Tags
dancing, fame, first dance, Gary Barlow, Lady In Red, Louis Spence, marriage, Take That, This Morning, weddings
Everyone has an opinion about weddings. The “right” way to do them, the “wrong” way, what’s symbolic and what’s just plain tacky. A bit like parenting, weddings can divide and bring together.
And that is exactly why we’ve had such trouble choosing our first dance.
We’re not particularly traditional people. We did everything the wrong way round to start with, having a baby first and all. And we’re not getting married in a church. So I was all for ditching the first dance altogether. But then I realised the endless possibilities.
For the first time in my life, I would have a ready-made audience that couldn’t walk out halfway through my big number. It would be my time to shine. I started to feel the warmth of the limelight on my face. I could feel the ache in my legs as I curtsied to rapturous applause.
With my jazzy jazz hands, high kicks and lift the likes of which Patrick Swayze would be proud of, I would win my audience. Frog could be my backing dancer. I’d have a standing ovation. I’d become a YouTube sensation. I’d be invited on to This Morning to chat about the moving yet skilful performance with Phil. Louis Spence would see my moves and he’d just have to invite me to join his dance troupe. I’d get my own TV show, make millions and become Take That’s star dancer. In fact, I’d be invited to join Take That, as their first ever female member, because of my “special star quality”.
And then I remembered there would be two of us in this dance. I’d have to share the limelight with my new husband. He was, let’s say, less than keen on the jazz hands routine. He disagreed with me that Dirty Dancing is possibly the best film ever made. In fact, he thought it was the worst. (I only managed to persuade him to watch it with the promise “there’s fighting in it” – and the one punch in the entire film was sadly disappointing.)
So we canned the jazz hands and I got my husband-to-be drunk. In his inebriated state I managed to convince him to agree to another choreographed number. This time to Take That’s Greatest Day. But as his hangover set in so did the cold feet. So Gary et al were canned along with Patrick Swayze.
Then Granny from the North suggested a slow number. After humming the tunes to Lady In Red and countless other croony tunes, there wasn’t one that stood out.
So I’m opening the floor to suggestions. What was your first wedding dance and why did you choose that particular song? As well as the chance to steal your ideas I’ll get a good excuse to be nosey and find out all about your wedding.
*Jazz hands*
(humour me – it’s the only time I’ll get to do them this week.)
janeblackmore said:
Oh I am so excited for your wedding blog!
anyway, he who helped create them and I did a dance to ‘aint that a kick in the head’ it seemed appropiate! and yes we did do choreographed ( with a lift!) In fact the first thing HWHCT said as I rocked up next to him at the alter (hotel desk) was ‘how will we do the lift in that dress!’ however it all went really well, so well in fact that four hours later after several bottles of wine we did it again – not so successful I almost landed on my great anne may after the lift went wrong…..
mothersalwaysright said:
I wish I’d been at your wedding – that sounds amazing! How did you persuade him to do the lift?!
mymummylife said:
Wannadies, You & Me Song here. Loved it. Not choreographed, just lots of silly jumping!
mothersalwaysright said:
I adore that song – reminds me of Romeo & Juliet. Such a sweet song. x
marc benesch said:
replied on facebook
mothersalwaysright said:
Oh yes, just saw that one – not sure I’d persuade the NLM to do a Bruno Mars dance!
HackneyHackette said:
Hello! Dirty Dancing is of course the best film ever made – my lovely chief bridesmaid and best friend organised a screening of it for my hen night complete with quotes-from-the-film bingo. It was brill.
Our first dance was The Zombies’ This Will Be Our year (“the warmth of your heart’s like the warmth of the sun, this will be our year, took a long time to come”) – we both like The Zombies, we had been going out for quite a few years before tying the knot, and the added bonu fir a dreadful dancer like me is its a very short song. We then segued into Let’s Get Married by The Proclaimers (“it’s just a piece of paper, but it says ‘I love you’) and dragged everyone else up. I love seeing what other people have chosen for first dances.
HackneyHackette said:
Sorry, something happened to the typing there: added bonus for, not bonu fir…
mothersalwaysright said:
Your wedding sounds like a very cool one – never heard of The Zombies, but seeing as my music taste is terrible this is probably a good thing. Your hen night also sounds amazing – what a lovely friend! x
Hopesforbaby4 said:
Dh can’t dance to save his life!! We had Alicia Keys – “some people want it all, but I don’t want nothing at all, if aint you baby!” (can’t remember title, but can remember all the lyrics!) lyrics meant a lot. Dancing was us going round and round in a circle in a sort of embarrassed bear hug until other people (thankfully) joined in!
mothersalwaysright said:
Lovely song – can just imagine the embarrassed bear hug moment though! x
Jane Clarke said:
unchained melody !!!
mothersalwaysright said:
Only if it’s the Robson and Jerome version!
