Father and daughter go viral for re-creating 'Beauty and the Beast' dance at wedding
"It was a very, very special moment."
For her father Andrew Trutanich's birthday at the end of September, Riannon Trutanich VanSciver wanted to do something special.
So the 32-year-old decided to post a TikTok video of a cherished memory she and her dad shared at her wedding to Clinton VanSciver two years ago.
"She comes to me and she knows I'm not a big social media guy. I tend to shy away from this. She goes, 'I gotta tell you, I did something and I don't want you to be upset,'" Andrew Trutanich, 69, told "Good Morning America." "And she goes, 'Well, I posted our father-daughter dance online. ... [and] we have 350,000 hits. I go, 'You gotta be kidding me.' ... By the time dinner ended, we were up to 800,000 and now I'm going, 'Oh my god, cat's out of the bag.'"
With over 3 million views since Sept. 29, it's no wonder Trutanich VanSciver's video has gone viral. It shows the father-daughter duo at her wedding as they dance to Disney's "Beauty and the Beast," from the 1991 animated movie of the same name, while a video from 27 years ago plays in the background. The background video shows the two of them doing the same dance at home.
"The sweetest memory," Trutanich VanSciver captioned the video.
The father and daughter gathered again in the same living room in San Pedro, California, recently -- the one where they first danced to "Beauty and the Beast" when Trutanich VanSciver was a child -- for a Zoom interview with "GMA" and said it was an unforgettable experience that has been made even better by the touching feedback they've received from others online.
"I have watched the tape a lot growing up but just getting to dance with him and to have that moment was just so perfect to me and then now, to have this attached to it as well is just so amazing," Trutanich VanSciver said. "So much of what people have said will stick with me for the rest of my life."
Trutanich VanSciver said it was her mother Pamela Trutanich's idea in the first place to re-create the moment but both father and daughter were happy to oblige on her wedding day, and they surprised their guests with the heartwarming dance.
"I'll never forget, he turned to me and he just looked and he said, 'Oh boy.' And I was very grateful to my veil because I had to take a minute when I got up there to kind of compose myself, but it was just so beautiful," Trutanich VanSciver recalled.
Andrew Trutanich added, "Being with her in the reception and asking her to join me like we did 27 years before was like the floodgates opened and dad was a tropical mess. [I] was melting all over the place."
The father of one said the original dance had been an impromptu "fluke" since he had been heading out to catch a flight when his daughter, then 2 years old, "slammed her face against [his] cheek like you couldn't believe" and "locked onto [his] thumb" to mimic Belle dancing with The Beast in the 1991 animated movie.
"It was special. But when we got to the church and we were practicing dancing again, I said, 'We're going to do it exact so you're not going to hold my hand, you're going to hold my thumb.' and in the wedding video you'll see her, she just has a hold of my thumb," Andrew Trutanich explained.
"It was awesome. There was not a dry eye in the place," he continued.
Both father and daughter say reliving the memories and seeing the reactions from complete strangers has been "amazing."
"The posting of this video has brought all those memories back to us and they're all wonderful and what was just as amazing -- I read a lot of the reviews and I haven't seen one bad one ... the people that are commenting are just wonderful, warm individuals," Andrew Trutanich said.
"I'm honestly honored that people have written the things that they have," Trutanich VanSciver said. "To have something that is on the internet and people have such a positive experience with like, that's amazing to me."
She added, "I don't think I could have gotten him a better birthday gift if I tried. So, it was a really, really sweet surprise."
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