happier with our experience that we had. Because of this experience, it was my FIANCE's idea to take more lessons after the wedding. He said he found the whole thing surprisingly enjoyable and that each weekend he looked forward to our lesson and our nightly practice sessions. Taking someone with no dance background at all, and getting them to really ENJOY dancing is quite an accomplishment in my opinion. The other great thing was they had a practice crinolin for us to dance with. This gave us a better idea of what it will be like dancing with my big ball gown. Migle also offered to take a video of us in practice. This was tremendously helpful for us to fine tune our moves and our hands. All in all, if we were to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a single thing! Thank you soooooo much wedding dance specialists!!!!!!

Our instructor was MIGLE! She was GREAT! So undertsanding and patient - she gave us a PERFECT First Dance that people were amazed by! What a GREAT MEMORY!!!!!!! One of my favorite!!!

We had an amazing experience with the Wedding Dance Specialists! We had the odd request of helping us with our "first dance" and to teach us how to dance the polka (to please the grandparents). They accommodated both with ease and we had a great time doing it. The dance studio was convenient (easy parking) and the teacher, Dinah, was fantastic and fun. Everyone commented on how great it was that we didn't just rock back and forth like we were embarrased and instead put on a show! A friend told us "it made the event!" People even applauded at our spin move! :) We had a blast. Thank you Wedding Dance Specialists!

Brian would not agree to go to dance lessons if we were doing a traditional slow dance so, I had to agree to "spice" it up a little bit. We contacted Wedding Dance Specialist about 3 months before the wedding and used the Columbia, MD studio. We were assigned to Dinah who was open to anything and a fun teacher. She quickly realized that Brian wasn't the professional dancer he claimed to be when we first met her :)

Brian and I decided to dance to "You're the One That I Want" from Grease and even had the Rydell sweater and the leather jacket. We used a little from the movie but Dinah added quite a bit of fun surprises from me falling back and Brian catching me, the rag doll (which I continued to call the Raggedy Ann) and a cool side dip. She even taught us different spins so that we could bow to the guests on all 4 sides of the dance floor.

Our dance was a hit!! No one knew so we surprised everyone We coordinated with our band for our introductions and immediately started the "party". ALL of our guests were out of their seats laughing and clapping. This will be the most memorable part of our wedding day and we can't thank Dinah enough for being so creative and having an open mind. She is AWESOME!!!

We just used our dance lesson about 2 weeks before the wedding. They are very responsive and flexible and were able to fit us in with very short notice. Our dance instructor was fabulous. He tought us a dance that we were able to learn in 1 hour yet still looked great once we performed on our wedding night. We actually got a standing ovation afterwards. Everyone mentioned afterwards how fabulous we looked. Well worth the money.

We had a wonderful experience learning our first dance with the Wedding Specialists. My husband is not known for his rhythm or dance moves so we wanted to surprise everyone with a polished first dance. The dance we ended up with was well above and beyond our expectations. The classes were so much fun and the teachers really put us at ease. Our first dance turned out to be our favorite part of our entire wedding. Because we were so well prepared it was relaxed and fun for us instead of awkward. And the hoots and hollers we got from our shocked guests will never be forgotten!

The first dance was probably my favorite part of my entire wedding! We only took two lessons (two weeks before the wedding) and didn't really have a chance to practice, so we were really nervous going out onto the dance floor. Neither of us really danced before and didn't know the first thing about posture or basic steps. Kevin (Bethesda studio) was an amazing teacher and did a great job at teaching us the basics and helping us feel comfortable dancing together. He also showed us a couple of fancy-looking but very simple moves and helped us coreograph a special ending to the song. The lessons really paid off, and we looked amazing together! I think our friends and family were all really surprised when we started twirling around the dance floor. I felt like a million bucks! Thank you!

We were very impressed with the two lessons we took with the Wedding Dance Specialists. We wanted to look polished and comfortable without looking rehearsed and too formal—and that is exactly what we got. We were able to complete a beautiful, natural waltz that we felt comfortable doing in front of 200 people with only 2 sessions. We would definitely use the Wedding Dance Specialists again.

