Bar Mitzvah Reflections, Part 1

It's going to take many posts, i'm sure, to tell everything about the Bar Mitzvah and weekend. Here's the first one, which is the text of my Kids Konnection article for May that I wrote this morning. It's a good start on my recap!

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Words cannot adequately describe the magnitude of the emotions I am feeling and the thoughts that I want to express as I reflect about the most wonderful weekend of our lives as a family – the Bar Mitzvah of our oldest son. Every aspect was perfect. Each element exceeded our expectations. Being with so many members of both sides of our extended family from near and far was incredible. The pride we felt as Harrison led services and chanted Torah flawlessly, spoke words of wisdom articulately and conducted himself with poise, maturity and personality filled our hearts with great joy. The parties were all perfect with excellent food, beautiful decorations, wonderful “little touches” and everyone having the time of their lives! Here are some details to aid you in planning your own simchas.
1. Invitations. We were thrilled with Jackie Wolf (Jackie@wolfiesprint.com) who orders from the major companies and offers a discount. There is a huge range of styles and prices. Having a traditional invite that incorporated Hebrew was important to us and we spent hours on the wording. We received many compliments and no one knew that we had chosen a style at the low end of the price spectrum!
2. Involve your Child. We were fortunate that Harrison wanted to be involved in ALL of the planning. He helped with everything and was a part of all decisions (except for a couple of “surprises” I thought would be fun for him.) His involvement made it more special and we had so much fun and got so close doing everything together.
3. Service. Thanks to our well-prepared son and wonderful clergy, the service was beautiful and moving. We chose to personalize the service in a few ways and we were very grateful that we were allowed us to do so. It was important to us to “honor” and involve as many of our family members as we could because it was so meaningful to us that they were here to share this special day. So we added extra prayers, a special presentation of the tallit of my father, for whom Harrison is named, an instrumental piece (by Harrison on the trombone and our other children and two of their close friends from temple, all on different instruments) and we have the distinction of having more people for Aliyot than any other family!
4. Meals. Harrison wanted an evening party so we chose to have a luncheon following the service as well as the evening party. It was nice to do this because it gave people a chance to really be together. I did assigned table seating for both events and put a lot of thought and effort into mixing people up so that they weren’t sitting with the same people for both events, which everyone seemed to enjoy. We also had a Shabbat dinner for family on Friday night and a Sunday brunch for family and some close friends on Sunday morning, and we were very blessed that family members generously offered to host all of these “extra” events including the very “upscale” Saturday evening cocktail hour. Our caterers, Nina Varkel and Ruth Gueta of Gourmet Caterers (www.gourmetcaterers.net) were phenomenal in all respects and I highly recommend them. The food was beyond delicious, the presentation of the food was amazing and they were a joy to work with.
5. Venues. We were so pleased with our choice of venues. Having the extended Kiddush luncheon at the synagogue was perfect because everyone went straight from the service into the lunch. We had the evening party at the JCC, which was great. The dance floor was the largest we’ve seen and the set up of the room worked perfectly. There was plenty of space and it felt “right” to have a Jewish event at a “Jewish venue.” I looked at more than fifty places and the cost of the JCC was comparable to most of the other places and we got more space for the money (the use of other parts of the facility for the cocktail hour, buffet stations, etc.)
6. DJ. Mark Fortier of What a Party (www.whataparty.com) was simply amazing. He had the right amount of “energy” (he was “up,” but he wasn’t too hyper) and once we walked into the door of the ballroom, he did his thing and kept things moving along perfectly on schedule. Everyone there danced the night away and had the best night ever!
7. Décor. To keep things “moderate” and not “over the top,” we did all the décor ourselves. The lunch theme was based on Harrison’s mitzvah projects (which involved tutoring Santa Ana kids with their reading) and the centerpieces and baskets on the Bima were wrapped with pretty Star of David cellophane, tied with sparkling blue and silver ribbons, and filled with books that Harrison will be donated so they looked nice but served a useful purpose. The evening’s theme was “Harrison’s World,” with centerpieces made of vases filled with pretty rocks, tied with sparkly silver and blue ribbons, adorned with Stars of David, and each featured a photograph of Harrison doing something important to him (with the table placecards matching the tables.) We made the centerpieces and all the table placecards ourselves, and even though they looked homemade, they were creative and special (it helps that I do calligraphy.) Making the sign-in board and other “photo boards” for décor was easy and fun. Decorating baskets for programs, kippots, etc. made everything festive and beautiful for little cost and effort. Our balloon vendor, Irma Minsky (minskyfam@att.net) was excellent and decorated the room beautifully with arches, balloon trees and a fun “exploding balloon,” while keeping within our strict budget.
8. Little Touches. All the special extra touches added so much: the program booklet at the service that explained everything and mentioned everyone involved, Harrison’s Jewish friends led Havdallah at the party, special presentations to Harrison by his siblings, a candlelighting ceremony honoring close friends and family, a video montage made by Harrison’s uncle, (which was incredible), fun party give-aways, inexpensive party favors (personalized pens at lunch, bags of candy in the evening), etc.
9. The Hotel. I negotiated an amazing rate at the Residence Inn by Marriott in Irvine. We had a block of 25 suites and everyone enjoyed the luxury and comfort of the recently renovated rooms, the complimentary breakfast, the common areas to congregate, the fun sports deck and the fact that they let us use and bring in our own food to their downstairs “ballroom” for a large family seder.
10. Capturing the Day. Our photographer and videographer were fantastic: Mike Perez for photography (jacquelyngp@gmail.com) and Dennis Backer for videography (dbacker@mediabydesign.net).
11. ENJOY EVERYTHING. Most my important advice is to work as hard as you need to (and we worked really hard) to plan everything and then put it all aside. We were able to do this and I can honestly say that we savored and enjoyed every moment of the weekend.. It didn’t “fly by in a blur” as so many big events do, we were calm and relaxed, and we had the time of our lives. A few minor things didn’t go “exactly” as planned (very few, actually, given the number of events and people and all that was involved), but we didn’t worry about it and we just enjoyed each and every second of this wonderful simcha. We achieved our goals of keeping our focus on the importance of the service and Mitzvah projects and having fun celebration events that incorporated all the elements but were not “over the top.” It will be hard to come down from the clouds and return to a reality that doesn’t involve Bar Mitzvah planning and enjoying, but fortunately we have another one to look forward to in 2 ½ years!