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About This Vendor
Our studio will be closed until August 14, 2020
The studio is now OPEN so you can create the wedding dance of your dreams! I am extremely grateful to have been able to work with so many wonderful brides and grooms over the years choreographing their wedding dances and turning two left feet around. I truly adore working with wedding couples; it's a pure joy being around such blissful people and using my creativity. I specialize in working with beginners as well as those interested in a challenge, such as lifts, dips, and mashups. I am available for private wedding dance lessons in North Park and Kearny Mesa Monday-Friday from 9am-9pm and Sunday from 9am-5pm. Location varies by day and time.
Details
Music Genres
Arabic, Bluegrass, Classical, Country, Dance, Disco, EDM, Folk, Hip-Hop, Indian, Jazz, Klezmer, Latin, Persian, Polka, Pop, R&B, Rock, World Music
Awards and Affiliations
Dance With Liza Reviews
Share your thoughts with other couples
Liza was absolutely amazing! My fiance and I walked in there very nervous as we never danced before in our lives. Liza made us feel extremely comfortable and taught us the basic steps to dance. She also helped us learn some spins and dips to ma...
ke the dance more exciting. We had had a lot of fun too! I highly recommend her!
We took 4 60-minute dance lessons with Liza and Janna and absolutely loved our experience. They'd never choreographed a dance to our song before, so we worked together to create choreography that felt fun and natural to us. Some of my favorite ...
photos from our wedding are the ones of our guests' faces as they watched our first dance. I think a class pack makes for an amazing wedding shower gift, fun date night, and a really personal first dance! LOVE DANCE WITH LIZA!
Liza was INCREDIBLE. My Husband and I were looking for someone to teach us a few dance moves for our first dance and stumbled upon Liza and we couldn't have been more grateful. She is so patient and willing to modify moves that fits YOUR person...
alities. We danced to "A Thousand Years" and had so many positive remarks from our friends and family. We learned basic waltz moves along with dips, turns, and most importantly, confidence. It really does make a difference and it's something you and your significant other can enjoy learning together. :)
Liza is amazing. You can tell she knows her stuff. She is a delight to be around and has great teaching techniques. My wife and I hired her to teach us a first dance at our wedding. We were thoroughly prepared and couldn’t have asked for more. ...
Thank you Liza!
Dance lessons with Liza were our favorite part of preparing for our wedding. Liza helped us pick a song and learn basic dance steps. She worked with us to choreograph moves that fit our vision for the dance, and we couldn't be happier with how ...
it turned out. Each lesson was a lot of fun.
Liza was wonderful! She really made the most out of the hour we spent with her - and was even willing to accommodate us at the last minute. Great lesson!
Liza is awesome! She is personable, positive and kept us on track each lesson with our dance. We used her to choreograph our first dance. She made dance lessons so fun! We looked forward to date night dance nights with Liza. Our dance got many ...
compliments. Highly recommend!!
Liza, made my fiancé and I feel comfortable and was able to teach us how to feel coordinated and confident for our big day! We had so much fun at the classes, and in the end she showed us some really awesome moves that didn’t at all seem “chore...
ographed” but really natural. I would refer her to anyone looking for an awesome dance teacher for your wedding!
Liza is an amazing instructor. We were looking to make our first dance fun and memorable and she made it a great and enjoyable learning experience! Our dance skills were very basic, but she walked us through each step and helped us improve gre...
atly.
Liza was so helpful. Neither of us had any formal dance training but she took her time and taught us step by step. Liza is extremely patient and is an excellent teacher. Going to her classes was so fun and now we have a newfound respect for pro...
fessional dancers! We ended up performing our 1st dance at our wedding perfectly. We would highly recommend working with Liza no matter your skill level!
