This weekend I was at a friend's wedding. The bride was beautiful, everyone cried, there were lots of toasts, the and played, we all danced. It's how weddings are supposed to be.

Just before dinner, the floor was occupied by the requisite horde of dancing children. The youngest ones happy jumped around, the older ones were obviously mimicking what they've seen older dancers do. One of them tried to dip, and then flip, one of the smaller girls.

Eventually I just couldn't resist the urge any more. I got up and joined them. The oldest boy had partnered up with one of the oldest two girls, leaving the other oldest girl without a partner. So I asked her to dance with me.

At first, I'd surprised her, and she ran away. But a couple minutes later, after I'd sat down, she came and found me and asked me to dance with her. The song that was playing was a cha-cha, so we did a simple basic cha-cha.

That child asked me to dance with her over and over that night. I taught her how to swing dance, too, but the cha-cha was her favorite. She taught the other kids how to do it. I think she taught her mother how to do it.

When her parents were leaving, she made a point of coming over to say goodbye to me. I hugged her, and told her to keep dancing. As she ran away, and waved to me one last time from the doorway, I realized that I changed her life that night. She just discovered that she can dance.

It made me realize that this is a simple rule for living that I should always follow. Always dance with little girls - and little boys - at weddings. Weddings have a potent sort of magic about them. The children should get their share of the magic.