Footloose on the Bridal Path : A groom-to-be decides he’d better learn ballroom steps for the big day. But the moves don’t come easy.

Have you ever seen a tugboat trying to ice skate?

Watching myself in a mirror during my first tango lesson, that phrase had popped into my head. It stayed with me each time we returned to Dance Boulevard, a storefront studio on Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Chatsworth, where my fiance, Amy, and I took dancing lessons to prepare for our wedding.

Now, after introductory instruction in the fox trot, the swing, the cha-cha and the tango, we were returning for the final “party,” the last part of our package deal and our first attempt at social dancing. I had two worries: steering my ample girth around a dance floor, and getting my betrothed, a country girl and tomboy, to accept what she once said was for “sissies.”

The harsh lighting I remembered from the lessons had been replaced with the soft glow of night lights. Hors d’oeuvres and punch were set up. “Was it one . . . two . . . side-step?” I thought, trying to remember the fox trot that our instructor Natalie Mavor had taught us. “Then promenade?”

Relax, the instructors told us, the point of the party was to practice.

Like at a junior high dance, they separated men and women into two lines to mix the partners. I had to learn to be comfortable dancing with others.

My first dance was a disaster. Neither my partner nor I could remember the steps, and we stumbled all over. But it was not as bad as my first lesson, when I tripped over my own sneakers. Still, I tried to keep to the basics and “create a solid dancing frame,” as Natalie had said, to help me lead.

By the next dance, I was not so much leading as walking straight over my partner with my legs going off to the side. A tango was coming up, but before I could step onto the floor again, I saw how experienced dancers turned their bodies into free-moving muscle, veritable art set to music. No way, I said to myself, this tugboat is taking a pass.

But Natalie showed up soon after that and showed me the waltz. I caught the rhythm and she guided me in a growing circle on the floor.

Then, I heard Amy as an instructor coaxed her onto the floor. She was crying out under her breath, so only I could hear: “Saaaaaaavvvveeeee meeeeeee.”