we're REAL grownups, with REAL furniture now!

Amongst some crazy furniture sales after Christmas and before the January 2, we finally agreed that it was time to buy a couch. The couch(s) we'd been using belong to a friend's family and are their "kid furniture" that gets passed through the family. We've had them for 3 years and no one had complained, but I was beginning to feel like we'd had them for too long so when another friend offered us a futon I jumped at the opportunity and gave back the love seat of the couch set. The futon made an AWFUL couch. Though it's a lovely lounge platform, that's not quite what I had in mind for what I'd like our young married couple apartment to look like. Thankfully, Ben agreed.

I'd been looking at furniture for the past few weeks and scouting couches out for Ben, though a trip to Borders for free coffee (thank you Sunday paper!) led us on an impromptu trip to Arhaus Furniture. We'd never been in there before and from the outside looked like we'd be out-priced by the store. What we first picked out was quite reasonable, though in the end we decided to upgrade to a sofa bed and spent about 1/3 more than we intended. Oh well, our new sofa will be here in 8-10 weeks and it will be so pretty! You'll even be able to sleep on it, it has a built in air mattress! The frame folds out and then you plug in the pump. Pretty awesome, right? No more springs or bars in your back. Supposedly, the pump is a pressure sensitive one meaning that it will fill with air if the mattress starts to deflate.

Oh, you're probably wondering what we ordered. Unfortunately, there are no photos of the fabric OR the sofa on line, so use your imagination because it's from the Brentwood collection and looks like the wedge sofa, only not wedged and cranberry with flecks of other colors (instead of taupe). It will be beautiful!

snowballing down the aisle

After the bedekin it felt like everything went on warp speed/auto pilot and I was just along for the ride. MiMi helped me make sure my veil would stay on, tied our rings onto a ribbon so that they weren't loose in Ben's pocket, and our parents helped Ben into his kittle. The same kittle my mom spent 2-3 days making for him after my attempts were thwarted by my fuzzy bridal brain (never ask a bride to do arithmetic or cut fabric).

Before walking down the aisle, I wish I could have heard the ceremony music better but because it was so chilly and damp out I was sequestered behind closed doors. When I did try and crack the door open to listen, our DOC pushed the door shut again, saying that it wasn't my turn yet. :( Oh well, it sounded great through the doors!

Here's what happened (from the program). Remember, all the music was by La Bella Brass Quintet:

Prelude

Great Gate of Kiev – Mussorgsky

Shepherd's Hey – Grainger

Quintet No. 3 movement I – Ewald <-they ended up playing the entire piece because the bedekin took so much longer than expected



Kiddie Parade

Carnival of The Animals, Royal March of the Lions – Saint-Saens

Processional and Circling

Western Fanfare – Ewazen (grandparents and siblings)

Earl of Oxfords March – Byrd (Ben, AKA the groom)

Les Preludes – Liszt (me, AKA the bride as a I processed w/ my parents and then circled Ben 7 +1 extra time for no reason)



Yartzeits

lighting a memorial candle



Kiddushin (or Erusin)

blessing over wine and marriage and betrothal and ring ceremony



Reading of the Ketubah



Reading

I Like You (excerpt), by Sandol Stoddard



Nissuin

reading the Sheva B’rachot

Oseh Shalom

traditional Jewish song

Birkat Cohanim

priestly blessing



Breaking the Glass!



Recessional

Simmon Tov u Mazel Tov!



Postlude

Dance – Renwick

Die Bankelsangerlieder – Anonymous

Quintet No. 3 movement IV – Ewald

Ben looks so serious in the above photo! But, I'm glad his parents look so happy. It looks like less of a gangplank walk this way :-P

This is where my mom told me to think of my HS graduation, and be glad that it wasn't snowing at the wedding too.

And I laughed down the aisle. I wish I'd remembered to look at Ben before circling him. Whoops.

At least I got to look at him at the end of the aisle, that's what matters. Poor, cold guests. There were blankets for them to use on their laps, but only my girlfriends whom I'd mentioned the blankets to took them and then wore them like cloaks!

Also, see those 2 video cameras? Why haven't I seen ANY video yet? I know my friend Miri taped it for us, but it's in PAL format and she needs to find someone to convert it to regular DVD for us. Someday, it'll make a great belated wedding gift.

Ceremony to be continued....

the ketubah is framed and on the wall!!!

We took it to Michael's to get framed the day after Thanksgiving (thank you 60% off coupon!) and picked it up this past Sunday evening. This morning, we hung it on the wall, over the bed (with two 40 lb. hooks. As soon as I'm done with laundry and the bed is remade, I'll take a photo (please remind me if I don't).

Wow. We're real, grown up-like, married people! Hard to imagine, since I'm wearing monkey socks from the Old Navy kid's section today....

Want a reminder of our ketubah text? Conservative with Lieberman and English | Gallery Judaica

a few bridal items for sale

I can't think of any practical reason to hold onto my veil, does anyone want it?

How about my little bridal sweater? OK, maybe I'll want to keep that and wear it later, but someone else may get more/better use out of it. Any bids?

Tiara? Lauren, do you still want to borrow it? If you do, I won't sell it. I haven't made a posting for it yet.

