By Sheri Lapidus, Founder MitzvahMarket.com
Many of you know that my family celebrated my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah in November 2010. We wrote about all the details in the Lapidus Bat Mitzvah Family Spotlight.
Since my daughter is in 8th grade, her Bat Mitzvah was one of the last ones of the grade. In line with the MitzvahMarket.com mission, I wanted to infuse clever and unique ideas into Carly’s celebration.
Carly and I are big fans of TLC’s show, Rock The Reception. Although it’s all about brides and grooms surprising their guests with a choreographed dance, my husband thought we could pull this off at her Bat Mitzvah.
With only 3 weeks to go until her big day, we sat down with our MC Carl from Entertainment Tonite to go over all the details. My husband Roy told him about his idea. He wanted to start his father/daughter dance with a traditional slow song and then have the music stop, causing guests to think something went wrong. In an instant, a new song would begin as pre-determined guests would join them on the dance floor for a choreographed dance. He thought it would be nice to include the 8th grade girls and their Dads and the 8th grade boys and their Moms in this surprise dance.
Carl loved the idea and thought his dancer Matt would be the perfect instructor. On a cold Wednesday night, only 10 days before Carly’s Bat Mitzvah, 24 kids and their Mom or Dad met us at Ultimate Gaga in Syosset for the one and only dance lesson!
Working hard to learn the moves!
In about 1 hour, everyone followed along as Matt taught simple steps to Usher’s song, DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love. He explained where they should stand during Carly and Roy’s father/daughter dance and reassured everyone that he would be in the front of the line so they could follow along.
Roy and Carly enjoy about 15 seconds of their slow dance before the surprise!
On cue, 24 guests jump onto the dance floor and begin the surprise!
To see how this turned out, click here to watch our video – our guests seemed to love it!
If you take this idea and make it your own, please let me know how it turns out by writing to me at [email protected].
