DIY
Continued from Page 9
from invitation ideas to decor and centerpieces. The Mitzvah Market,
another New York company, offers a website chock-full of ideas
from which you can draw inspiration for your own party.

With all these ideas floating in the virtual database, is the profes-
sional sphere of Bar/Bat Mitzvah planners being threatened?
Cigall Goldman, founder of mazelmoments.com, believes social
media, the DIY enthusiasts and event planners can go hand-in-hand.

“It’s funny because on the one hand, I think people like to do
things themselves,” she said. “But on the other hand, I think the
popularity of Pinterest and social media is creating a lot of ideas for
people and they’re finding it might be a little much for them because
there’s so many ideas going around.”
The plus side to these sites and the ability to easily find inspiration
online is that they provide more ideas that people can relate to the
event planners as they start the planning process.

“For image-based industries like event planning, Pinterest is
huge,” Goldman said. “I think people turn to Pinterest because it’s
an easy way to get a lot of ideas really quickly. It’s a great destination
for getting a lot of ideas in a quick manner.”
Stacey Kesselman is not a Pinterest user herself, but she does
visit the site to promote the work of her company, Exceptional
Events. The idea of Pinterest is good, she said, but oftentimes, the Bar/Bat
Mitzvah will come in with ideas they’ve seen on the site but she can’t
accommodate it, usually because of the venue size.

“It’s challenging — and helpful,” she said of the role social media
has played in recent years.

“The helpful part is they bring colors and pictures of things they
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A baseball-themed Bar Mitzvah centerpiece.

Pinterest like and don’t like. The challenging part is that sometimes the venue
doesn’t have what the picture shows. They want what’s in the picture.

It can all be modified. It’s not our goal to mimic Pinterest.”
Kesselman has been in the event planning business for over
10 years.

Born and raised in Newtown Square, Kesselman first started in
corporate event planning. When that market went south, she turned
instead to party planning and reinvented herself in the Bar/Bat Mitz-
vah service planning area.

Exceptional Events does everything from logos to favors with
the help of Kesselman’s “amazing” team.

For her, the business has remained something she truly enjoys
doing despite changing times and tastes. She follows trends of her
own, as well as whatever trends crop up as specific themes like “luau”
or “beach” themes become less popular.

Right now, the more popular themes aren’t themes at all but,
rather, “feels.”
A color might be a theme, or a certain feel might be the theme,
like a modern feel, she said.

She meets with families about six months prior to the big day
and follows up with meetings intermittently leading up to it to make
sure everything is still what the family wants.

“I love seeing everything we’ve worked on come together. The
months of planning and prep and meetings — on that day, when
everything gets put together, it’s awesome,” she said.

The work she does is the reason she believes the do-it-yourself
movement won’t get too far in the Bar/Bat Mitzvah realm.

“I don’t see it as a trend,” she said. “People have high hopes to do
it but as they get into the thick of it, there’s so much involved with
it — that’s why they need a planner.”
While she uses social media to promote her business and show
pictures from parties her company has done, she doesn’t see it as
the main competition but rather as an extra bit of help.

“I feel like it’s very helpful to prospective clients because I feel
like social media is a showcase for your work and for busy people
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they can look on Facebook and see recent posts and
recent parties and see if that’s the feel they want for their party,”
she said.

On the other side of the decorating spectrum, Pamela Rosenthal
used social media to look for ideas for her twin daughters Remi and
Julia’s B’not Mitzvah on Oct. 17. (For more about the twins, see p.

16.) However, Rosenthal decided to do everything herself as far as decor,
just as she had with her older daughter, Abby, two years ago.

When she and her husband, Steve, picked the date, the coordi-
nator at their synagogue, Tiferet Bet Israel in Blue Bell, asked who
their decorator would be. Rosenthal answered, “That would be me,”
she recalled with a laugh.

Rosenthal decided on thematic decorations for both the service
— and the following luncheon — and the party.

As they are twins, Rosenthal specifically wanted Julia and Re-
mi’s parshah to be from the story of Noah, to go with the “two
by two” motif. For the service, mitzvah baskets with doves will
be set up on the bimah and during a luncheon following the serv-
ice, there will be balloons of all colors of the rainbow as well as
more doves.

The decision to do the centerpieces and decor for the party Sat-
urday night following the rest of the big day was in large part a fi-
nancial reason, but it also gave Rosenthal the chance to contribute
more directly to her daughters’ day.

“It’s definitely easier to hire people, no question. But it has to
be the right decision for each person,” she said. “My husband says,
‘Why put yourself through this?’ If I can save the money, I will.”
Doing this part of the planning became a way for her to “mirror
all the effort they put into it,” she said, citing all the work the girls
have put in studying their Torah portions and preparing for their
big day. “I thought I should do that as well.”
Julia and Remi have both offered to help, however, which Rosen-
thal appreciated, as it served as a lesson for them.

“It feels good, too, to see that I’ve contributed the time, not just
the dollars,” she said. “It’s a lesson I want my girls to learn.”
Rosenthal looked online and did simple Google searches to get
ideas to go along with the girls’ music theme. While she didn’t specif-
ically focus on sites geared for DIY projects such as Pinterest, she did
find ideas for cardholders online. Otherwise, she had her own ideas
to make the party unique — and these ideas required hot glue guns.

She found time whenever she could to work on the centerpieces
and boxes that fit the theme and also featured the girls’ names as a
keepsake for after the party is over.

“It does bring some pressure because I’m not counting on any-
body else to get it done,” she said, “I have to divide my time very
carefully.” She bought everything from local stores, like A.C. Moore and
Michael’s craft stores, and the flowers were from a local florist.

In the end, choosing to decorate is a personal decision. Rosenthal
has always loved crafting and finds it relaxing. That may not be the
case for everyone.

“When they’re all finished, I will be feeling on top of the world,”
she said, laughing. “I really enjoy the process and sitting there and
tinkering with them.”
DIY parties are successful depending on the person, said Sheri
Lapidus, founder of the Mitzvah Market, an online resource for any-
one planning a Bar/Bat Mitzvah.

“Either you’re a DIY person or you’re not,” she said.

She wouldn’t call “DIY” a trend because it really isn’t, she said.

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