Our favorite part of the entire wedding planning process was our dance lessons with Liza! We came in with a few possible songs (honestly we didn’t know what we were doing) and she helped narrow them down to the best option by giving us ideas of...
how we’d dance to each one. During our lessons, she choreographed our dance, always making sure we felt confident and were having fun. Also, she was very flexible and accommodating when scheduling lessons, which was especially nice given that wedding planning can get a bit hectic. She made the whole process very easy and so much fun, and on the day of, both my husband and I felt really excited and confident in our first dance. I had so many guests say it was their favorite part of the reception! I would highly recommend dance lessons if you’re getting married, and I would highly recommend Dancing with Liza.
Liza is an absolute rock star. Our wedding is in 10 days, and we could not be more prepared going into our first dance. Trust me, I am the last person in the world who thought I could learn a real dance. That is how solid of a coach Liza is. Hi...
ghly recommend for days.
Liza is terrific! The very best! My son and I had so much fun with her! Her choreography and instruction was spot on with our music selection and ability. She was so flexible with our schedule and she videotaped us so we could practice at ...
home! We live on 2 different coasts, so the video was crucial to our success. Thank you Liza.
Liza was so great! She did an amazing job choreographing our wedding dance. I would highly recommend her. She always asked for our feedback making sure we liked the dance moves she suggested. We’re so excited to show it off on our big day!
Liza was awesome! First timers and we had so much fun. Our wedding guests thought we were great- dips, turns and all. I highly recommend her.
Great to work with. She was super accommodating to our schedules and helped us make a dance to our Disney song. Thank you, Liza!!! Everyone loved our dance!!
Liza was so fun to work with. We wanted to do a two-step but had very little past training in it. She was able to gage our skill level and created a dance that was perfect for us. We enjoyed our time with her and were so happy with how the danc...
e turned out!
My husband and I worked with Liza for her DJ services and first dance choreography for our wedding. Liza was personable, friendly, and easy to work with. She was extremely patient with us (we had a limited dance background), and helped us picke...
d songs that would complement each part of our wedding reception. Our guests loved our first dance to Meghan Trainor's "Dear Future Husband", which faded into Ed Sheeran's "Perfect". She also managed to get tons of people among our introverted friends and family members out onto the dance floor with her enthusiasm, charisma and great DJ'ing. We would recommend Liza to any couple in the San Diego area looking for a talented DJ and dance instructor for their upcoming nuptials!
Liza’s awesome! She worked with us to plan a dance that will still be impressive to our guests, even though neither me nor my fiancé are very good dancers. I also found out a couple lessons in that my dress can’t be bustled, and she worked with...
us to rearrange the dance for less movement on my end. We even added in an extra lesson to learn some simple moves for us to teach our parents for the father/daughter and mother/son dance. She was so flexible and receptive to our needs & concerns, and I can’t wait to dance in front of our friends and family in a couple weeks.
Wow Liza is amazing! My daughter is getting married which means Dad must learn a father/daughter dance. Considering I have an amputation it was quite difficult for me to get the rhythm of ball room dance. But thanks to Liza's abundant patience ...
and solid technic I was able to "semi-master" a dance to enjoy with my daughter. I'm so excited about the wedding and with Liza's help I'm looking forward to the dance with my beautiful daughter. Thanks Liza!
Not being the most coordinated person and being pretty uncomfortable getting on the dance floor, I knew I needed to do something in preparation for my wedding in May. Liza is amazing at what she does. She has a way of putting you at ease and ad...
justing dance moves to your level of comfort. Thanks to her skills and choreography, our first dance came off very smooth, unforced and natural. She is flexible, talented, and patient and truly has a passion for teaching/dancing. Now that the stress of the wedding is done, my husband wants to go back and take more lessons.
Liza is great to work with! She's got years (or decades) of dancing experience in a variety of dance genres. We decided to pick a combination slow dance which then switched to a Latin (Mexican) Pop song for dancing Salsa.
Liza was creative in ...
the moves she suggested and choreographed, and also would be prepared prior to our classes.