My husband and I thought it would be a good idea to take Foxtrot lessons for our wedding. Derek W., the Instructor in Beltsville, was fantastic. He is talented and highly knowledgeable of all the steps. We only signed up for four lessons and had to practice a lot, but we were transformed from two clumsy lefties into Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Our First Dance was beautiful and impeccable. Derek, you would've been really proud of us. Thanks Wedding Dance Specialists!!!

My husband and I took dance lessons from Deb at The Wedding Dance Specialists. Deb was simply wonderful. She helped me gain confidence in dancing, which is half the battle. She was patient and knowledgeable. We will go back to her for more lessons.

In the final weeks before the wedding, we decided that we could really use a bit of help on the whole dance thing. I sent an inquiry through their Web site and was contacted the next day to set up an appointment where (in Arlington) and when (there was a single weekend afternoon that we were both in town) we needed. We had to pay for the whole thing up front and print a variety of forms to prove that we'd done so. We only booked a single one-hour session (it was all we could afford - from both a cost and time perspective), but it was SO worth it! The instructor taught us so many things in one hour, it made a world of difference AND she did it in a way that didn't make us feel rushed - we were able to understand, process, and try each technique and step she showed us before moving on. She suggested that we write down what we'd learned right after our session so we could practice and we did. We practiced upstairs just before the reception and for our first dance, we felt confident and looked pretty darn good! I would definitely recommend them - they do, in fact, know what they're doing for weddings in particular.

I received information about this company from the Bridal Expo. Before winning the NYC ceremony, we were originally going to have a large ceremony and reception in Maryland. Although many other agenda items were important, I was worried about our first dance. My husband has…how shall I say this…two left feet. They offer reasonable prices and when I dropped into a class, I was very pleased with the instruction. Unfortunately, we didn’t end up taking the classes, but I recommend The Wedding Dance Specialists to anyone in the DMV who wants to shake a tail feather on their reception dance floor.

I have two left feet, but I knew I wanted to do something out of the ordinary for my first dance to set the mood for the reception. Deborah Joy worked with my husband and me to create a fun swing dance that was easy to learn and remember. Before my lessons, I didn't even know how to follow a good lead. After 5 lessons, I had all the basics down thanks to her instruction. She didn't turn me into a Grace Kelly, but she's a dance instructor not a miracle worker!! See our dance here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVkSeSQNOnk

Positives: We kept the first dance a secret from everyone and it was a great big hit at the reception! The lessons were such a fantastic bonding experience for us during all of the stress of wedding planning. The dance we learned was so much fun that you can't get us off the dance floor at weddings now.

Negatives: Deborah Joy was succinct at times and may not be the right teacher for sensitive folks, but if you are a perfectionist like I am and don't mind the constructive criticism she'll deliver the end result you are looking for. The lessons didn't always start on time but you do get your full hour no matter the start time.

We loved learning swing for our first dance so much, we want to learn more and use it at other weddings!! Gave my nervous husband the tools to lead me around the dance floor with confidence and ease!

This was a fantastic idea on my DH's part. Our private lessons (we only took two) were a lot of fun and gave us the confidence we needed for our first dance. Jim was unbelievably patient with my determination to lead and was able to get us to look graceful, a feat that I am truly amazed by!. Our first dance to Lifehouse's "You and Me" went smoothly and I dare say that I think we impressed a few people with our dance moves :-) I highly recommend Jim from the Wedding Dance Specialists.

Deborah was amazing! We spent 6 months with her and if my husband could learn how to dance then anyone can, lol! Guests still talk about our dance. Honestly, Deborah was fun and a joy to be around. At the end she was a friend that we could not imagine not having at our wedding.

Deborah was a great instructor! We learned out first dance in just a couple of lessons and made quite an impression at out wedding in South Africa. I have since then referred her every chance I get!