Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 17, 1993 TAG: 9305170130
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARYLOU TOUSIGNANT THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: FAIRFAX (AP) LENGTH: Medium
From March through June, they flock to the local dance studios by the hundreds: some with months to spare before their big day, others with less than a week. What they have in common is a desire to look like Fred and Ginger under the wedding tent when the band starts playing their special song. Or at the least, not to cha-cha into the wedding cake.
Beth Heinly and Joe Copeland are 22 lessons down and 87 to go before they swap "I do's" in September. Copeland said he didn't dance before signing up at the Arthur Murray studio in Fairfax County.
But he does now. On a recent weeknight, the 29-year-old contractor from McLean and his bride-to-be, a 23-year-old veterinary technician from Springfield, glided around the studio's parquet floor with a half-dozen other wedding couples, sliding seamlessly - for the most part - from a slow waltz to a fast waltz to swing.
"It's embarrassing to think about how we used to dance," Copeland said during a break outside the small, mirror-walled ballroom.
"I led, until we got here," Heinly said.
The twosome said they vowed to take lessons after attending the wedding reception of some friends who got out on the dance floor, stared into each other's eyes and totally blocked out their surroundings as guests sat around whispering, "What are they doing out there?"
They won't be saying that at the Heinly-Copeland wedding reception Sept. 25 at Reston's Hidden Creek Country Club.
"This was something we wanted to do well at our wedding," Heinly said. "It wasn't something we were willing to give up, like napkins with your names printed on them."
Carol Walcoff and Jim Dixon - she could dance, he never had - were married April 3 after six months of lessons. "We started then as something to do together, as a hobby we could share," said Walcoff, 47, president of a government contracting firm. "Then we realized we could make this a real part of our wedding."
Dixon, 52, a senior manager with TRW Inc., a credit reporting firm, said it was hard to step through the studio door the first time, but now he's hooked. In January the couple danced at the Tennessee Inaugural Ball, and for their honeymoon they wined, dined and waltzed on a Caribbean cruise ship. "Unlike aerobics," Walcoff said, "this is something we can do the rest of our lives."
Nick Theiss, general manager of the five Washington-area Arthur Murray studios, said a fourth or more of the new students he sees are wedding couples, a prenuptial conga line that lengthens with the traditional May-June wedding rush. Though instructors advise starting lessons as much as three or four months in advance, last-minute panic is not unheard of.
"If we're within 10 days, we can do it," said Theiss, noting that the studio offers a "wedding quickie" package of eight lessons for $88.
One couple showed up the night before their trip to the altar. They got dancing's equivalent of a Band-Aid: two quick back-to-back lessons and a wish for a happy marriage. Reportedly, all went well the next day.
Most couples opt for "The Now & Forever Wedding Program," personally tailored instruction in waltz, fox trot, swing and tango.
Along with learning their left box turns, parallel hesitations and promenade walks, couples are taught how to work with The Dress.
If it's flouncy, they won't be able to dance very close. If it's skin-tight slinky, then quick kicks and pivots could be asking for trouble.
No bride-to-be has actually worn her dress in for a run-through, but trying out the white satin pumps beforehand is not only common but encouraged. One couple recently discussed whether doing so would be a bad omen for their marriage. A few minutes later they were arm-in-arm on the dance floor, he in his black dress shoes and she in her 2-inch bridal heels.
Occasionally, a couple's musical selection puts the Arthur Murray staff to the test. "Sometimes the song is not even danceable," Theiss said. Take the bride and groom who wanted to hit the dance floor to the beat of "And You and I" by the rock group Yes.
Trouble was, there was no beat. But it must have worked out all right. They're on their honeymoon.
by CNB