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livThis weekend one of my oldest friends got married, and my partners celebrated their 20th anniversary with a Jewish blessing and wedding canopy. So I had a lovely lovely time, and also I'm very much reminded that there's a crowd of (mostly somewhat connected) people I've been friends with for most of 30 years and I should make more active effort to actually spend time with them because they are awesome.
Sometimes lifecycle events mean learning something new about people you've known for decades. Indoseybat's case, it was that they have a brother-in-law who owns a decommissioned lightship on the Thames which he lets out as a recording studio. I learned this because it was the extremely original venue for the wedding!
The lightship was covered in Pride flag bunting, and beautifully crafted origami bats, dragons and paper cabbages, made byblue_mai whom I've known since we were 10. The attendees were all visibly alternative sort of people in ways that have continuity with how we were in the 90s and 2000s. In fact I knew almost all the guests well enough to be excited to catch up with old friends; there were a few relatives of verazea's whom I don't really know, and the residents of the lightship, and one extremely lovely new person, a New Zealander whom I clicked with instantly (and I presume unlike everybody else is NODW). But mostly, the very people who kept me sane and connected through university and moving away for my science career. And whom I haven't seen nearly enough of partly because we're all in our mid-40s and busy, but mainly because of the accursed 5 year pandemic.
So I caught up over coffee with some of the early birds, and then we went onto the ship (by means of jumping over a slightly alarming gap between the jetty and the gangplank), and played middle-sized jenga (not fully giant, but also bigger than a standard set) made of pieces wombled and then painted in shiny jewel colours bysquirmelia. It turns out that playing jenga with painted pieces, balanced on a not entirely flat capstan, on a ship in windy conditions is a little challenging, and it made a terrifying clatter when someone lost. Then we ate tasty tasty Chinese food (carefully labelled as 'vegetarian' or 'contains prawns' which seemed to cover most people's dietary requirements). And got trapped by a strategically laid out Millennium Falcon jigsaw. And bounced at pfy and hairyears and other old friends and exchanged life stories with the one new-to-me person.
We painted chairs with botanical and other doodles and messages of love and congratulations, and in the course of the eveningdoseybat and verazea sat down in them and were married by ewt. She and I were geeking out a bit about being officiants at weddings; Bat and Sarah had asked for a non-religious wedding, and I was interested to note that in some ways it's easier to do a non-religious but Christian flavoured wedding than a Jewish equivalent. Because all the wording of the Christian ceremony is so culturally embedded, like "Do you, X, take Y to be your lawful wedded spouse?" and "For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health". I haven't yet been asked to do a non-theistic Jewish wedding, but I have thought about how such a thing might work. At some point during the ceremony the tide rose and lifted the ship, which was delightful.
I'm not in a good position to judge because I'm the least introvert person ever, but it seemed like it was as introvert-friendly as a wedding party could be. There was plenty of space for quiet, one-to-one conversation and very little enforced jollity. Also most of the ship is, obviously, outdoors and most people were prepared to wear masks while below decks. Part of the reason why I haven't seen lots of these people very frequently lately is that they're generally the most Covid-cautious section of my friendship group, and when we don't have the easy default of, let's all go to the pub at [time], or let's all pile into someone's living room and chat and eat snacks, it's just that much harder to arrange anything. I miss low-key house parties and meet-ups. But I have renewed my determination to invite specific people to do specific social things; one-on-one you can of course set what level of Covid precautions you can agree on.
Sunday was a boiling hot day, less ideal than the cool, breezy weather that graceddoseybat and verazea's wedding. We turned up at the synagogue in our pretty clothes and unloaded all the amazing (entirely gluten-free!) food that ghoti_mhic_uait had acquired and prepared. We realized belated we hadn't quite planned around dealing with door security (for regular services there's a volunteer rota), but we managed to let people in without anyone needing to miss out too much. It turned out that ghoti_mhic_uait had never been to a Jewish wedding before, and not even set eyes on a chuppah before standing under one, which seems like a bit of a failure on my part as a student rabbi partner, but it was all ok.
I was impressed by how many people showed up for the pre-wedding study session which was my contribution to the occasion. I taught the book of Tobit, focusing on the marriage-relevant bits. That was really an interesting exercise with a mixed audience of mostly Christians with no experience of Jewish-style text study, and Jews who have never heard of Tobit and don't know the plot, since it isn't in our Bible. Fortunately I had to write an essay last term about how I might present Tobit at a wedding or blessing ceremony, so Rab school had definitely set me up well for that one. People seemed interested and asked good questions.
There's quite an overlap betweenghoti_mhic_uait and cjwatson's friendship group, and doseybat's friendship group, mostly because lots of the core people were contemporaries at Cambridge. But I avoided the temptation to go around making connections between the people who came to the Sunday wedding with the people I'd been hanging out with the day before; I think the centre of the Venn diagram is probably wildeabandon, the_alchemist and themidnightgirl. Also lots of Jewish community people as you'd expect, and some home ed people, some of whom brought children / teenagers so OSOs' weren't the only young people. Also my Dad and brother and his friend who finally made it over from France after total visa doom, which was awful but their being there at all was a silver lining because they'd otherwise have been away this week.
FK led the ceremony, which she is brilliant at. We included bits from the first, Christian, wedding which are suitable for use in synagogue, such as a hymn which is a setting of Ps 148, and the couple renewing their vows (which isn't usually part of a Jewish wedding). The three younger kids andfivemack supported the chuppah (the eldest was supposed to be there too but was delayed due to traffic and missed the ceremony). Various friends and family read the 7 blessings, changing 'bride and groom' to 'man and wife'. cjwatson stamped on the glass, FK made a sexist joke and ghoti_mhic_uait heckled her, so that was all in order.
