In the lead-up to the wedding I had trouble imagining it. We’ve all been to weddings before but always as a guest. This was different. I couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like, being the “host”, in the wedding entourage. It was just totally foreign to me. I guess when no. 2 comes around, it will definitely be just as special, but less strange.
The strangeness didn’t change upon arrival. The opposite. It was just us, Sivan and Buchach and his family. And of course the event manager, the site manager and catering manager buzzing around making sure everything was as it should be, barking orders to staff. It felt like being an actor, backstage on opening night of a Broadway show, waiting for the curtain to go up and for our part to begin. So we shuffled, joked, and generally tried not to get in the way. The videographer arrived, then stills photographer, then fridge magnetologist and last but not least, live-feed videographer for those viewing overseas. Couldn’t they just elope? I’ll give them my car keys.
This is a wedding and if we are to believe a hundred years of Hollywood, there’s always at least one crisis, preferably more. I guess that’s what makes it interesting for the movie-goer. I’m sorry to disappoint but so far we hadn’t had one crisis, not a single tantrum, the only tears were for joy (and that’s before the wedding. It would become a Trevi fountain later on) and we’d completed two days of restful bliss. I hope I haven’t bored you to this point with the lack of crises. Spoiler alert. Other than a brief wardrobe failure that had Sivan in temporary tears, it continued on crises-less the whole way. So if you’re waiting for the whole good vibe thing to collapse, then you should quit now and look for something more dramatic but hopefully not more interesting.
Wedding invitations in Israel have a built in code, that everyone knows. The invitation will say Reception at 7 p.m., Chupa at 8 p.m. What it really means is “don’t you dare arrive before 7.30, preferably closer to 8. And don’t worry, there will still be lots of the reception food that is the real reason you are coming” An 8 o’clock chupa is as imaginary as the tooth fairy. There is, however, an exception to this clearly understood social more. It’s called Anglo-Saxons. Stemming from a combination of slightly better manners than your average Israeli, inbuilt punctuality and a lack of understanding of some of the nuances of mainstream Israeli culture, “our” crowd started to arrive at 7.10, apologizing for being late. The Israeli side of the partnership started wandering in like Brown’s cows more than half an hour later. Perhaps this difference in culture was in some ways a portent for the whole evening. On one side, very secular very anglos, the other side traditional, Israeli born orthodox Jews, with a spattering of ultra-orthodox. Susan invited some of her Ethiopian co-workers and I invited some of my Arab host families. And if someone might think that there was the possibility of friction amongst all these disparate groups, well, to put it mildly, forget it. It turned out to be the most delicious Israeli salad imaginable. Israel at its best.
8.30 came and went. By 8.45 the cattle started to depart the feeding station(s) and by 9.00 we were under the chupa. Most weddings I have been to the bride walks down the aisle with one or both parents, as does the groom. This is what I expected. Sivan and Buchach had other ideas. We were instructed by Sivan that we were to be planted on the chupa; Susan and I and our three sons, together with Ran and Esti and their three daughters. We would wait for them to come to the chupa together, after they walk down the aisle like Messi and Ronaldo waving to their adoring fans. I will admit I couldn’t visualize how this was going to happen and I wasn’t particularly happy about it. Sivan is my only daughter and I wanted to walk down the aisle with her. But I also knew that ultimately it was her wedding and we would do it the way she wanted. It’s been that way for 29 years and it wasn’t about to change today. I will go on record here and say that she could not have been more correct.
The bride and groom approached the wedding aisle from behind. It was lined with family and friends and as they walked towards the chupa, they would stop and hug or kiss people in the audience. Half way down the aisle they stopped, looked at each other, Buchach planted the gentlest kiss on Sivan’s forehead and closed the wedding veil over her face. That was it. The tears started to run like the Niagara Falls. Upon arriving to the chupa but before stepping up to it, Buchach turned and bent down towards his frail, 91-year-old grandmother and gave her a quick grandsonly kiss. Those cold hearted guests that weren’t crying already, were now. Now it was the rabbi’s turn to do his part. We have all been to weddings where the rabbi has gone on and on, giving unwanted advice to a couple he doesn’t know. Or simply thinks that the longer the ceremony, the more noble it is. And occasionally you get a rabbi who understands that it isn’t about him, but about joining two young adults together in a meaningful Jewish ceremony. And so it was with Rabbi Yehuda. He understood that there are differences in the way each family expresses their Judaism. He knew that Susan’s sister Karen is a rabbi, but could not officiate at the ceremony. He found the way to allow her to address the bride and groom under the chupa yet not impinge on halacha. My sister-in-law Rabbi Karen’s words made the chupa even more meaningful. More tears please. Even something as straightforward as placing the ring on the bride’s finger had extra significance. Sivan’s wedding ring is my maternal grandmother’s wedding ring. Given that my mother couldn’t be present, when Buchach placed her mother’s wedding ring onto the finger of her only granddaughter, this special event took on an even deeper meaning. And finally, before Buchach finished the traditional ceremony by stomping on the glass, Sivan placed a wedding ring on Buchach’s finger and read a short message to him. The glass was broken and one of the most beautiful and significant wedding ceremonies you will ever see had come to its end. Sivan and Buchach were married.
