Benji Schwimmer & Nicole Ramirez - 1st Place Champions Strictly Swing - The Open 2023 

It's common in West Coast Strictly Swing comps to choose to dance with a friend or other dance partner, just because it's a fun opportunity to compete with someone you have good dance chemistry with. No need for it to always be one's romantic partner. In fact, some couples prefer to keep personal partnerships and professional dance partnerships separate in general. And that's just a personal choice. In this case, Nicole and Benji were famously a dance partnership for 3 years ( I believe). And most notably were partners for Benji's final Championship Showcase Routine that won first place at the Open in 2018 ("Three Minutes" Worth watching if you want to check it out: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eWWPHyJnIEI.html ). So dancing together for this was like 'old home week' for this partnership and for this crowd at the Open especially. Lotsa history there! And they are always fun to watch.

They are married but at competitions may have random partners

Strictly means they choose their partner before competing but do improvise on an unknown music. In practice, many people choose not to compete with their main partner (I'm not sure if this is because of a rule saying they can't compete in the same partner in multiple divisions or not though).

​@@brieucguinardspecifically at the open they can't do strictly if they did a routine with that same person, iirc :)

I was wondering that, too, but perhaps he just couldn't resist the fun. :)