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Last night I worked a wedding at the concert hall. We have a banquet room that's often used for such events, and they normally end with besotted members of the wedding party acting like fools and stumbling about drunk. Last night, however, was quite different. For one thing, the wedding itself was held in the banquet hall. Maybe this made it less likely that people would get plastered...that combined with the fact that the people in question just weren't the hard-drinking sort. Whatever the reason, it was a very dignified, happy occasion during which nobody vomited in the potted plants. The wedding itself was most interesting. The bride was Chinese-American and the groom Jewish. The ceremony was a lovely fusion of the two. The huppah, (the canopy under which the couple stands during the wedding and which is a Jewish symbol of the new household), was made of red Chinese silk. That silk included a panel on which were the signatures of all the guests at the bride's parent's wedding. It was two traditions fused into one. A similar panel was laid out for the guests to sign at this wedding...reading the new panel you saw Chinese and Jewish names all mingled together. The groomsmen wore yarmulkes, the bridesmaids were in Chinese silks. The Kiddush was recited, ancestors were honoured. At the reception the couple was hoisted aloft in chairs, and the decorations were ginger flowers and red paper. I've never seen a more seamless blending of such disparate cultures. The most impressive thing, however, was how utterly integrated the group was. These were people completely comfortable sharing each other's culture while fully inhabiting their own. The groom's mother could not have been more stereotypically Jewish and the bride's aunts and mother were the very picture of little old Chinese women...and they all chatted and fussed together over how to divide, store and transport the leftover Blintzes and Fortune Cookies. Beautiful. Mazel Tov and Double Happiness to the couple. |
