Wedding Dance Lessons Testimonials
My husband and I took wedding dance lessons from Ilya with only a month to spare before our wedding. Not only was he able to completely prepare us for our first dance, he helped instill in us a love of dance. Some of our lessons were challenging since we had not danced in many years, but with practice on our part, and focused coaching from Ilya, we achieved success on our wedding day and impressed our friends and family (and ourselves!) with what we had learned.
Ilya has just the right amount of structure in his lessons. We knew what was expected of us and that we had to do our part to be successful in the short amount of time we had. However, even when we had tough days, he was understanding and yet firm in a way that showed respect for both of us. I recommend Ilya without reservation and am looking forward to taking more lessons with him in the future to learn Tango!
~ Arleta and Alan D.
Rachel and Andrew (see below) started their Wedding Dance Lessons in Atlanta at the end of 2012. Here is the excerpt from their email to me after they came back from the honeymoon: “Here are our testimonials for you! Thank you for the wonderful job you did teaching us. We felt more than adequate to perform our dance, even though sadly the band cut the song in the middle! We were left to do a quick turn and dip for a big finish! We more than made up for our shorter-than-expected first dance later in the night, and we certainly made up for it on the honeymoon. We danced with great enthusiasm any time we heard music!”
From Andrew: I’ll be honest, I was a little reluctant to take dancing lessons before our wedding. But, I couldn’t be more pleased how things turned out. Ilya’s approach to teaching is unique because he doesn’t teach you how to dance to one song; he teaches you how to dance to EVERY song.
Over the course of our lessons with Ilya, we learned a number of different steps and theories on how to put them together “on the go.” Using those lessons we were able to look great on the dance floor at our wedding and then take those same skills with us on the Honeymoon, where we continued to showcase our newly discovered dancing talents.
In other words, you may pay for dance lessons for your wedding, but you’ll get dancing skills last well after your big day.
From Rachel: Ilya is a fantastic dance teacher. His style is slow and deliberate. He never rushes you or moves on to a new concept until he feels you are ready. He explains during your first lesson that the learning curve is steep and that you won’t feel like you’re learning much until you get to about lesson 3 or 4 and then all of a sudden you realize that you’re dancing!
He understands how to explain things to people that have no formal knowledge of dancing. He is direct, does not mince words, and is not afraid to constructively critique or dole out praise. He gave my fiancé and me the confidence to have an effortless and elegant first dance at our wedding. On our honeymoon, we were happy to practice our new dancing skills, and I think we impressed some of our fellow vacationers as we were able to adapt our skills to any song we heard.
I recommend Ilya to anyone looking to learn how to dance to not just one song but any song you ever hear for the rest of your life. He simplifies the skills you need to know so that you will never forget them and won’t be nervous trying to remember specific choreography.
~ Rachel and Andrew B.
Carmen and Tony’s wedding was in November of 2012. They chose Christina Perry’s song “A Thousand Years” for their wedding dance. Here is what they say about their lessons:
We are now back in town from our honeymoon, and we would like to use this occasion to say how thankful we are for your dance lessons. Before we took your classes, I was very nervous that we’ll never be able to learn to dance, and I can still remember when you told us in the beginning that the first lesson is the hardest. And now I realize how right you were.
The wedding dance went just as we practiced for it and we did great. Even today people still compliment us on the dance. A coworker of mine made a video with us during the dance and showed it to everyone. I love it when people compliment you on something that I would have never thought that could be so easy. But we can’t take all the credits: compliments to you as well sir!
Thank you again for your work and dedication and we hope to see you again soon for some other classes: maybe some flamenco lessons or maybe some tango lessons.
~ Carmen and Tony P.
Earl K. and Kathy H. (wedding was in June 2012) say this:
Rhythm is not in our vocabulary. Dance Lessons? You must be kidding. These are just a few thoughts that crossed my mind when my fiancé, Earl, suggested that we take First Dance lessons for our upcoming wedding. Earl was right, we wanted to Woo our family and friends at our love of a lifetime wedding and there was no better way than to show them with our dance.
After making the dance decision, I contacted Ilya to get our lessons started. What a pleasure Ilya was to work with—scheduling was a breeze. His schedule worked well with our busy life. Earl lived out of state so our time together for lessons was very limited and Ilya made it very easy for us to have lessons exactly the times that were good for us.
I will be the first to say that the lessons were not easy for us but you must remember that we have very little rhythm—I am not kidding. The dances are not choreographed. The dance is not like dancing with the stars. We learned a dance with steps that we could use with other songs as well as moves to use for the rests of our lives. To me, that was the best part about talking lessons with Ilya. We learned moves that we can use for more than one time. What would it benefit us to take lessons to learn one dance for one song for one night. We wanted to dance for the rest of our lives together. What a great time we had taking lessons. Ilya is very knowledge and very disciplined. The time that is set aside for lessons is a very serious time. You will have to focus to learn a lot within the allotted time. As leaders, Earl and I went into the class thinking that we knew how to do a little dance and it was hard for us to let go and say, “We are taking lessons to learn”. Ilya put both of us at ease and worked with our personalities, previous dance experience (which was very little) and helped us dance to the music, listen to the beat, move gracefully, smile while dancing and love the art of dancing.
I can assure you that we are probably not his easiest couple to teach. He had to help us break some old habits, give us confidence as well as teach but he is an amazing, dedicated teacher to work with you. It is a very quiet environment with NO distractions. Private lessons all the way. If he could teach us, he can teach anyone. He is a wonderful dance mentor and teacher. If you want to learn how to dance, Ilya is the best teacher you could choose. We have had a wonderful learning experience and look forward to Wooing our family and friends in June.
~ Earl and Kathy K.(written by Ilya Bohemia)