Within just 5 lessons we were able to prepare a beautiful, and surprising First dance at our wedding. Our guests loved it, and some didn't even know it was choreographed (We're not professionals, but we already have practice dancing Salsa)
Thanks Liza for your help and support, we're very happy we picked you!
Liza is very good at what she does! We wanted to learn some basic dance steps for our wedding because we both aren't very experienced. Liza helped us choreograph our first dance as husband and wife and we had some laughs while practicing in he...
r studio! Thanks Liza!
This review is LONG over due, but I guess it's better late than never! :) My (now) husband and I had the pleasure of working with Liza in preparation for our first dance. Initially, we didn't much of taking dance classes but as we got closer ...
and closer to our big day, we realized how unprepared we were! There was absolutely no way we can "wing" our first dance and I hate how awkward it would have been to be 2-stepping around while our 140 guests stares at us for 2 minutes! With 4.5 weeks before the wedding, I started looking through yelp to see if we can find a last min dance instructor that was up for the challenge and lucky for us we found Liza. Liza was completely responsive and super accommodating! She was able to fit 5 classes in the 4 weeks we had and even drove to our place the day before the wedding to give us the extra help we desperately needed! Before our 1st dance lesson, Liza already listen to our song and had a few ideas ready for us. What I really love most about working with Liza is that she provided us with several dance steps we could pick from and really allow us to take part in choreographing our first dance. Liza was always prepared for each of our lessons and was "strict" on us when we didn't follow through on our commitment to practice 10 min each day before the next lesson. :) I can honestly say we needed it! We cannot thank her enough for her help, encouragement and support along the way.
I should also mentioned, my husband was NOT looking forward to the dance lessons and for a few of the classes, he was not exactly thrill about dancing. However, towards the end of our lessons, he was really starting to enjoy it. In fact, the crazy guy was so excited he wanted us to practice on the day of our wedding a few times in during cocktail hour! Needless to say, our first dance was perfect and let's just say, my husband couldn't stop watching the video of our first dance over and over again. :)
Thank you so much Liza for everything! It was a journey and we are so happy to have the pleasure of working with you through it all!
Liza is great to work with! She's got years (or decades) of dancing experience in a variety of dance genres. We decided to pick a combination slow dance which then switched to a Latin (Mexican) Pop song for dancing Salsa.
Liza was creative in t...
he moves she suggested and choreographed, and also would be prepared prior to our classes.
Within just 5 lessons we were able to prepare a beautiful, and surprising First dance at our wedding. Our guests loved it, and some didn't even know it was choreographed (We're not professionals, but we already have practice dancing Salsa)
Thanks Liza for your help and support, we're very happy we picked you!
Liza is great! I wanted to do a country 2-step but with some swing elements and lifts for our first dance and she nailed it! Our guests loved it and were thoroughly impressed by my now husbands new dance moves. Liza is very personable and knows...
dancing, she designed the choreography based on the elements we wanted and what worked best for our skill level. My Husband and I had so much fun learning the dance that we still practice it for fun :). Choosing Liza as our first dance instructor was one of the best things we could have done for our weddings and we couldn't be happier with the outcome!
Liza is amazing - we told her what we were looking for to help us make our first dance fun and memorable and she delivered 110%! Even though our dance skills were VERY basic she walked us through and helped us improve immensely over 10 lessons...
. She listened to our music and helped us create the perfect choreography to Chris Cornell's "Finally Forever". Her love of dance is evident and she wants her couples to learn and have fun. She is genuine, caring and incredibly patient! Most importantly the dance was a huge hit - all our guests commented on how amazing it was! We would highly recommend Liza for not just wedding dance lessons but any dance lessons. Looking forward to improving our skills with other classes!
