People often ask what to wear to a dance and what to expect. We hope the suggestions below are helpful to newcomers and others who have questions about etiquette expected at our events.

What to wear:

You will be dancing, so we advise choosing comfortable clothes and especially comfortable shoes (heels are hard to dance in!). For a lady, dances are excellent opportunities to wear flowing skirts that accentuate the dances. Sadly for men, they have no way to improve their dance style through clothing (unless they wear a kilt).

Our dances are decidedly family-friendly, and as such, we request a certain standard of modest dress. Please, no cleavage, short skirts or shorts.

Informal dances are just that: informal. Jeans and T-shirts are acceptable!

Formal dances have specific historic themes, live music, and have a slightly higher cost than informal events. We encourage people to come in historical dress according to the different themes. If you don’t have a costume or uniform, normal church-going clothes work just as well.

Behavior:

Please respect the callers who are teaching you the dance. Don’t chat or talk loudly throughout the teaching, even if you are not dancing. Our biggest problem at a dance is dancers talking through the teaching.

We expect men to act like gentlemen and women to act like ladies.

We request that the men ask the women to dance, by simply approaching a lady and asking, “May I have this dance?” When the lady replies yes, (which is almost always the case) the man leads her out to the dance floor and into formation.