Featured Couple: Matthew and Ryan!
Matthew and Ryan’s Dream Hawaii Wedding
Meet Matthew and Ryan!
They were married on June 7th, 2024 at ‘The Beach House’ in Kaua'i, Hawai'i.
Matthew and Ryan were SUCH an amazing couple to work with. They came in on the first day a little nervous and unsure what to expect, but they were both excited and willing to learn. Throughout their lessons, it became clear that having a fun and playful dance was important to them.
We loved watching them take on movements and give them the energy and vibe they were looking for. In the end, they had an amazing dance that matched their personality and needs!
Ryan and Matt did our Wow-Worthy 10 Lesson Dance Package… and loved it SO much that they even added two additional lessons for more practice and FUN before their Big Day!
We asked Matthew and Ryan to reflect on their wedding AND First Dance experience, and this is the amazing advice they wanted to share with YOU.
How did you meet the love of your life (in 4 sentences or less)?
"Matthew and I met via Match.com. I read his profile and knew he was my person. It took some persistence to nail down a date since he was always adventuring in the mountains, but we did (and I made him buy skis on our first date since he was new to Colorado and I knew he would enjoy skiing)." - Ryan
What was your first dance song and why did you pick it?
"Our First Dance song was ‘At Last’ by Etta James! It’s a classic, and we love it. We wanted to have our dinner music be classic big-band type music, so ‘At Last’ fit this nicely. We love the lyrics, and we also really enjoyed the play on words, since we’ve been together for over 11 years now."
Why did you choose to take wedding dance lessons?
"Ryan is NOT a dancer (or really anything to do with rhythm), so having a choreographed dance with built-in practice time was a great way to take pressure off our First Dance."
Would you recommend wedding dance lessons?
“We would definitely recommend wedding dance lessons... they were a lot of fun, a good way to connect during the planning process, and made the First Dance pretty stress-free.
Elisabeth was an awesome instructor, we truly enjoyed getting to know her over our lessons and it made them all so much fun. As a gay couple, there's always the question in dances of who should be leading since there isn’t the 'easy' answer of the lady or the man. Elizabeth did a great job helping us figure that out and we'd play thru moves several ways to see what felt better or made the most sense, she was never trying to fit our dance into a 'you are the lady, you are the man' mold.”
What was your favorite moment at your wedding?
“Every word that was spoken by our friends during toasts and during our ceremony were the best. It's incredible to have all of your best people in the same place to celebrate together.”
Hindsight is 50/50. What advice would you give to a couple that is in the beginning stages of wedding planning?
“Our venue had the most amazing wedding planner ever, and our advice would be to be sure you have an awesome planner. They can take so much stress off and answer those questions you have like .... should we do [x], and they'll have a quick easy answer since they've done it a hundred times.”
