You think that a wedding party in these traditional wedding-processional type weddings consists only of the groom and the bride?
Look, if this is trying to be some kind of humblebrag about ”hey, I am such a simple down-to-earth person that I don’t even get the concept of ceremonial formality and ritualized actions in a multi-participant ceremony”, okay, great, congratulations. But if you actually want to understand how a wedding rehearsal works and why it’s often done, maybe instead listen to the descriptions people are giving you instead of just insisting how unnecessary it all is?
I think you explained this well. Plus, most people would like for their wedding to go as smoothly as possible - so why not have a rehearsal, and possibly avoid awkward/incorrect little moments that could have easily been prevented?
Just because I think something’s silly, that doesn’t mean it is, only that I have certain cultural assumptions that I have a problem overcoming. None of you have done anything wrong, and there’s no reason for me to dump any of that on you.
So I’ll take that as my cue to apologize, and shut up for a bit.
Well, not exactly, At least not in weddings I’ve been to. You walk in a particular order - but it’s not necessarily the same order in every wedding. There may be a pre-processional where the mothers/grandmothers are ushered to their seats by the groomsmen , in which case the bride’s mother is the last to be seated. The groom and best man may walk in the processional or they may already be in their places. The bridesmaid/groomsmen may walk in pairs or they may be single file. They will have to walk at the same pace and spacing, possibly to music. Sometimes, a special walk is used, that I can best describe as “take a step, pause”. The bridal party may stand during the ceremony or they might be seated in the first couple of rows. I’ve never seen waving and the only thing that resembles cheering is the applause at the end of the ceremony.
I’ve only been to one wedding in Israel, so I don’t know if it’s typical - but the walking in/out was just regular walking.No particular pace or spacing. I can see why you wouldn’t need to practice that.
I’m surprised you haven’t been to any traditional Jewish weddings. They are something of a production. When my son married a person who wanted a traditional Jewish wedding, we separated the rehearsal from the event by a week, and had the attendants help us make the centerpieces (glass vases filled with colorful M&Ms.) And the bride had to practice walking in circles a few times before they could do it without giggling. I guess most of the rest was easy, but everyone agreed on what order they would walk in, and who took which pole that held up the chuppa. We also made sure we knew how to attach the tallit to the poles, so that wasn’t fumbled during the actual event.
And it might indeed be silly to have wedding ceremonies that are formally stylized enough to benefit from being rehearsed! We could totally have an interesting thread debating that proposition! But that thread is not this thread.
(And congrats to you, nonsarcastically this time, for stepping up to acknowledge that, very menschlich. )
They don’t even have to be that formal to benefit from a quick rehearsal. My sister got married outdoors and it wasn’t some giant formal thing, but anytime you have multiple people who have to coordinate walking in step, likely to music, and then when to separate and where to stand, it benefits everyone involved to do a brief run-through. Hell, I sometimes usher on Broadway and have to walk down the aisle holding a sign telling people to turn off phones, and we will even do a run-through of that, just to time my walk with those on the other side so we go together and it doesn’t look sloppy.
I’ve been to, or participated in, umpteen various US Xian & secular Xian-like weddings.
I’ve attended exactly one Jewish wedding. At age 35-ish. My role was to sit quietly in the audience and I handled that difficult task with grace and aplomb.
The entire rest of the ceremony was a continuous surprise. I had zero idea what to expect beyond an appropriate religious official, a bride, and a groom. With unfamiliar terminology for all 3 roles.
Had I somehow been expected to participate, I’d have been utterly lost.
Okay , folks for those of you who are a bit confused by Alesson’s confusion, it’s because you ain’t never been to an Israeli wedding.
Informal.
The only guy wearing a suit is the groom.
Pure chaos.
About a quarter of all the guests don’t even see the whole ceremony, they’re still munching on the hors d’oevers on the patio of the wedding hall.
Usually the parents of the groom walk with him down the aisle to the canopy. Then the parents of the bride do the same. Some guests clap ( though there’s no waving.) Then while 6 people are standing shoulder to shoulder, they let the rabbi shuffle them around a bit , suggesting who should stand where. The rabbi says something nice, the groom puts a ring on the bride, a glass is stomped, and everybody heads over to the dining area to eat.
The concept of holding a rehearsal does not exist.
Thanks, that does help explain @Alessan’s perception of the concept!
Yeah, I have been to several Jewish weddings in the US, and they were nowhere near that casual with the “staging”, so to speak. Congregations were fully seated. Procession was deliberate. Rehearsal had happened.
I have been to a Jewish wedding, but I did not have to rehearse anything. But, look, if someone did invite me to a Jewish, or Indian, or British, or whatever wedding where I had to practice some choreography, and I accepted the invitation, then, obviously, I would attend the rehearsal. If I did not want to be there, then I would not be there.
I actually played a part in my sister’s wedding. She called me up a week in advance and asked me to say one of the Seven Blessings.
“Sure,” I said. “What do you need me to do?”
“Gil will call you up. Just do what he says,” she said.
Me: “Cool.”
So day of the wedding, the ceremony started, and Rabbi Gil did in fact call me up to the chuppah. My son, who was four at the time, was feeling a bit clingy, so I carried him in my arms. Gil handed me the cup of wine, asked me to repeat after him, I did, my son said something cute, everybody awwed, and that was it.
We do the “let the Rabbi shuffle them around a little” at the rehearsal because we expect the guests to all be seated during that part, not wandering around eating. So we don’t want it to take any longer than need be.
My nephew’s wedding was rehearsed, except they didn’t practice putting up the chuppa, despite having built some substantial permanent thing to hold the canopy. (Instead of just having four people holding poles.) So, the guests all day there and watched them fumble with putting up the chuppa for 5-10 minutes. Not a huge deal. But if the 3 people responsible for that had tried doing it in advance, it would have been an extra 15 minutes for 3 people, instead of an extra 10 minutes for 150.
The vast majority of weddings of all kinds don’t expect the wedding guests in general to take part in any kind of rehearsal. It’s only the bridal party, i.e., the people who are actually participating in the ceremony rather than just sitting/standing there watching it, who (in some cases) rehearse what they’re expected to do and where they’ll stand, etc.
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