Check Out This Bride and Groom’s Unique First Dance

Temple Terrace native Ellen Chandler might have taken her new husband, Dan Kowalski’s, name in traditional style, but when it came to the couple’s wedding reception March 2, their first dance was completely untraditional.

Dan and Ellen gave a choreographed performance behind a lighted screen, which made them appear to their guests as silhouettes. The shadow dance, as they call it, left their guests in awe, according to Ellen’s sister, Julie Bedford.

“I thought the shadow dance was the most amazing first dance I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been to A LOT of weddings,” Julie, of Temple Terrace, wrote in an email. “…No one knew they’d been practicing for this—not even our parents!”

Dan and Ellen, who now live in Brandon, married at Temple Terrace Presbyterian Church and had their reception at the Temple Terrace Golf and Country Club. About a month before, they came up with the initial dance and created the choreography themselves. Dan said he got the idea for the performance from a group called Silhouettes, who appeared on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” a couple seasons ago.

“We searched online on YouTube for cool wedding first dances and couldn’t find anyone who had ever done a shadow dance before, so we wanted to be the first,” Dan said.

They posted a video of their dance on YouTube March 3, and it has nearly 300 views. You can watch it above.

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They danced to “Overwhelmed” by Tim McMorris.

“We used the lyrics in the song and tried to put something simple together that we could easily remember, but that would still show as classy and elegant on the screen,” Dan said.

“Once we had a rough draft, we practiced at home a bunch of times before meeting with Tony (Huntley) from IM Events at the country club on a Sunday afternoon where he rigged up the screen in front of the stage in the same way it was going to look for the wedding,” Dan added. “That day, we actually stood on the stage and practiced the movements there. While we were there, Tony worked with us and gave us suggestions that we added to the dance to make it look a little better on the screen.”

The Kowalski’s initially planned to use a white background and a single light as the source for the shadows. When they met with Tony, though, they discussed other ideas.

“He brought the projector idea up, and it opened up a world of possibilities to add the different elements that we ultimately ended up using,” Dan said. “We decided to go with the beach idea since that is where I proposed. He could easily use PowerPoint to generate the background and time the words that matched the lyrics in the song to pop up along with the sun and moon popping up to show the change in time of day.”

Dan is a business analyst at HSBC Bank in Brandon, who received his master’s degree in business administration from the University of South Florida last December. Ellen is a singer and is also looking for a job as an activities director at a nursing home, a position she previously held at John Knox Village before she began singing full time.

The shadow dance was a way for the couple to explore their creativity.

“We had so much fun putting it together, and we kept it a secret from almost everyone we knew for so long before we finally got to show them at the wedding,” Dan said. “It was tough, but it turned out so well, and it was great to see the reaction from everyone.”

See also:

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