I'm not very coordinated and my husband isn't a dancer, and to his reluctance we signed up for dance lessons about 6 weeks before our wedding. Liza worked with us around our schedules and taught/danced both the male and female parts with us fo...
r our first dance (Ladies, let your man lead you ;) it took me weeks to let go and have him and Liza lead when we practiced). We were at the studio a couple times a week, and at home we had videos of Tony and Liza, and me and Liza dancing, for reference we took at our lessons. Our first dance song was God Gave Me You by Blake Shelton, perfectly coordinated, and was pretty amazing with only missing one step when my dress got in the way :) 3 months later, we still do our dance when the songs comes on! We definitely recommend Liza for your wedding dance coordinator, and other dancing lessons! (She's also a DJ!)
Response from the Vendor on 12/19/2017
Thanks so much Ania and Tony! I truly enjoyed working with you and attending your wedding! Everybody loved the dance!
Liza was wonderful! We wanted a choreographed fairytale dance for our wedding first dance & that's exactly what we got! She was very flexible with our schedule & our very novice dance skills. Very pleasant & patient. We loved her choreography &...
our guests were so impressed!
Response from the Vendor on 12/19/2017
Thanks Yahaira and David! Your wedding dance looked better than the dance scene from Beauty and the Beast that inspired it. I'm so proud of you!
I've taken several lessons from Liza and I was excited for her to help my wife and I come up with our first dance. Liza was amazing! Within a few minutes of hearing our first dance song she had developed a great dance. She taught both sides of ...
the dance to each of us really well and she was wonderful about listening to our desires for the dance and helping us to make modifications so it was our perfect dance. We couldn't be happier!
We just finished up our totally choreographed first dance with Liza. She was so great to work with! She was very patient and made sure we were happy with each new section as we moved forward. She even reviewed a bunch of videos I had sent wit i...
nspiration on moves I liked! She was professional, easy to work
With, and fun! I would def recommend for any couples wanting to make their first dance fabulous'
My husband and I have no experience of any dance. But Liza help us to make our first dance amazing. Liza is awesome. Her class is easy to follow and she is very creative. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
Liza is SO amazing! She was very creative and patient when creating our dance. We absolutely love how she captured the romantic and loving feel we wanted! Thank you so much Liza!!
Liza was so amazing to work with! She made us feel very comfortable! She drove out to east county to work with us. She choreographed both the father& daughter and the first dance! Both were unique, but still easy enough for us to manage!
Liza designed a dance for us that made us look like pros in just three lessons. She is both a very gifted choreographer and teacher. I definitely suggest her for help with your wedding dance.
I'm a 60 year old guy with 3 left feet. My daughter was getting married and I really wanted to have a memorable father daughter dance.......so........I made an appointment with Liza. Could she work a miracle????
When I met her, I immediate...
ly felt comfortable with her. We talked about how many lessons we should do, and she was terrific about fitting the lessons into my busy schedule; the wedding was coming up fast. I picked out the music, and we set off on choreagraphing the piece.
She was always so reassuring, upbeat, and positive about the process. I never felt embarrassed or ill at ease. Needless to say, with just 4 or 5 lessons, I had a beautiful dance under my belt. I can't say that I wasn't a bit nervous when the big moment came, but our waltz on that very special night looked beautiful and felt great. It was a perfect gift to give my daughter, a special dance for the two of us. Thankfully, my daughter is a quick study. I was able to teach her our waltz in just a few quick sessions right before the wedding (fortunately, she inherited her mother's grace and poise on her feet.....thank goodness!).
I never could have pulled this off without Liza's help. She was wonderful, encouraging.....simply amazing. If you want to learn to dance and have fun while you're learning.......she's your gal!
Response from the Vendor on 12/19/2017
I'm so glad you felt comfortable with me; I pride myself on being friendly, down to earth, and non-threatening. Way to go on the father-daughter dance!
Liza was amazing to work with! I didn't initially have any clue what I really wanted out of the experience, other than not to be doing the "middle school sway" for our first dance as husband and wife...And Liza was full of ideas! We ended up le...
arning the basics of an entire Latin ballroom style, and on a pretty tight timeline, in order to learn a special dance to the song we chose! It was so fun!!
