The First Dance Place, San Diego CA

My wife and I worked with Katie for our wedding first dance routine. My wife has been a dancer all her life, but I have no dance skills to speak of. Katie worked with both of us to develop a beautiful dance routine that took into account the difference in skill between my wife and me. I highly recommend Katie and the First Dance Place for anybody looking to wow family and friends with a great dance routine for their first dance.

We can't recommend this place enough. Thank you Katie & The First Dance Place for making our first dance a breeze! We went from zero dancing experience (emphasis on zero) to feeling confident and prepared for our first dance. Highly recommend!

Katie was the best instructor! Really helped us feel comfortable for our first dance. It was the best part of our wedding planning process - so much fun!

My husband bought a wedding dance lesson package for my birthday this year - BEST GIFT EVER! We danced to Elvis' "Can't Help Falling In Love". Katie choreographed everything on the spot assessing our skill level, the dance floor, the dress, etc. She is so knowledgeable and an excellent teacher. Plus our guests were WOWed (see pictures) - getting dance lessons with Katie was well worth the investment.

We can't thank Katie and The First Dance Place enough for making our dream first dance come true! My partner and I had virtually no experience with swing dancing (we had taken maybe 1 or 2 social classes years ago) but we had a vision of swing dancing for our wedding first dance together. Katie is an amazing teacher and taught us all the basics so quickly, and even taught us some more advanced steps that were huge crowd pleasers! All of our guests commented on how much they loved our dance and were impressed by our moves. The twelve lesson package was perfect for learning technique and the fully choreographed dance that Katie created for us. The practice time we had made us 100% comfortable with our dance when our wedding date rolled around. Katie made the process fun and comfortable. We truly looked forward to our lessons every week, and felt that it was a great way to connect and spend time with each other in all the chaos of wedding planning. We had so much fun that we're planning to keep it up and go to swing dance events in the area regularly!

I also took a couple of lessons with my dad for our Father-Daughter dance with Katie, and it was an equally awesome experience! We wanted a dance that was simple, fun, and easy to remember, and that's exactly what we got. The fact that Katie was able to provide this for us in just two lessons shows what a rockstar she is. A huge thank you to the First Dance Place!

When my fiance, now husband, and I booked our venue, Frank Sinatra's Twin Palms Estate in Palm Springs, we knew we needed a show-stopper dance to start things off right at our wedding.

Once we reached out to The First Dance Place, Katie responded quickly. We found the pricing to be more than reasonable and picked a package of eight private lessons. Merabel at the front desk gave us so many options for session times and dates, which helped, as we are very busy professionals.

Katie is outstanding! She is patient, kind, funny, and so talented. She could see our strengths and weaknesses and created a brilliant routine for us.

Honestly, we cannot recommend Katie enough! She is an absolute all-star.

Me and my fiancee and I took 8 lesson with Katie leading up to our wedding. I was super nervous about dancing and after the first lesson, Katie eased my nerves. Our first dance was a blast thanks to The First Dance Place. Can't recommend enough!

Katie is the best instructor in San Diego and SOCAL hands down! We were so happy we chose the first dance place. Katie is so easy to get along with and truly made our dance the most magical experience we could ever imagine. We plan to come back to even learn other dances now that our wedding dance is over. We will be posting another review when we get the video from our photographers. Thank you for everything Katie!

I can't say enough good things about our experience with Katie as our dance instructor! We found ourselves in a bit of a wedding planning crunch, reaching out to her less than 6 weeks before the big day, and we were quite stressed about our first dance. Katie was an absolute lifesaver. Her patience and support made the entire process enjoyable and stress-free.

Not only did she help us create a first dance that was doable for us, but it also looked fantastic! Katie's enthusiasm for her work truly shines through; she made us feel like we were her top priority. Even though I'm far from a dancer, she made me feel comfortable and confident in our abilities.

Thanks to Katie, we executed our dance flawlessly at our wedding, and it was a highlight of the evening. If you're in need of a talented and passionate dance instructor who can turn procrastination into a beautiful dance, look no further than Katie. She's a true gem, and we couldn't be happier with the results! Five stars all the way!

