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A month to go - Dance anxiety and "center of attention" jitters!

Silverelf2015Silverelf2015 member
5 Love Its First Comment
edited July 2015 in Wedding Reception Forum
Greetings, Knotties!

It's been a while since I've posted, but I've been busy busy! Now almost all is in place, I have a few things to attend to yet, not least of which is my anxiety over being the center of attention, which is getting worse by the day!

I'm a wallflower who hates the limelight, and he's not much more of a stage animal than I am, lol. 

In light of this, can we talk about all those awkward "first dances"? He and I don't dance. We're not likely to dance anywhere, ever, after this so why is a first dance even important? Do we have permission to nix this (we've already nixed all the other theatrics - ie. the tosses, etc - it's a small wedding anyway), especially since we don't really even have a song? 

And if his mom wants a dance, does that mean we have to do *all* the first dances? And if we have to keep them, is it ok to invite everyone to dance with us, so that we're not being stared at through an entire awkward five minutes up there all by ourselves? The thought of that makes me want to sink into a hole in the floor and wish we'd eloped!

Bottom line, do we have to do all this stuff simply because it's what people expect? 

Thanks for any feedback and guidance!
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Re: A month to go - Dance anxiety and "center of attention" jitters!

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    Maggie0829Maggie0829 member
    First Anniversary First Answer First Comment 5 Love Its
    You can completely nix the first dance.  Or you could dance for like 30 seconds and then have your DJ announce "X and Y would now like to invite you all to join them on the dance floor" so that way the focus is no longer on you.

    As for parent dances you could pick one song and you and your FI could proceed to dance with your Dad and his Mom at the same time.  This way the attention is split.  Oh and make sure to pick a shorter song or have your DJ mix a song to make it shorter in length.

    But really you don't have to do any dances if you don't want to.  Typically the point of the first dance is to open the dance floor up to the rest of your guests.  But that easily could happen by having your DJ start up some fun dance music and say something like "The dance floor is now open!"

    And from someone who hates being the center of attention, on my wedding day I really did not care.  My eyes were solely on my H for the entire walk down the aisle and ceremony.  And since I was on cloud 9 I can barely recall our first dance except that I was just laughing and talking with my H and didn't really notice anyone else.

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    Knottie05481694Knottie05481694 member
    5 Love Its Name Dropper First Comment
    edited July 2015
    Your wedding is about you, not what people expect. So if you don't ever dance, then don't dance. It may be sort of confusing for guests, however, to know when the dance floor is open. Maybe you can do a couples dance? You and your husband, the wedding party, and your parents? 
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    Maggie0829Maggie0829 member
    First Anniversary First Answer First Comment 5 Love Its
    Knottie05481694 said:
    Your wedding is about you, not what people expect. So if you don't ever dance, then don't dance. It may be sort of confusing for guests, however, to know when the dance floor is open. Maybe you can do a couples dance? You and your husband, the wedding party, and your parents? 
    No, don't do this to your wedding party.  Also, not everyone has an even wedding party.  Making people pair up who hardly know each other is just super uncomfortable.

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    Jen4948Jen4948 member
    First Anniversary First Answer First Comment 5 Love Its

    You can skip all the spotlight dances and just open the floor for dancing when you're ready to have dancing start.

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    Knottie05481694Knottie05481694 member
    5 Love Its Name Dropper First Comment
    edited July 2015
    Maggie0829 said:
    No, don't do this to your wedding party.  Also, not everyone has an even wedding party.  Making people pair up who hardly know each other is just super uncomfortable.

    The idea was to have the wedding party dance with their plus ones, not someone else in the wedding party. I don't see anything terrible about that. 

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    Maggie0829Maggie0829 member
    First Anniversary First Answer First Comment 5 Love Its
    Knottie05481694 said:
    Maggie0829 said:
    No, don't do this to your wedding party.  Also, not everyone has an even wedding party.  Making people pair up who hardly know each other is just super uncomfortable.

    The idea was to have the wedding party dance with their plus ones, not someone else in the wedding party. I don't see anything terrible about that. 

    What if they don't have plus one's?  And guests don't want to watch the wedding party dance with their SOs.  Guests are generally fine watching the couple dance and the parent dances but other then that they really don't care about watching anyone else dance.

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    AddieCakeAddieCake member
    First Anniversary First Answer First Comment 5 Love Its
    Nobody should be forced or feel obligated to dance if they don't want to. 
    What did you think would happen if you walked up to a group of internet strangers and told them to get shoehorned by their lady doc?~StageManager14
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    lembasloverlembaslover member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Comment First Answer
    Knottie05481694 said:
    Your wedding is about you, not what people expect. So if you don't ever dance, then don't dance. It may be sort of confusing for guests, however, to know when the dance floor is open. Maybe you can do a couples dance? You and your husband, the wedding party, and your parents? 
    Ugh I was in a wedding once where I had to dance with a groomsman I was paired up with, it was really awkward... Like I was friends with him but it was still weird. To make it worse my bf at the time was also in the wedding party but he was BM and danced with MOH. I think we ended up switching halfway through the dance b/c it was just wrong that we were arbitrarily paired up b/c of titles...
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    Silverelf2015Silverelf2015 member
    5 Love Its First Comment
    Thanks for all the suggestions. I probably should have clarified from the beginning that I don't really have a traditional, 'matched' wedding party - just the BM, MOH, one very young bridesmaid, a flower girl, and a ring bearer. This is a tiny wedding (50 ppl all told, counting party) and as such, I think that if we do decide to dance, we would invite everyone up. My parents have been divorced for 15 years so I don't think they'll be dancing together, even though they're friends and both of them will (of course) be there. 
    image
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    MandyMostMandyMost member
    First Anniversary First Comment 5 Love Its Name Dropper
    Dance for 30 seconds, let the photog get some pics and your parents to be pleased, then have the DJ invite everyone up. For the second song, plan to dance with a respective parent (don't announce it or anything, just make sure your parents know the plan, and go to it).

    For the record, I also had so much fun during the first dance, and our eyes were solely on each other. It really didn't feel like 150 people were watching!
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    MelissaRNMaceMelissaRNMace member
    First Comment First Anniversary
    You don't have to have one if you don't want to. We are having a small wedding too, about 50 people including the wedding party. We aren't having a real dance floor, just an area for mingling. My family has never done dancing at a wedding so I never considered it. But a first dance was important to my fiancé. We aren't doing dances with other people, like parents. Our string trio will play an instrumental version of our song (Broken Road). We're taking a few lessons because, like you, we are definitely not dancers. If he hadn't wanted it so much I wouldn't have done it. But I could see in his eyes it meant a lot. If it doesn't mean that to either of you, nix it.
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