My husband had a harder time picking up the dance moves because he was brand new to partner dancing altogether. Liza was very sensitive to that, and she was always encouraging and patient (even when my own patience was wearing thin!). Eventually, even he was able to get the moves down comfortably! (Guys: it's all about practice!)
Liza's teaching style is very adaptable, too -- if you come for your next lesson and you've crushed everything she's given you so far, she's got millions of ideas on where to go next. Or if you come in and you're still struggling with a spot in your dance, she knows how to really break it down until each person could do it in their sleep.
I know that, technically, dance lessons are on the "optional" list for wedding planning. But really, they shouldn't be. The time we spent learning something new together was so memorable, and it really relieved some of the wedding stress! Liza made sure we had fun, and that we were relaxed and comfortable with our tailor-made dance. Because of that, our first dance was joyful, effortless, and so very special. Thank you, Liza!
Response from the Vendor on 12/19/2017
Thank you Robyn! I was so impressed by your dedication with the Rumba we created. Also, it's always a pleasure working with old zoo coworkers!
Liza is awesome! I would give her ten stars if I could. My fiance got me swing dancing lessons for my birthday with Liza as I was a total beginner. We enjoyed them so much we met again closer to our wedding to choreograph our whole dance. Not o...
nly do we love our dance, we had a great time getting to know Liza. She is so friendly, knows how to break things down for all types of learners, and makes you feel super comfortable. I normally hate dancing, but we had a blast working with her!
Liza is amazing! She helped my now husband and I learn how to dance simply and elegantly with each other for our wedding dance song. In just a few short lessons we learned SO much from her and when we got to the dance door everything just felt ...
so natural thanks to her! I'd recommend her to anyone looking to improve their skills or learn the basics like we did!
I highly recommend Liza! My fiancé and I decided about 6 weeks before our wedding that we would like to take a few dance lessons so we would be comfortable with our first dance. Liza was SO flexible with our busy schedules and she was just the ...
best teacher! Liza is patient, a great instructor, creative, and FUN. She not only had us feeling confident dancing together, but came up with some great moves and a dance routine that we felt great about. I highly recommend Liza, so glad we found her!
Our first dance was the most memorable moment of the wedding--for us and, I think I can safely say, for our guests too--and we have Liza to thank. My husband and I had only been to a couple weddings, but we agreed very early on in planning that...
we didn’t want a traditional, 3 minute long slow sway. I had found “You’re All I Need to Get By,” which we thought was perfect for us. The only problem was that my husband, well, he wasn’t much of a dancer. But getting lessons and choreographing the dance was his idea. Enter Liza. She is an incredible teacher--patient, clear, encouraging. I came in with some ideas and she was enthusiastic about helping us choreograph something fun, kind of goofy, and truly us. It also doesn't hurt that she is truly a joy to be around. We can't recommend her enough!!!
My daughter found Liza to help her and her fiancé with a first dance. She was so pleased that she had my husband and me drive 1 1/2 hours to have a lesson for a father daughter dance. She was great. In limited time, she had my husband and daugh...
ter dancing together. She had me watch and video them dancing so that I could help my husband practice . She had a great way of dealing with my husband who is new to dance and was insecure about his ability to learn. She was able to use the music my daughter wanted and created a dance that they both felt good about. As a teacher myself, I highly recommend her. She is able to read her clients and deliver what they want in a lovely kind manner. She's one of a kind!
Liza is the best! She's so sweet to work with! My (now) husband and I have no prior dance experience and we really wanted to do a swing dance for our 1st dance at our wedding. Liza worked with us to choreograph a swing dance that met our "begin...
ner" needs, but which still looked really good. Everyone at our wedding loved the dance and it set the fun mood for the night! Liza is great because she was always honest with us about what moves we could add to our dance according to our skill level and I always appreciated her honesty so that we didn't end up making a fool of ourselves when we did our dance. I highly recommend taking lessons with Liza and my husband I plan on continuing to work with her in order to hopefully learn other dances as well :)
We had Liza for our wedding dance instructor and she is super talented and absolutely amazing ! She intuitively knows hence creates the best choreography for you that not only looks great but also suits who you are. Both my husband and I are...
not dancers, but we certainly looked like one by the end of our classes. Liza is very flexible with scheduling too which helped us a lot. We highly recommend her!