It was party time.
Parties start with dancing. And drinking. And it got off to a blinder on both fronts. A full open bar with copious quantities of quality liquor meant no-one went thirsty or sober.
Out of respect for Buchach’s family, the party started with separated dancing. Like almost everything in the preparation for the wedding, there was full agreement about this. The respect and understanding that we are one family guided us past every potential pitfall, such that there simply weren’t problems. And to be honest, if the entire wedding was made with purely secular families and guests, I would have been very happy if the first 40 minutes were separated, the boys and girls separately doing horas, line dances and tossing the groom and the bride’s father precariously into the air. Aviv and Yoav have a friend who stands over two metres tall. He insisted that he was able to hoist my 90+ kilos (the exact number is a state secret) on to his shoulders. He did indeed succeed. I have no fear of roller coasters, white water rafting or skydiving. Perching on shoulders, two metres off the ground, feeling I was about to topple backwards at any moment, was, however, very scary. Aviv and Yoav insisted that they were standing behind, ready to break any potential fall, but I wasn’t convinced that those two scrawns would have been able to stop a heavy object such as myself plummeting to the dance floor. Thankfully we never tested it. I’m just waiting for the chiropractor’s bill, or worse, a lawyer’s subpoena to come in the mail. After 30 minutes of mixed dancing, the barriers came down and it was bacchanal time. The dance floor did empty out, though, as the buffets were opening up. Priorities.
Susan and I continued to do the parents-of-the-bride stuff, flutting between tables, briefly enjoying the company of those that were sharing the simcha with us. I pecked at some food, and it tasted great, but for one of the few times in my life, it wasn’t my priority. The dinner came and went and it was time for the “artistic” part of the evening. Very inverted commas around the word artistic. Susan and I started off the proceedings by roasting Sivan, pulling items out of a box to exhibit the variety of stories and deepen the embarrassment. Next the three boys embarrassed their sister even more, and then their friends did a skit and dance. My mother and sisters, being kept in the prison state of Australia, sent heartfelt videos (more crying all round). The resumption of dancing and festivities was preceded by a flash mob dance which was very cute. Nothing about any of these performances bared any resemblance to art, but they certainly added to the general celebratory atmosphere of the evening.
A few months before the wedding I had an idea to help break any sense of formality, that didn’t exist anyway. My three sons and I bought 4 identical Hawaiian shirts, as garish and ugly as we could find, that we would secretly change in to at some point during the wedding. After much searching we found exactly what we were looking for; Orange flamingos and palm trees on a purple and green background. Atrociously ugly. People have been incarcerated for wearing clothing like this. So whilst Sivan and Buchach’s friends pranced around wearing masks of the bride and groom’s faces, we slipped away and changed out of our nice, appropriate wedding shirts and donned the ugly inappropriate Hawaiian shirts. When people got up in turn to join the flash mob, we entered as a foursome. Not a single person (other than Aviv’s girlfriend Shachar, who I revealed our surprise to in a momentary brain fade) knew what we had planned. The surprise was absolute. The shock…well…shocking.
With dinner, performances, socialising and anything else that wasn’t pure dancing out of the way, the party was set to resume. The alcohol flowed, with good friends being treated to some hidden extra good alcohol. I glanced over and noticed our three sons munching on some of Susan’s stash of Boston gummies, other combustibles seemed to waft around and the special buzz that had started earlier continued in a different form. At one point I looked around and saw Buchach being carried, prostrate, arms askew, Jesus-like, by 10 friends, to the bar. His mouth was forced (willingly) open and vodka was poured straight down his gullet. Party water-boarding. 11 o’clock came and went. At almost 12 o’clock our next door neighbour’s 93 y.o grandmother was taken home, at 1 o’clock hamburgers and chips were served to the revellers and at around 2.30 the bus driver taking people back to Tuval, together with the representatives of the venue, politely inquired if we were ready to call it a night. The 70 or so people who were still partying agreed to finish at the peak. Where did the past 9 hours go?
And that was it. With an outpouring of love showered upon a special couple, Sivan and Avraham’s wedding was over.