Ballroom Wedding Dance

Peter Jones is a fantastic teacher, and lots of fun to work with! He has a low-​pressure, straightforward style of instruction that really helped us prepare for our first dance at our wedding. We would strongly recommend him to anyone, including beginners. Thanks so much, Peter!

We signed up for a series of 5 lessons with Peter to learn how to dance for the first dance at our wedding. Our experience was wonderful from start to finish. He responded promptly to emails and texts and was willing to work with our busy schedules to coordinate lesson times. We told him our first dance song and he taught us the basic steps for how to dance to it in our first lesson. Over the next four lessons, he built on that by adding various flourishes (turns, extra steps, dip, etc) in increasing complexity. He was fun, worked with our ability level, and helped us feel comfortable and more confident on the dance floor. We appreciated that instead of having a strictly choreographed routine, we instead learned how to dance and bring in embellishments as we wanted, which definitely helped with our anxiety on the day of the wedding (and also gives us the ability to dance to other songs as well, which a choreographed routine would not do). Ultimately, our first dance was fun, polished, and we were proud to show it off to our family and friends.
Extra tip: lessons are held in a shared studio where others are practicing on the same floor simultaneously. You are practicing and/​or learning something throughout your entire hour, but you take turns using the stereo, which means often dancing your dance to a different song than your own. This is actually not a big issue, especially with a non-​choreographed routine, but you obviously get more «stereo time» when there are fewer people present. Interestingly, we found that the studio was less crowded during our Saturday afternoon lessons than it was during our evening weekday lessons (which also gave us more space to move), so we found that we preferred lessons on Saturday afternoons.

Don’t usually leave reviews, but that dance lesson was phenomenal. Peter deserves more credit for what he’s doing
Never had a dance lesson before and never considered myself even close to capable. but after the fastest hour of my life I felt comfortable with my little stable of moves. Can’t wait for the next lesson. I was worried we wouldn’t be dance-​worthy before our wedding in 8 weeks, now I think we might be able to add some flourish. Will be recommending him to anyone else looking for dance lessons

My (now) husband and I took five lessons with Peter before our wedding. He was a great instructor and was incredibly patient with both of us. He started out with basics and built on them with each lesson. My husband actually picked up on it faster than I did, which was really impressive. Peter put his instructions in terms we could understand and didn’t overwhelm us with technicalities.
By the end of our fifth lesson we both felt comfortable dancing together. I think you might be better off starting earlier than us and taking a few more lessons with Peter. However, when the big moment came and we were on the dance floor in front of all our guests, I think we looked pretty fantastic. My husband led me through all the steps Peter taught us, even the one we had the most trouble with… the swizzles! We received plenty of applause and cheers when it came to the two different styles of spins and especially during the dip.
Thanks so much Peter for making our first dance special! You were great to work with!

My fiancée and I have four left feet between the two of us, so we knew we needed to attend a dance lesson or two before our wedding. There is nothing worse than watching a couple do the «highschool hang» for 3 minutes: you know, where the couple just hugs and sways back and forth.
We contacted Ballroom Wedding Dancing and ended up taking a private lesson from Valerie. She was incredibly helpful and a very knowledgeable teacher. She made everything accessible by modeling the steps for us and working with us individually until we felt comfortable doing it on our own. She was also warm and understanding when we needed a lot of repetition to get it right.
We’ll definitely be going back for more!

I am probably the worst dancer that ever lived, and by far the most frightening part about my wedding was the first dance with my wife. She signed me up for 5 lessons with Peter, and it was one of the best decisions we made (apart from marrying each other of course.)
The lessons were clearly structured, and Peter didn’t overwhelm us with information — he slowly added steps and built up our confidence, and made sure we spent 5 hours of real practice on how we wanted to dance.
The end result? Our first dance wasn’t the anxiety-​inducing, error-​prone disaster I thought it would be, but a very fun time with my wife and I. I very strongly recommend Peter for all folks who are learning to dance, no matter how good (or terrible) you are.

Four weeks before our wedding date, we decided we should probably take a formal dance lesson or two so we don’t bore our guests with our first sloppy slow dance. Peter was on time, courteous, and super fun. Most importantly, he was amazing on his feet! We ended up signing on for two more classes with Peter, and he helped us to prepare a 1 – 2 minute first dance which we felt comfortable with. I would definitely recommend Peter for anyone looking for a few quick lessons, and for ongoing lessons as well.