I highly recommend Dance with Liza for anyone wanting to prepare a special first dance for their wedding. We worked on our dance for six months and also had time to learn a few other types of dances such as four count swing and six count swing....
The song we chose for our wedding is February Seven by the Avett Brothers (it is a pretty folky indie type of song). Liza had us learn country two step to go along with the song and it was perfect! We also had so much fun utilizing the two count swing on our honeymoon! Liza is such a patient, kind and understanding teacher who helped with us both feel very comfortable learning a new dance. She would also listen to our input and make changes when necessary. For anyone contemplating whether or not to take dance lessons before their big day, I will say this…In all of the stress that comes with planning a wedding, Dance was the one hour every week where my husband and I got to forget about everything else and get lost in each other. We had so much fun dancing and laughing with Liza - It truly was the best experience. Thank you Liza! Every time we hear the new Justin Timberlake song we will think of you : ).
Liza was fabulous to work with on our first dance... We were both dancing novices and had a limited time frame to work in, but in spite of these limitations, Liza was always enthusiastic, flexible and full of ideas on how to make our dance uniq...
ue and enjoyable throughout. I highly recommend her as a dance instructor. Thank you, Liza!
I am SO GLAD we found Liza. My fiancé was nervous about doing dance lessons at all, but she is so good at listening to what you want out of the experience and tailoring both the dance itself, but also her teaching, to you that he was totally co...
mfortable and even had fun. I really appreciated that while she was super nice and funny, she was efficient and didn't waste our time. And she helped us create a dance that didn't feel choreographed or over the top but was still interesting and fun both to dance and to watch. I have never written a review on anyone before, this is my first, but she is so good I had to do it. I recommend her to anyone without reservations. You won't regret it!
My groom and I found Liza on yelp, and we were in a pinch because we'd left dance lessons until the last minute. She was flexible and found time that worked for our schedule, she even came to our house on the first lesson (but we preferred the...
studio, more space!). We both really liked how Liza was sweet but stern. She told us what we needed to make corrections and gave us useful feedback throughout the whole process. She worked with our taste and choreographed a personal dance for our song. If you want awesome individual attention she's your girl. After such a great experience with her we can't wait to come back and dance for fun.
The first dance went flawlessly and our guests were surprised by our skills. We have literally never danced together, not once!
I could not recommend here more!
Tracy & Paul
Liza was great to work with. We had a unique song selection for our first dance, the theme song to Jurassic Park, and she was totally up for the challenge. Neither of us had ballroom dance experience so she started with basic steps. She worked ...
with us as a team to modify the choreography as needed to fit our abilities. We were able to do the package with 8 lessons and it was so worth the effort. Liza came to our home each week and it became a “date-night” type, dance lesson evening. It was a refreshing break from stressful wedding planning for both of us.
Liza also incorporated mini-sessions with our parents. It gave our father-daughter and mother-son dances a bit of style and all of us were more comfortable and relaxed on the dance floor the evening of the wedding.
Our guests were very impressed with our first dance and we were so excited and proud to perform it for them. I would highly recommend Liza to anyone who wants a memorable first dance or one that isn’t plain and boring!
Meet the Team
Liza Marians
Owner
Liza Marians was born into dance. Her father was a passionate folk dancer who took his children to all of his dance classes from the time they were babies. With a rich upbringing of music and dance, the choice to become a ballroom dance instructor was clear. Liza trained at Mac Vitties Dance Studio where she was taught bronze level American-style ballroom, swing, Latin, and country dance. She also learned how to be a patient and positive instructor. Over the years, Liza discovered her talent for choreographing wedding dances as well as helping beginners learn to dance for fun.
