Using a form with validation within a lightbox

Hello,

I am trying to have a form that will use validation (both for empty fields and for a valid email address) inside of a lightbox. I do not believe kentico has a lightbox webpart that this would work with. So, I have created my own.

It's a fairly simple lightbox:

<div class="lightbox-bg"></div>
<div class="lightbox">
<div class="lightbox-inner">
<div style="width: 100%; background: #ccc; padding: 20px 0px; margin-bottom: 15px;"><h2>Title of Lightbox</h2><span>X</span></div> -- IS PUT BEFORE THE FORM I'M USING




</div>
</div> -- IS PUT AFTER THE FORM

It is a custom webpart form but is a viewBiz form. Everything is working great except when someone doesn't enter a valid email address or leaves something blank. The form validation is working correctly so it is not sending the form, but the lightbox is disappearing because the page refreshes when the form is submitted.

Is there any way to have the lightbox not close when the submit button is clicked? I tried preventDefault() and that didn't work. I also tried having the lightbox fadeIn() when the submit button is clicked to see if maybe the lightbox would just come back right away. That didn't work either. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!