JK Wedding Entrance Dance

Synopsis

The video begins with ushers closing the church doors with everything appearing normal, getting ready for the start of a wedding. "Forever" by Chris Brown then begins to play. To the surprise of the audience, the ushers, groomsmen and bridesmaids then progressively dance down the aisle, culminating in the groom, Kevin Heinz, tumbling through the group. Ultimately, Jill Peterson dances down the aisle, eventually met by her husband-to-be. According to Jill, "[they practiced for] an hour and a half" the Thursday before the ceremony.

The wedding occurred on June 2, 2009 at Christ Lutheran Church, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA, across from the state capitol building. The video was posted on YouTube a month after the wedding at the request of the bride's father who wanted to share it with relatives who weren't there. Tommy Alsop recorded the video.

Outcome

On July 26, 2009 sales of Chris Brown's 2008 song "Forever" reached number 4 on iTunes and number 3 on Amazon.com as a result of the post. Due to the controversy regarding Chris Brown and Rihanna, the married couple set up a charitable contribution effort on their website for donating funds to the Sheila Wellstone Institute, an organization whose efforts are to end domestic violence. Two months after the appearance of the video, donations had reached $16,000.

Parodies and media

Jill told Good Morning America "I grew up dancing and I danced in college. It was something I always wanted to do. I wanted to dance in on the wedding. And Kevin jumped in on board." The couple appeared on The Today Show on July 25, 2009 to talk about the video. The entire wedding party re-created the wedding entrance dance on stage live the next day as Kevin Heinz's original YouTube clip became a worldwide sensation with over 6.6 million hits, over 36,000 top ratings and overwhelmingly positive comments by Sunday, July 26, 2009. The video has been viewed over 80 million times. In Australia, the remaining contestants plus guests recreated the wedding dance on Dancing with the Stars. The wedding dance was recreated in the "Niagara" episode of U.S. TV series The Office. All main characters, except the bride and groom themselves, participated in the dance down the aisle. In the Netherlands the JK Wedding Dance was performed by two retired Dutch TV-stars in a competition called "Let's Dance" to raise money for a charity supporting research on children's cancer. On the show United States of Tara Season 2, Episode 4, a main character says: "I don't care what Nick's family says, we are dancing down the aisle and we are all wearing sunglasses." The Nevada Humane Society in Reno has produced a video take-off, celebrating the adoption of a dog from the shelter, to tie in with their campaign to find "Forever Homes" for animals. NHS officials tell the Reno Gazette Journal the video has gotten 40,000 hits on their website at nevadahumanesociety.org since posting the video July 22, 2010. On March 17, 2013, the Disney Channel series Shake It Up aired an episode in its third season titled "I Do It Up" which showcases the wedding of CeCe Jones' mother, Georgia. The wedding ceremony in the episode features a parody of the JK Wedding Entrance Dance, in which the characters are dancing down the aisle to Drew Seeley's "I Do", a song featured on the show's third soundtrack, Shake It Up: I <3 Dance.

On July 27, 2009 Indigo Productions, a video production company from New York City, released a spoof video entitled "JK Divorce Entrance Dance." The parody was shot in a New York City Supreme Court rented for a night and featured professional actors and a professional choreographer. The divorce video has gained considerable media attention receiving over 10 million views on YouTube and was named #1 Funny Video and #2 Viral Video of 2009 by Yahoo! Videos. On April 15, 2011, T-Mobile uploaded a video parody of the JK Wedding Entrance Dance portraying the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton weeks before the actual Royal Wedding. The music used for the choreography was East 17's "House of Love". The video, which was shot in London, had portrayed mostly recognized personalities related to the actual Royal Wedding such as Rowan Williams (the Archbishop of Canterbury who conducted the Royal Wedding marriage ceremony), The Duke of Edinburgh (William's grandfather), The Queen (William's grandmother), Michael and Carole Middleton (Kate's parents), The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall (William's father, son of the Queen, and step-mother), Pippa Middleton (Kate's sister and bridesmaid), Prince Harry (William's brother and best man), Prince William and Kate Middleton (now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge). T-Mobile stated in their video's YouTube account, "lifesforsharing", that they wished William and Kate a long and happy marriage.