"Wedding Bell Blues" (New Jewish Week Column Online)

From "Wedding Bell Blues," my newest column now online:

Weddings are magic. The details have come together according to plan. Two people have found each other and decided to spend their lives together, no matter what fate brings them. The bride looks like a queen; plus, she has special powers.

On her wedding day, the Jewish bride has the “Bridas Touch” — a temporary condition in which, particularly under the wedding canopy, her marital fortune is contagious. While she’s under the canopy accepting a ring from her betrothed, she gives single women her regular jewelry to wear, for added luck. The remainder of wine from her glass is also imbued with special powers and distributed to single wedding guests; this “segulah” wine is a Red Bull energy drink for the uncoupled, increasing the inherent bashertiness of the imbiber.

The bridal wizardry begins even before the ceremony. When the mothers of the bride and groom break a plate before the ceremony, signifying that a kinyan, or transaction, has taken place, the shards are given to single women for good luck. At my brother’s wedding, I reached into my purse during the reception, and promptly sliced my finger open on such a lucky shard. Luckily, a handsome doctor with a great sense of humor came to my rescue, cleaning the wound with vanilla vodka and suturing it using frayed napkin strands. After cocktails and dancing, we hid from the crowd under the Viennese Table and he told me he loved me — that table of delicious pastries serving as chuppah to our love. (Or if you prefer the truth to literary license: The finger-slicing was followed by a band-aid, and a hora, during which some other dancer impaled her four-inch heel in the center of my big toe.)

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