Our Child’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah:
What I wish we had done differently

MAKE IT EASY FOR PEOPLE TO WATCH THE CANDLE LIGHTING CEREMONY

The candle lighting ceremony, at which people closest to the Bar/Bat Mitzvah boy or girl are invited to come up to light a candle on the cake is a moving tradition. Looking back, Cindy, from Sherman Oaks, California, wishes more people had been able to enjoy it at her daughter, Shelby's, party.

"The cake was on a table right on the dance floor," she explains. However, because the party was extremely large, many of the guests sitting farther away weren't able to see the ceremony. "I wish it had been held on the stage area, or that the table had been on a platform, so that everyone could have seen the beautiful ceremony."

MAKE-UP, YES; TANNING SPRAY, NO

As a special beauty indulgence, Michelle, from Livingston, New Jersey, took her daughter, Jamie, to a salon where beauticians carefully applied a coat of spray-on tanner to both of them the day before Jamie's Bat Mitzvah.

Michelle says that in person, she and Jamie both looked great. In the photos, however, their skin had an unnatural orange glow. "I wish we had never done the tanner," says Michelle. "If we hadn't done it, we would now have much nicer photographs of an otherwise wonderful day."

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