Gotta Dance

When Your Son Requests a Dance for his Wedding, A Mom Has to Deliver

View the video on [YouTube].

My son, Phillip Varga, is a force on the dance floor. He’s become well known for commandeering the dance floor — and often the microphone — at friends' weddings. I was told that at a recent wedding, he was asked by one of the wedding guests if he’d DJ their upcoming wedding. He’s actually a financial consultant! Well, Phil told me YEARS ago that when he got married, he wanted to do a great mother/son dance. So … what’s a mother to do? 

Here’s our story.

About the Son

Phillip danced before he walked. I mean that literally ... and I have the video of him somewhere at about eight months old, propped up on the cocktail table in the living room, watching MTV and just rocking out to the music. I think I have to take credit for this because I had discovered and fallen in love with Jazzercise in 1985 and I became an instructor in 1987. I Jazzercised straight through my pregnancy with Phil and he was born in October 1988. He was a VERY busy infant and child — always moving, always dancing, always entertaining. He actually discovered his ability to make people laugh at about age 3. And as he grew, he honed both his quick wit and his dance moves. He performed in plays, rapped and did improv all through high school and college and was ... and remains ... the life of every party.

About the Mom

I stepped into my first dance class at the age of nine. It was a tap class ... and that was the beginning of my lifelong love affair with dance. As a kid, I was enthralled with tap and rhythm and I watched every Fred Astaire movie that existed. My oldest and dearest friend, Linda (Gumerson) Bravard, and I started choreographing routines about two years later. We actually held dance recitals in her carport. And then in high school we entertained the chorus class with multiple dance performances.

Tap remained a constant in my life — during my college years, I competed in three scholarship pageants and appeared in the production of "Dames at Sea" at the University of Central Florida. And years later, I appeared in the Civic Theater's 1992 production of the tap dance ensemble "Stepping Out." I was actually five months pregnant with my daughter, Alyssa, during the run of the play.

In 1994, 6-year-old Phil is the littlest guy front and center and I'm
kneeling on the left yelling out cues (some things never change).

But ... back to the fall of 1988 when I found my new choreographer "partner in crime." A fellow Jazzercise instructor Daryl Flynn had just moved to Orlando. After her class one night, she came up to me and told me that she could tell I had rhythm. Since I was eight months pregnant with Phil, I told her that we would be friends for life! We soon started choreographing routines for Jazzerthons and other events.

We actually went on to produce the largest halftime shows for the Orlando Magic for nearly a decade. We had 200 Junior Jazzercisers on the court in organized chaos. We brought fun and fitness to hundreds of Central Florida kids. And Phil … yes … he grew up dancing in those halftime shows. 

Years after those halftime shows ended, Phil came to me once again for dance instruction. My daughter says she'll always remember the vision of her mom on our back porch teaching her 17-year-old brother how to do the running man. 

About the Dance

 This was our secret dance rehearsal on
Sept. 28 just two weeks before the wedding.

A few months before his October 12 wedding to the beautiful Kayla Wisniewski, we started talking about "the dance." We exchanged songs and dance videos —he loves DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince and I love the incomparable Bruno Mars.

He wanted to use just one song, but since people would fully expect Phil to “perform” at his wedding, I told him we needed the element of surprise. So with his approval, I crafted and choreographed to a medley of meaningful tunes. I told him I got one minute to hold him because I gave birth to him ... and I survived him to 21, which was no small feat. “I Hope You Dance” by Lee Ann Womack started off our dance. It said everything I wanted to tell him ... plus it referenced dancing. Then he got a short solo and for a good transition, the music cut to the lyrics “Everybody dance now!” from the song “Gonna Make You Sweat” by C+C Music Factory. Then we closed out the dance together to “Uptown Funk You Up” by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars. 

I wrote up detailed dance notes (of course) and showed him the routine. I was so happy that Phil loved the choreography and I took it as a great compliment when he called the moves “vintage.” He made a video of me and we practiced separately for a few weeks. Then we secretly met twice to practice together. Our big rehearsal was two weeks before the wedding in a dance studio so we could practice in the shoes we'd be wearing for the wedding. We met again the day before the wedding in a park! And, while there was a handful of people helping us behind the scenes, all of this was done without the knowledge of his bride!

I actually bought ballroom dance shoes because I knew I couldn't dance in my dress sandals and I didn't want to fall on my face and embarrass my son. I even had three bustles put in my dress so I wouldn't get tripped up and I had a "hustle bustle team" waiting in the wings at the wedding. Unfortunately, we had a bustle delay and I missed my planned entrance ("Stop. Wait a minute!"), but we surprised the heck out of everyone. Overall, it was a great success — several attendees including the DJ and the videographer said it was "epic."

One side note:  Phil did a lot of improv and it's a good thing we were both facing the crowd. If I was facing him, I never would have been able to dance ... his facial expressions make me laugh out loud! I told him he looks like Will Smith doing an imitation of James Brown.

I hope you laugh ... and I hope you dance.

Special thanks to mytoweddings.com for gifting us the video of the Mother/Son dance.

View the video on [YouTube].