Katie is absolutely incredible to work with, and the dance she choreographed and taught to my wife and me was an absolute showstopper at our wedding (my wife still tears up every time she watches it back). Although my wife had previous dance and cheerleading experience, I came in with no experience whatsoever—it didn’t matter one bit, and Katie pushed our/my development along at the perfect pace lesson-by-lesson. Speaking of the lessons, it was also a fantastic bonding exercise with my wife leading up to the wedding. If you have any doubts whether you can perform an amazing first dance or whether the lessons are “worth” the cost—I can categorically say it was one of the best wedding decisions we made leading up to the big day.

Ps. 12 lessons may sound like a lot, but trust me—they’re worth every penny.

Katie was a wonderful teacher and made our first dance one to remember! My now husband and I had no experience dancing going into our wedding and about 2 months before decided we wanted to do something besides the typical sway for our first dance. Katie was super easy to work with, worked to our speed, and was very patient with our two left feet. We are both silly people and Katie took the time to get to know us and helped choreograph a dance that was doable for us, select music that reflected our love story (included Belle & Sebastian Step into my Office Baby as we met at work), and was full of surprises which we wanted for our family and friends, we even decided to include me dipping him! ;) The classes were really fun and it was something we both looked forward to after work. It was a really nice thing to do together, and doing something physical, fun, and creative. It was so fun in fact, that we are considering continuing couples dance lessons! I can't say enough great things about Katie, and this experience. Dance lessons is a great way to do a fun project with your SO that brings you closer in the process, plus you can show off your moves and totally impress your guests!

Katie was the best to work with! My husband and I signed up for dance lessons not even knowing what song we wanted to use for our first dance, and she helped us from start to finish. From picking a song that matched our vibe, to teaching us several steps/moves, and helping us string it all together, Katie was an amazing teacher and helped us not only learn, but nail our first dance. We had so much fun working with Katie. I'd highly recommend dance lessons with her as part of your wedding planning and preparations!

Absolutely love Katie and The First Dance Place! My husband and I signed up for the five session package prior to our wedding. We had no background in dancing so we really needed some help preparing for our first dance. Katie was such a wonderful dance teacher. She was so patient and encouraging, always hyping us up and making us feel great. She made us feel super comfortable during the lessons and gave helpful feedback. We felt like we made great progress each time we went in and even ended up adding another session because we enjoyed it so much and for good measure:) My husband and I always talk fondly about how these dance lessons with Katie was the best decision and well-worth the time and money.

Katie was great! She listened to our ideas and helped break everything down so that even I could understand and execute it. Our wedding dance went off perfectly and we had so much fun. We definitely want to go back for more fun lessons.

Katie is amazing and will make you feel incredibly comfortable! She creates a first dance that does not feel overly choreographed (unless that's what you want). We looked forward to each lesson! Highly recommend!

We executed our first dance two weeks ago at our reception and it went off without a hitch. Of course, that would not have been possible without Katie’s choreography and teaching skills. She also edited our song so the music would match the choreography after we wanted to shorten it. The music edits were seamless. We received (and continue to receive) so many compliments on our first dance. Honestly, having it choreographed adds a touch of fun and class to your reception. We highly recommend Katie. Not only is she good at her job, she is good people.

We did an eight-class package for our first dance and it was one of the best investments we made in our wedding. First off, we had a blast taking the lessons. I've got a bit of a social dance background but I was dubious at first that my now-husband would enjoy it as it was totally new to him. It turns out that, because Katie made it so much fun, and so easy to learn, he absolutely loved it and started getting even more intense than I was about mastering it! (It also made a kind of nice weekly date night leading up to the wedding, which was helpful psychologically). We had a number of guests tell us it was the best first dance they'd ever seen, and this was 100% due to Katie's patient and skilled instruction! If you're on the fence about whether you want to do classes, I really think you'll find these worth it.

Katie at First Dance Place is amazing! She helped us learn a song for our wedding first dance and worked with us to customize it to what we were envisioning. She did an incredible job building up the routine over time and we ended up with something really special. I highly recommend First Dance Place!

The First Dance Place was great to work with from start to finish for our first dance. Merabel helped us choose the package that was right for us, got us scheduled for all our lessons, were flexible all the way through, and communicated well. Katie was a great teacher and choreographer and was so fun to work with. She even helped us get a custom medley of songs made too! On our wedding day, we nailed our dance in front of all our friends and family and it felt so good!