Karahana wedding, the Israeli way

Want some tisco tanzing..?

Yesterday I experienced my first Jewish wedding - or wait... - rock concert/fashion show/rave/gala première...

It was a modest gathering of merely 400 guests and the event was held at some huge party facility. We arrived to the outdoor reception and started off with the food. There were many different stations put out where chefs stood and prepared food. There were Italian, Mexican, sushi, grill, as well as Mideast stations, while waitresses were also walking around serving shot glasses with soups or other snacks. We filled up pretty nicely with the excellent food before we hit the bar. We drank Champagne, Scotch and red wine, generously in true Swedish style, while constantly more people gushed in. The groom Eran, is a colleague of Yoram's, so we did not expect to know any other people than the ones from their work. When we arrived we did not know a single soul, but after a while the other people from the office arrived and we joined up.

The chuppa was huge, more like a big white party tent, and it was lit up with disco lights in pink and purple, and I truly had a feeling that I was going to see something completely different than a wedding ceremony. The master of ceremony, the rabbi, was calling in his microphone for all the guests to come closer so we did. The groom came out and later the bride, in a marvellous white dress, with glitter and pearls and she looked like an extravagant salsa dancer (which they both are). People were screaming and whistling and the rabbi was talking and talking. As far as I could understand from his attitude and body language, he was a quite unorthodoxly funny rabbi, and this was also confirmed by the others who understood the Hebrew. To me he seemed to be both queer and on acid by his appearance, but I guess that it was just the holiness that shone through. The ceremony was executed and people screamed and whistled some more and made kululu, while two huge video cameras were perpetuating every move in the chuppa.

We were pretty full after all the appetisers and drinks, but then I realised that we had not even started yet. Now the dinner began. First we had to find our table, table no 41. Imagine over 40 tables with 8-10 seats per table and there you go. The fashion show was over and now we entered the Nobel price gala dinner. We started on the salads and bread on the table and the waiters came in with dish after dish and as we finished the wine bottles they delivered new ones. In the meantime the dance floor was full. People did not wait until after the meal, but ran back and forth, ate some and hit the dance floor again. Again video cameras followed the newlywed couple like in a Big Brother episode, while this time everything was displayed live on big screens, so that no one would miss anything while they were eating. When the couple had a chance to eat I don't know, since they were constantly carried around on the dance floor. The main course arrived somewhere around 11 pm and after that they served a whole range of different desserts. We were home at 1 am and today Yoram had to head off for work. I sympathised by cleaning the house for the weekend.

This kind of wedding is as far away from my ideal as I can possibly think of, but as a party it was awesome, and if that is what the couple is seeking then they truly succeeded. Everybody is invited, and I mean everybody. Your fathers colleagues girlfriends cousin and your boss' mistress' daughters classmate and your childhood friend's ex boyfriend's hairdresser and so on... I cannot escape thinking of the proverb "Everyone knows the monkey, but the monkey knows no one.". I did not even get the chance to say hello to the bride and I have never met her before either, so she has no idea who I am, but hey, thanks for a nice party! Mazal tov!