WHEN I proposed to my girlfriend in February, I had no idea that six months later I would find myself in the arms of a tall, charming Irishman named Conor.

But with only a few weeks to go before the big day, I am having what is now par for the course for enthusiastic brides and embarrassed grooms across the country: private tuition for that perfect first dance.

Times have changed from the days when all a married couple had to do when the band started up was to cling to each other awkwardly and shuffle around for a few minutes.

But many are put off by the thought of having lessons in a run-down dance hall where everyone seems to know the steps already. Hence the dramatic rise of classes where the instructor visits you to teach the basics in the privacy of your own living room.

The leading dance tutor company, First Dance UK, was set up just 18 months ago but already has more than 130 instructors on its books and is taking up to 20 bookings a week.

I can’t say I thought lessons were essential. But Emma, my fiancée, insisted that her main concern about marrying me was the embarrassment I’d cause her on the dance floor.

“You need to master the basics of stepping one step to the other,” she said, “without looking like you’re somebody’s 50-year-old dad at a disco.”

She had a point. If a dance tutor could stop us having a stand-up row in front of our guests, he would be well worth the expense.

So a few evenings later, Conor, from First Dance UK, arrived in Emma’s front room to show us what we were doing wrong. We shook hands and then stood there apprehensively. What strange tricks could he show us? Since we hadn’t agreed on a mellow first dance song, we had our first lesson to the strains of Tina Turner’s Simply The Best. The style of dancing we learnt was more basic than ballroom: it just involved the two of us moving together slowly, with one arm outstretched.

My worry was what to do with my feet, but this seemed to be pretty simple. “Just take a left step, touch with your right foot, then a right step, touch with your left foot, and repeat,” said Conor. Even I could master that.

In lesson two, to the more soothing tones of Barry White, we tried a few twirls, which I attacked with gusto. “This is what you’re doing wrong,” said Conor, taking me in his arms and pivoting me round like a top.

I got the message pretty quickly.

My next task looked as easy as anything: turn a full circle around, passing Emma’s hand from one of my hands to the other. This simple trick defeated me. Again and again, I would forget which foot I was supposed to be moving half way through and nearly fall over.

A sense of rhythm would have helped, as well as a sense of balance. Twenty minutes later, he said: “Let’s move on to something else. I’m sure when you practise it’ll all come together.”

More skilful newlyweds take the process further. Many now spend weeks before the wedding on detailed routines.

Roy Kelly, 38, a company manager from Barnsley, was spurred into action for his wedding in January by the prospect of looking bad in front of a hundred of his employees.

“I just wanted a bit of style and class put into a part of the wedding ceremony that I thought was going to be very embarrassing,” he said. “It shocked a lot of people who know me and thought it was the kind of thing I would never do.”

Natalie Arestis, a public relations manager, celebrated her wedding last year by launching into a Bollywood routine. “For a lot of people who don’t know about it it’s quite unexpected,” she said. “Our friends thought it was hysterical, and they still talk about it.”

Gemma Rogers, a dance teacher, started First Dance UK after spotting a gap in the market. “A lot of people who contact us have never danced in their life, and so the thought of having to go to a dance studio, in this unknown territory, can be very daunting,” she said. “People love the fact that we come to them.”

Adam Gardner, her business partner, said that he had been bowled over by the demand for dance tuition. “It’s just the ideal entrepreneurial market,” he said.

TV programmes such as the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing appear to have struck a chord with a generation that has never learnt to dance in school.

Liz Savage, the editor of Brides magazine, said: “It’s a time when elegance is obviously back and couples want to look elegant on the dance floor. They don’t want to be bopping away to Oasis.”

Private lessons can also calm down anxious brides-to-be, she said. “The wedding plans can just completely take over. The opportunity to have a moment away from that is almost therapeutic.”

Andrea Ventress, deputy editor of Wedding magazine, said: “When weddings were paid for by the parents they were dictated by the parents. Now when couples have responsibility for the cost they can be more creative and expressive. That’s why you’re getting more personal touches, in everything from the table centres to the first dance.”

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