Does anyone in the ether have any interest in my shoes? Size 6.5 sparkly flats and ivory 3" heels.

FLOWERS, a pretty ceremony view

Like I said earlier, I was in denial of the weather and no one bothered to correct me. I guess they expected me to be bridezilla or something. I'm glad we had the wedding outside, umbrellas are much better looking than a glowing exit sign behind the chuppah! No one complained more than I did though, so that's a good thing. I may have had more skin exposed than anyone else too.... As cute as my little sweater was, it was silk and cotton, not very warm at all.

what's a bedekin? and why we don't have to sign our own ketubah

Bedekin, um I'm not sure what the official translation is except perhaps maybe "veiling." As in when the bride's veil is pulled down over her face by the groom. The historical reasoning for this is so that the groom knows who is behind the veil and isn't tricked into marrying the wrong girl.

BEDEKIN, from our wedding program:

This tradition of veiling the bride is derived from the biblical story of Jacob’s wedding. Jacob did not see his bride before the wedding ceremony, and was tricked into marrying Leah instead of Rachel.

The bedeken is a private ceremony at which the groom is escorted to the bride before her veiling. As the groom lowers the veil over the bride’s face, he is formally acknowledging his choice of bride.

As you can see, our bedekin wasn't private, but that's OK. It meant that our families were able to witness it, stay warm and dry, and add their blessings as well.

Hehe, my mom hugs just like my youngest brother, like a big lump. I'm not sure I'd noticed that before.

I'm not sure if my grandmother reads this blog, but I'll say here: I'm disappointed that she was late because she missed the reason I have a wad of kleenex in my hand: my uncle Charles (my late grandfather's youngest brother) gave us a blessing and said that he wished my grampa was able to be there. Thankfully, that's the only time I cried all day. Maybe it's better that my gramma wasn't there, she's not a very public person with her emotions.

Neither of my aunts were their either, that was kinda disappointing too, but none of them are into public emotions or really Jewish stuff either. Oh well. They can look at these pictures and wonder "why was I outside, freezing my tush off for a good seat and missing this whole thing?"

Honestly, I'm not sure what's going on here. I was too high on adrenaline. There was something about taking Rabbi Marc's tallit with intention and that meaning that I want to take Ben as a husband. Or something like that. I'm not sure.

Then, it was time for our male witnesses to sign our ketubah! Ari, Ben's friend on the left, Ben peering over their shoulders, Rabbi Marc in the middle, and my oldest friend, Michael on the right. I've know Michael since we were THREE at Temple Rodef Shalom preschool in McLean, VA. He didn't have a beard then :) Oh, and I'm obviosuly the marshmallow in the background. I wanted to see too!

I think that photo was taken when Rabbi Marc was explaining that the last letter of the ketubah was intentionally left 1/2 written so that the contract would be written, right there in front of us all, on the wedding day. I thought that was pretty neat.

The reason we wanted male, Jewish witnesses is that we wanted to make sure that our ketubah would be kosher and accepted in Israel. It's a traditional text with a flowery English translation that we're both fond of. [We even got it framed over the weekend and should be able to pick it up in 2 weeks!]

KETUBAH: from our wedding program:

Before the ceremony, two witnesses under the supervision of the Rabbi will sign the ketubah, the Jewish wedding contract. The ketubah is a legal document, written in Aramaic that specifies the bride’s rights and the groom's obligations to the bride. Traditionally, there is no need for the bride to sign the ketubah because according to Jewish law the ketubah is her property.

Ben and I signed our names on the bottom, in English (mine looks like a 12 year old, I was kinda spacey), but there's no religious obligation to do so. It was my contract and Ben let two witnesses sign it as a way of saying that he accepted it. That's how a Jewish court (Bet Din) would see it anyway. If Ben had objected, the rabbi wouldn't have let 2 guys sign it as his representatives.

We had 2 girlfriends (Becca, who introduced us at Hillel, and Andrea, who was my first friend at Interlochen) sign our Colorado license. The third document we had, which was actually signed first, was an pre-nuptial agreement of sorts; it said that if I should ever ask for a divorce from Ben (in a religious court) that he would be required to give it to me. Otherwise, a Jewish divorce can only be initiated by the husband. We had two family friends who are both young and divorced, although one is remarried and the other just recently engaged, sign it for us (Mark the Russian, and Ethan).

That was it, we were 1/3 married (rings and yihud were to come shortly). Then, there was lots of singing and I think someone tried dancing but no one else went along with it. Once all the guests had gone out to the ceremony site my mom and Ben's dad helped Ben into his kittle (the one my mom spent Wednesday->Friday making).

To be continued.....

our first look in our wedding outfits!

We decided to see each other in the rotunda, before the bedekin (veiling) and ketubah signing so that we could have a little private snuggle time (in front of the camera). Just having a few minutes together, where we could talk without all of our guests listening in as if we were saying anything worth hearing, was SO grounding. I think we said things like "wow, you look good" and "does my hairspray smell like bubblegum? I feel like I'm candy scented." Like I said, nothing worth listening to.

After a few minutes of photo time, we walked over to the conference room where we had the bedekin and ketubah signing. To be continued....