Took lessons with Peter. I prefer more structure and choreography, but he didn’t have much of that. But he is a nice guy!

Doing dance lessons with Peter was one of the best decisions we made for our wedding! My (now) husband and I are not dancers by any stretch, but wanted to do more than just the high school dance «sway» for our first dance at our wedding. Peter coordinated a dance for us that went perfectly to our song — «You’re All I Need to Get By» by Marvin Gaye, including some basic rumba and salsa, which I didn’t even know we were capable of! Our first dance was the hit of our wedding, we surprised everyone by pulling off some impressive looking moves. Peter was so great to work with and teaches in a way that is very fun but also easy to follow and effective, I couldn’t believe what we were able to accomplish after only a few lessons. I think Peter is secretly also a marriage counselor on the side because he gave us great advice along the way about trusting each other, being good partners, and not letting the wedding stress get us down.

My sister in law had booked me and my fiancé 3 lessons for our «first dance.» Peter was a wonderful instructor. He is very easy to learn from and makes you feel comfortable with the steps you learn. Even though my fiancé was very nervous about dancing in front of almost 300 guests, he remembered that Peter said to just have fun! We are very glad that we took the lessons and recommend to anyone. Our first dance went really well!

Taking private ballroom dance classes for our wedding first dance was a lot of fun with Peter. My fiancé and I didn’t know what to expect since we have never taken class classes together before. Peter taught us the basics for 4 different kinds of dances on our first class. We choose our first dance song and bought an additional 4 classes and he taught us new moves during each class to put our whole dance together. Peter was funny and patient, and made the class very enjoyable and we are glad we chose him to be our instructor!

My wife knew that I would need a lot of time and instruction to be ready for a first dance. We did a lot of research for the best fit for a dance instructor months before the wedding which led us to Peter Jones and we could not have been happier. We took four lessons with Peter and by the end my wife stopped making fun of me. I would highly recommend wearing the shoes you plan to wear for the wedding when taking the lessons. As I am not a natural and graceful dancer, it was great that Peter is a very laid back and relaxed instructor. Peter taught us some basic dance steps, like the foxtrot, helped us with the form. and applied it to music which we had picked out. Peter worked with us to choreograph a loose routine for us that worked perfectly. I would highly recommend Peter Jones to anyone looking to get ready for their wedding.

Peter was great. My fiancée and I were so nervous about the first dance but Peter’s real gift is putting you at ease, assessing your comfort level and really taking you to a place where you are comfortable AND look good on your wedding day. My fiancée agreed that it was actually a nice one-​hour break during the weekend for us to do something fun, given other wedding planning things can get so stressful. Thank you!

Peter was fantastic! My husband and I learned the perfect dance for our first-​dance at our wedding and had such a great time with Peter over the course of our 3 lessons. I would highly recommend this studio, and Peter, to anyone looking to take a few lessons before their big day.

Peter was a blast to work with, and was the perfect instructor for my fiancé and I. We needed a crash course in the basics for our wedding, and Peter came through with flying colors. By a few lessons in, we felt like Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey! OK, so a bit of an exaggeration, but none the less, Peter was patient and knowledgable, very calm and understanding, and he helped us make a dance that was totally our own creation. Seriously, anyone reading this would be very lucky if they go to Ballroom Wedding Dance. I’d stake my reputation on the instructor.

I don’t know what we were expecting when my fiancé and I showed up for our wedding dance lesson but it certainly wasn’t Peter. He was this fun, quirky guy who made us feel really comfortable right from the start. By the end of the hour, we were box stepping like pros! If we had more time (wedding is 2 weeks away!) we would definitely consider going again. He broke down the steps easy for us and helped tailor it to the song we were planning for our first dance. He even went so far as to help us figure out how we’d recover if we got nervous and made a misstep. Despite his best efforts, Future Husband had a good time, although I’m sworn to secrecy that we went. :)

My wife and I found Peter a few months before our wedding. We wanted to have a memorable dance. Peter gave us the most fun & easy to learn environment possible… and he created a routine for us that went with our song: Sinatra’s «All the Way.»
The result was flawless. The wedding band leader actually commented to me that we were the best dance he had ever seen. I fully recommend Peter. He is bright, fun and engaging… you will not regret it.