This December bat mitzvah at the Hilton Garden Inn in Rockville was one of the nicest ones I’ve been to: small, low-key, and with such understated elegance, as the photos will illustrate. The bat mitzvah girl loved reading, so the theme was books. It was a refreshing challenge to the guests who volunteered to help come up with the design for the decor – how does one make books seem fun and party-ish? Well, they pulled it off with the use of encyclopedias, paper flowers cut from texts, and bookmarks as name cards. I was allowed to subtly photograph the ceremony from the back and then capture the rest of the party, where kids ate Chinese food (brilliant choice) for lunch, and everyone played games, danced, took photo booth pictures, danced the Hora and watched a slideshow of her growing up. Here are some pictures from that lovely afternoon.