“Dancing With the Stars” judges Derek Hough and Hayley Erbert, longtime partners in life and in ballroom, are married.
Hough, 38, and “DWTS” dancer Erbert, 28, wed on Saturday in front of family and friends in a redwood forest in northern California’s Monterey County. the people magazine reported. Suzanne Madure, Hough’s publicist, confirmed the wedding to USA TODAY.
“It’s one of the most breathtaking places,” Hough told People magazine. “It’s like a fairy tale.”
“We’re in a redwood forest, but we got married in front of this mother tree surrounded by all these little trees,” Erbert said. “They drop all the seeds, and sows like an army of children to protect the mother. The symbolism of that was beautiful. Here we are, sowing our seeds to grow our family.”
After the wedding ceremony ended, the guests headed to the reception, which was held in a 100-year-old barn.
The couple started dating in 2015 after meeting on “DWTS”: Erbert was a dancer on the show for seven seasons and four runs. Before joining the judging table, Hough, the younger brother of Julianne Hough, was a professional dancer on ‘DWTS’, winning the prestigious Mirrorball Trophy a record six times in the televised dance competition.
The couple announced their engagement on June 2, 2022, through shared Instagram posts showing the dancers’ perfectly lit embrace amidst white flower petals, 250 oversized candles and white feathers. The surprise engagement was set up entirely by Hough, who transformed the couple’s Los Angeles home.
“It’s only the beginning…the beginning of forever,” reads an Instagram caption.
Hough cabled the wedding weekend with an Instagram post on Wednesday of a romantic song he wrote called “Hold Back Time” that features an animated video of a bride and groom jumping into a lake from a pier.
In the song, Hough sings, “Don’t worry about the future / We loved it and we ain’t gonna let it go.”
The pair are set to dance together on their “Symphony of Dance” national tour, which begins September 28, and Hough will take over as judge duties on ABC’s “DWTS” this fall.
As for their first dance at the wedding, Erbert said brides The magazine will be a personal moment in the midst of a career.
“We perform for a living, so we just want this dance to be ours,” she said. “We don’t want to lead for anyone else.”
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“We want to feel good and comfortable, but we don’t need to be perfect,” Hough told Brides. “It’s less important to me than just looking into her eyes as we sway back and forth. I want to feel a real presence in that moment.”
People reports that the couple’s first dance was to “Fall Into Me” by Forrest Black, which took place on an antique mirrored floor with a fog machine.
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