Having a bat mitzvah is a complicated thing.
And I don’t have my parents doing all the work of the party for me.
Well, the invitations are mostly done. Have to email a few people for their addresses. I decided I’m bringing the students’ invitations to school with me tomorrow.
Here’s a hint for anyone who thinks that Staples has a good print shop: Nope. Go to Kinko’s. Staples misled me as to how they could print on cards I bought from a paper store. They told me they really could only do it well on 8×11 card stock. Lucky for me, I remembered that literally around the corner is a Kinko’s, where I got the help I need and it cost less than half per copy, and $1.25 vs. $2 per cut. I used my typesetting/desktop publishing skills to fix the type to fit on the cards I had, and the staff helped me do the rest. Nice people. I have to remember to write a nice letter to their manager.
Mind you, I’m two weeks late with the invitations. But the most important people already said they’re coming—my close friends and family, and some blog buddies.
Now all I have to do is, well, almost everything else. But I have the caterer for Saturday night dinner. That’s the hard work, and I’m not doing it. I’m really tempted to cater kiddush lunch, too, but I’ll hold off and save the money. I have some friends at the synagogue who are going to help me prepare and set it up.
Of course, I’m utterly wondering why I chose to do this again… one of my fellow congregants had her adult bat mitzvah last year, and she invited half a dozen friends. That’s MUCH easier. I told her I should have done that. She thinks that I should keep on plugging away with what I’m doing, and that it will be great for my students. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She’s not the one who has to do the role of bat mitzvah girl and parent of bat mitzvah girl.
If I ever get married, I’m eloping. The heck with big parties.
“If I ever get married, I’m eloping. The heck with big parties.”
Been there, done that, highly recommend it. Find a nice park someplace 3000 miles away from home and have the local rabbi come on over. Invite the parents and any siblings…and if a few friends come, mazel tov, but not required.
Just make sure someone brings a glass for the groom to stomp (my brother remembered, bless him).
Forget about eloping; just keep the invitation list short. My bride and I were wed at her parents’ home with only immediate family. It was a fun, no-stress event that, thirty years later, we still laugh about (we couldn’t find the wedding ring). But I have yet to hear anyone say, “Gee, I’m so glad we chose to have that big expensive Broadway-production wedding.”
And what’s this “if I ever get married…” narrishkeit? Don’t you know treasures are never unclaimed very long?
Good luck with the bat mitzvah. Moreover, you should say “when” and not “if,” because there must be some Jewish men in Richmond with good taste in women.
chsw
Shyeah, you guys don’t know Richmond very well, do you?
There are precious few Jewish men, period.