Crystal Jigsaw said:
I love Dirty Dancing but have 2 left feet. Used to love disco dancing but can’t do slow dancing, always get embarrassed! Our wedding song was The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. A few artists have covered it including George Michael and Celine Dion. We had Celine’s version and it was totally beautiful. Very romantic and took us completely out of our comfort zone, lol. But it’s a stunning song with incredible lyrics.
Enjoy your last week of freedom!
CJ xx
mothersalwaysright said:
If I had that song I’d probably end up in a heap of snot and tears! I’m with you on the aversion to slow dancing, I just want to start jumping around and doing *jazz hands*… x
Peggy said:
We danced on Let’s stay together by Al Green. I envisioned a romantic moment of the two of us looking into each others eyes, miming the words and twirling around while the audience would look in awe… Well instead the groom was pissed, I had to look for him in the crowd, the audience couldn’t wait to launch themselves to the free bar (again). Actually thinking about it the DJ loved it. Very free style and defying convention and tradition, very much like the whole wedding actually, but we still believe that it is what made it such a brilliant day! Good luck with yours!
mothersalwaysright said:
That sounds like my kind of wedding. I bet your guests all had a brilliant time – sounds like loads of fun! x
Jontybabe said:
We had ‘something’ by the Beatles. Nice song.
mothersalwaysright said:
I agree – gorgeous song.
Kate Takes 5 said:
Ooo how exciting! We had The Turtles ‘Happy Together’ – still very happy with our choice. (It very quickly descended into moshing to Nirvana though…)
mothersalwaysright said:
I’m rather taken with the idea of moshing to Nirvana as a first dance – would completely defy convention! Never heard of The Turtles, which isn’t surprising because (as you know) my music taste is bloody awful. You’re too cool for me Kate!
geekmummy said:
The one thing I would change about my wedding day if I was to go back and do it all over again would be the first dance. At the time I chose not to have one, as neither I nor DH are great dancers, and it all seemed like too much hassle. I just knew I’d never get him to buy in to doing something choreographed.
If I could go back, I don’t know what song… Perhaps “it had to be you”
mothersalwaysright said:
Brilliant song – I think you’ve just helped me make my mind up to have a dance. Thank you! x
Boatwife said:
Nobody does it better – Carly Simon. It’s ‘our song’! Cheese!
mothersalwaysright said:
I don’t know that one – loving a bit of cheese though!
Mummy and the Beastie said:
We really struggled with choosing ours, not wanting to go for the classic cheese. In the end we chose James Morrison’s ‘You give me something’ as it was the only song we could think of as ‘our’ song as it was released just as we started going out and the words seemed appropriate.
Reading the others, I think the Wannadies is a lovely one
mothersalwaysright said:
Yes The Wannadies is a brilliant one isn’t it? I wish we had an “our song”, but we both hate each other’s music taste so trying to listen to pretty much anything always ends in a heated debate!
Helen said:
I can’t even remember my first dance song! (not much of a dancer, so we just scooted around a bit!). I know what not to choose though! A friend of mine had Billy Idols “Nice Day for a White Wedding!”
mothersalwaysright said:
Brilliant, wish I’d seen that first dance!
Truffle said:
We had ‘La Mer’ by Charles Trenet. The key thing was pre-arranging for certain couples to join the dance floor right after the first verse, so that we didn’t have to do the whole dance on our own. (But if it’s limelight you want, then you’ll probably need to do the opposite!)
mothersalwaysright said:
I’m liking the idea of getting certain people to come on at a certain point in the song – as much as I love the limelight the same can’t be said of the NLM!
Mum Down South said:
We had Let There Be Love (Nat King Cole) played by the swing band we hired. Still love that song. Our friend made a fantastic video of the beach bbq we had the next day and set it to Mr Blue Sky by ELO which has become my favourite song and still gives me goose bumps.
granny from the north said:
Sounds amazing XX
mothersalwaysright said:
What a lovely idea to have a beach BBQ the next day – the benefits of living on the South Coast!
granny from the north said:
Hi, we got married in the new (now old!) Man City football club events room in 1971 – that was so trendy! We didnt have a night do, our first dance was a waltz (not so trendy) but I might have dreamt that as I dont think there was actually a dance floor. Could be wrong after 40 years (21/8/11) it does all go a bit hazy! unfortunately. Looking forward to saturday!
mothersalwaysright said:
I’m not sure I’d manage to persuade the NLM to do a waltz. Happy Ruby Wedding Anniversary!
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