Upon learning that the groom’s grandparents never had a first dance at their own wedding in 1957, an engaged couple from New York decided to surprise the beloved pair on their special day, 65 years later. They gave their first dance away.
Bride Samantha Graff, 26, told The Epoch Times that she and her now-husband, Zachary Graff, 27, came up with the idea together.
“We found out shortly after we got engaged that Grammy and Grandpa hadn’t got their first dance, and it broke our hearts. To us, it’s such a huge part of your wedding day and something you will never forget,” she said. “When we found out, it wasn’t a question of if we were going to give them a first dance, the question was how we were going to pull it off perfectly.”
Samantha, an attorney from Hicksville, New York, met Zachary, a high school earth science teacher-in-training from Rockaway, New Jersey, in 2014 during their freshman year at New York’s University at Albany. They connected after Zachary’s best friend found Samantha’s credit card in the quad, and Zachary returned it. “No money spent!” Samantha joked.
Zachary’s grandfather Morton Graff, 87, a former entrepreneur with a shoe business, married his sweetheart Elaine Graff, 84, a former administrative assistant, on March 10, 1957. They tied the knot at the Empire Hotel in Manhattan, New York. But as Morton was sitting shiva for his mother, the couple could not have their first dance.
“It is Jewish tradition that during that time there are to be no celebrations,” said Samantha, “so while they still got married, there was no dancing or music whatsoever at their wedding.”
Samantha and Zachary kept their first-dance plan a secret for three years ahead of their April 2, 2022, nuptials, hoping to capture their families’ “raw reactions.” It worked; when Morton and Elaine were called to the dance floor at Hanover Manor in East Hanover, New Jersey, they were shocked.
“They had no idea what was about to happen. There was not a dry eye in the whole place!” said Samantha.
The family caught the magical moment on camera, from the newlyweds’ announcement to Zachary’s grandparents’ shock, and their first tentative steps on the dance floor in front of their loved ones to the Andy Williams classic “Love Is A Many Splendored Thing.”
Samantha and Zachary, who have settled in Franklin Square, New York, originally got married on April 18, 2021, in Clifton, New Jersey. It was a small ceremony with immediate family only, due to the pandemic. Both were over the moon for a second chance to celebrate their union.
“Getting to have two wedding days—one incredibly intimate, and the other celebrating with all of our family and friends—was more than we could’ve ever hoped for, and two days that we’ll remember and cherish forever,” Samantha said.
From the day she met her husband’s family, Samantha knew how close-knit they were, especially with Zachary’s grandparents.
“Grammy and Grandpa are role models to Zach, in both a professional and personal sense,” she praised, adding, “[They] are truly role models to both of us, in every aspect of life.”
