A Weekend and A Wedding

jakal88 was in this weekend, so that he could come with me to Steve's wedding last night.

I shopped and set up bread dough before he got in, and then we cooked most of the afternoon. I got down to the kitchen to find that the dough had had illusions of grandeur, and was preparing to conquer Brush, in preparations for taking over NYC. Luckily, I got to it in time, and it yielded some quite nice bread. On the other hand, Steve2 seems to be ticked off at me, and I don't really know why, which is a situation that I really hate.

We had a lovely Shabbos- dinner hosted by wilperegrine, and then we hosted lunch. It was a really lovely crowd- both with everyone there and a bit chaotic, and during dessert, when a bunch of folks left, and we could all just relax quietly. Davening was pleasant, and all generally went well.

Sunday we had a quiet morning, realized that we couldn't quite make it to go lulav shopping and get back in time to get ready for the wedding- and Steve3 was remarkably generous and offered to pick one up for me. I need to get in touch with him and get it from him, and pay him back for it- but I don't have to run down to the lower east side, which would have made the whole day today entirely Too hectic.

Eventually, we got ready and headed off to the depths of Brooklyn for this wedding. It was certainly a cultural experience- out of the whole room, besides jakal88, and the groom and his parents, I knew 3ish people. Out of those 3, one I'd met once or twice before, and the last I'd met when we'd gone to a concert together with the groom, about 4 or 5 years ago. We were all seated at the same table for the meal though, which turned out well- the folks there made nice conversation. It was still a sort of rag-tag table: fewer people than seats, served last, right by the kitchen, etc.

Taking a step backwards in the course of things- the ceremony was fascinating. The dialect of Hebrew was one I was quite unfamiliar with for the most part, and there was absolutely no d'var torah or other sort of speech at the chuppah. Also, no one walked down the aisle but the bride and groom and their parents- neither bridesmaids, etc, nor bunches of relatives. On the other hand, there were a bunch of people standing vaguely near the chuppah with no apparent explanation. A nice touch was that they had the bride and groom facing the kahal. A lot of people kept talking through most of the ceremony: it lacked the sort of air of "the guests are in some senses witnesses" that I've generally seen at weddings, to a significant degree.

There was a significant sense of things being staged for the photographers, through a lot of the wedding. The bride would be starting to dance with some relative, and then just stop so they could smile for the camera. It seemed very artificial- and not like she was able to just enjoy or focus on the day. As for the dancing- at first, it seemed like very nice dancing for a simcha: very enthusiastic, and occasionally there were actual steps. But as the night went on, it got very cliquey, which made it hard for a female friend of the groom's...

My other major dancing quibble, was that as one piece of shtick or something, a bunch of the bride's friends brought out a Maypole. I was more than a little shocked to see a pagan fertility ritual at a frum wedding.

I also made it a point to stay for bentshing- and then that clearly became an all-male affair, except for the bride, who wasn't even quite at the table, but rather behind someone else. At that point, I stayed out of pure stubbornness. At least I did finally meet the bride, for about 15 seconds. She seemed nice enough, but it's hard to tell much in that context.

Now I should really go grocery shopping. But given that jakal88 just left, I'm not feeling very enthusiastic about getting up and doing much- it's hard to adjust to him not being here, again. And now I won't be seeing him until Thanksgiving, which feels like an awfully long time. I know it isn't, really, and I'll adjust and be just fine- but right now, this moment, it's pretty lonely.