Father-Daughter Throw Curveball at Traditional Wedding Dance
— -- Guests at Kandice Mickunas’ Canton, Ohio wedding who were expecting the father-daughter dance to be a few minutes of a traditional two-step set to a sentimental song were in for a surprise.
Even Mickunas, 23, had no idea what her dad, Jim Mickunas, had in store.
After about 15 seconds of a slow dance to Louis Armstrong’s “It’s a Wonderful World,” Jim Mickunas grabbed a baseball and a glove for himself and his daughter and began playing catch with the bride in the middle of the dance floor.
“We were never dancers so the thought of us having to stand up there and watch everyone dance didn’t sit right with me,” Jim told ABC News. “We were always just doing something athletic or fun together.”
Jim and his daughter, a soccer and track star in high school, played catch to the John Fogerty song "Centerfield,” a song that held sentimental value for Jim’s new son-in-law, John Gray.
“My husband’s grandfather passed away when John was a kid and it was one of his favorite songs,” Mickunas explained.
Towards the end of the song, Jim handed his glove and the ball to his daughter’s new husband.
“I was floored,” Mickunas said of the surprise. “I knew that he was planning something but I thought he was just planning some sappy song.”
“I had no idea that was coming,” she said.
Jim says he began to plan the dancing twist about six months before his daughter’s wedding and says the idea just came organically to him.
“I wasn’t sure if it wanted to do it but am obviously very glad I did,” he said. “We would always play catch if we had extra time so I thought why not do it at the wedding and throw convention to the wind.”
Mickunas says guests at her May 16th wedding cheered and cried at the personalized wedding moment. A YouTube video of the “dance” has been viewed over 1.7 million times.
“I love that so many people have seen the video because they get to see that special minute between us,” Mickunas said. “It felt so special.”
Mickunas says there was a traditional mother-son dance at the wedding but not much more dancing besides that. There was, however, an epic lip-synch contest later in the night.
“Luckily that was not caught on video,” she said.
