Simchah
Hindsight

Moms and
brides offer
after-the-party
advice.

JENNIFER LOVY
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

T

hree b’nai mitzvah cele-
brations in two years argu-
ably makes Amy Douville
a party-planning expert. Because
hindsight is 20-20, parents like
her have the opportunity to learn
what works well and what they
could have done without when
planning subsequent mitzvahs.
“You get smarter with every-
thing you do,” said Amy Douville,
a West Bloomfield mom, who has
a little break before her daughter
Elin’s bat mitzvah, which will be in
October 2023.
While the internet is flooded
with party-planning advice, hired
party planners are easily available
and well-meaning friends read-
ily offer tips; parents planning a
bar or bat mitzvah celebration, as
well as a bride and groom, often
adhere to preconceived notions
of how they want their parties to
be. Only after their celebrations
do they realize what was really
necessary or important and what
they would change, if anything, on
a do-over. A handful of moms and
a bride offered their best after-the-
party advice.
Jacob Douville’s November 2013
bar mitzvah was the third, so
his mom felt well prepared. His,

Casey and Josh Diskin at their wedding

30

August 2 • 2018

jn

she said, was the best planned
because she learned so much the
previous year. For example, she
found that party-goers tended
to load up on appetizers; to save
money, she lightened up on the
hors d’oeuvres. She also skipped
the dessert table, opting instead
for passed desserts like fried
donuts, s’mores on a stick and
Oreo cookie shooters. Nixing the
dessert table meant guests could
continue dancing and enjoying
the party without having to wait
in line for food.
Because two of her parties were
in the same year, Douville was
able to negotiate price breaks
with some of the vendors, includ-
ing the Cappuccino Man. What
Douville didn’t anticipate was
that her guests wouldn’t want
caffeinated drinks at 11 p.m. Nine
months after her son Zachary’s
January 2012 bar mitzvah party,
the cappuccino cart was back at
her daughter Emily’s bat mitzvah.
This time, Douville served hot
chocolate and non-caffeinated
beverages instead.
As far as weddings go, Casey
and Josh Diskin had a very tradi-
tional Jewish wedding. The bride
and groom didn’t see each other
until the ceremony and they both
fasted. Observing these customs
gave the Huntington Woods
couple the ceremony they wanted,
but it also presented some unfore-
seen challenges. For example, they
thought they were well prepared
by giving the photographer a list of
all the group pictures they wanted
months before their August 2015
wedding. They just didn’t consider
how much time it would take to
get all the photographs. Since the
bride and groom couldn’t see each
other, they were unable take pic-
tures before the ceremony. They

Shira Ellis at her bat mitzvah

spent the first two hours of the
party taking group shots before
deciding to call it quits with the
photo sessions and enjoy their
wedding.
“My other advice is to remem-
ber to eat,” Casey said. “Because
we were fasting, I didn’t eat all
day and then we were busy social-
izing.”
Even without fasting, between
pictures, hair and makeup
appointments and the excitement
of the big day, remembering to eat
is good advice for any party host.
Holiday weekends are often
popular times to plan events.
Having the extra day means those
traveling to attend your celebra-
tion don’t have to miss work or
school. But it also means that a
number of in-town guests may not
be around to celebrate either.
That’s what happened when
Blake Gedrich had his bar mitz-
vah this past Labor Day weekend.
His mom, Melissa, a party plan-
ner, now makes a point of telling
clients that holding events over a
holiday weekend could backfire.
Jennifer Ostroff of West
Bloomfield planned her daughter
Noa’s bat mitzvah over Memorial
Day weekend 2017.
“Picking a date was one of the
hardest parts because there are
so many kids, and you don’t want
your dates to conflict with the
same group of friends,” Ostroff
said.
They ended up selecting Noa’s
bat mitzvah date because it didn’t
overlap with her friends’ mitz-
vahs; it wasn’t in the middle of the
winter and it would not interfere
with Noa’s spring-time gymnastics
tournaments.
In retrospect, the holiday week-
end made it hard for some guests
to attend because of other family

plans. The Ostroffs thought they
would avoid all these problems
with an early October 2018 date
for their daughter Maia. Turns out
that weekend is her sister’s home-
coming.
“No matter what date you pick,
there’s the potential for some con-
flict. You just have to pick a date
and go with it,” she said.
Douville and Rachel Ellis each
hosted separate celebrations and
regretted it. Douville tried to save
money by splitting the celebra-
tion into an adult luncheon after
services and a Saturday night
kids’ party. It ended up costing
her more than if she had just one
party.
Ellis had the same issue when
her daughter Shira celebrated her
bat mitzvah over Martin Luther
King Jr. weekend in 2017. She
had a luncheon at Temple Israel
after services so that their family
and their parents’ friends could
celebrate with them and because
their space for the kids’ dance
party could only accommodate
150 guests. They ended up spend-
ing more than if they had one
party, including the expense of
paying twice for hair and makeup
appointments, a photographer
and the added decorations.
Her younger children, ages 8
and 10, are 18 months apart and
will be sharing their bar mitzvah
date. Right now, neither one
wants to have a party, and she is
hoping to do a family trip either
to Israel or travel somewhere and
connect it to Judaism.
Diskin’s overall advice to future
party planners: “Don’t sweat the
small stuff. I know it sounds
generic. But really, don’t sweat
the small stuff because at the
end of the day it really does not
matter that much.” •

PHOTO BY JOHN HARDWICK

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