Then we ate the extremely tasty tea and drank prosecco and chatted to the guests and I was again reminded that I should make more effort to spend time with our generally awesome friends.fivemack had managed to conjure up a ceilidh band, and themidnightgirl called the dancing with huge brilliance. There was a mix of experienced dancers and people who needed a fair amount of support, not to mention the two francophones who had never experienced British folk dancing at all before, so we all had fun trying to translate the instructions into English; they threw themselves into it with great gusto and did not have too obvious «ils sont fous, ces anglais» speech bubbles. Z even explained what on earth went on with the cultural appropriation drama over Cherkassia Kefula, which is sort of an English folkdance take on a Jewish origin dance based on the vine / mayim step, and I only just realized that the Kefula part is the Hebrew word for circle. And taught a bunch of recently created dances including one about the Dune sandworms (timely, as we'd just heard that Dune won the Long Dramatic Presentation Hugo), and one of her own.
It would have been an absolutely perfect occasion if we hadn't been very overheated. We had every window in the building fully open but it wasn't much cooler outside than inside. Not unrelatedly, takedown ended up taking ages and people were getting a bit frazzled by the end. But I think we did ok. Covid safety boiled down to pretty much relying on the open windows; it wouldn't really have been possible to eat with a mask on, and very challenging to dance, and I generally don't mask when I'm teaching. So I could have worn my mask for the ceremony but that was only like 20 minutes out of the whole afternoon so wouldn't have gained me much.
I sort of want to see if I can make it to my brother's charity's ceilidh next week. But Friday evening events in Brighton when I have a bar mitzvah in Cambridge on Saturday are a bit unworkable. And although I enjoyed the dancing, what I want more of isn't mainly dancing, it's spending time with people. And waiting for my friends to have reunions in the form of weddings isn't very efficient! I'm amazed that there were even two weddings this year, with most of my circle being in our 40s.jack has planned a bank holiday picnic next Monday; it will be fully outdoors, which is good for infection risk but possibly bad for enduring summer weather. But if you happen to be in Cambridge you're most welcome.
Sometimes lifecycle events mean learning something new about people you've known for decades. In
doseybat's case, it was that they have a brother-in-law who owns a decommissioned lightship on the Thames which he lets out as a recording studio. I learned this because it was the extremely original venue for the wedding! The lightship was covered in Pride flag bunting, and beautifully crafted origami bats, dragons and paper cabbages, made by
blue_mai whom I've known since we were 10. The attendees were all visibly alternative sort of people in ways that have continuity with how we were in the 90s and 2000s. In fact I knew almost all the guests well enough to be excited to catch up with old friends; there were a few relatives of verazea's whom I don't really know, and the residents of the lightship, and one extremely lovely new person, a New Zealander whom I clicked with instantly (and I presume unlike everybody else is NODW). But mostly, the very people who kept me sane and connected through university and moving away for my science career. And whom I haven't seen nearly enough of partly because we're all in our mid-40s and busy, but mainly because of the accursed 5 year pandemic.So I caught up over coffee with some of the early birds, and then we went onto the ship (by means of jumping over a slightly alarming gap between the jetty and the gangplank), and played middle-sized jenga (not fully giant, but also bigger than a standard set) made of pieces wombled and then painted in shiny jewel colours by
squirmelia. It turns out that playing jenga with painted pieces, balanced on a not entirely flat capstan, on a ship in windy conditions is a little challenging, and it made a terrifying clatter when someone lost. Then we ate tasty tasty Chinese food (carefully labelled as 'vegetarian' or 'contains prawns' which seemed to cover most people's dietary requirements). And got trapped by a strategically laid out Millennium Falcon jigsaw. And bounced at pfy and hairyears and other old friends and exchanged life stories with the one new-to-me person. We painted chairs with botanical and other doodles and messages of love and congratulations, and in the course of the evening
doseybat and verazea sat down in them and were married by ewt. She and I were geeking out a bit about being officiants at weddings; Bat and Sarah had asked for a non-religious wedding, and I was interested to note that in some ways it's easier to do a non-religious but Christian flavoured wedding than a Jewish equivalent. Because all the wording of the Christian ceremony is so culturally embedded, like "Do you, X, take Y to be your lawful wedded spouse?" and "For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health". I haven't yet been asked to do a non-theistic Jewish wedding, but I have thought about how such a thing might work. At some point during the ceremony the tide rose and lifted the ship, which was delightful. I'm not in a good position to judge because I'm the least introvert person ever, but it seemed like it was as introvert-friendly as a wedding party could be. There was plenty of space for quiet, one-to-one conversation and very little enforced jollity. Also most of the ship is, obviously, outdoors and most people were prepared to wear masks while below decks. Part of the reason why I haven't seen lots of these people very frequently lately is that they're generally the most Covid-cautious section of my friendship group, and when we don't have the easy default of, let's all go to the pub at [time], or let's all pile into someone's living room and chat and eat snacks, it's just that much harder to arrange anything. I miss low-key house parties and meet-ups. But I have renewed my determination to invite specific people to do specific social things; one-on-one you can of course set what level of Covid precautions you can agree on.
Sunday was a boiling hot day, less ideal than the cool, breezy weather that graced
doseybat and verazea's wedding. We turned up at the synagogue in our pretty clothes and unloaded all the amazing (entirely gluten-free!) food that ghoti_mhic_uait had acquired and prepared. We realized belated we hadn't quite planned around dealing with door security (for regular services there's a volunteer rota), but we managed to let people in without anyone needing to miss out too much. It turned out that ghoti_mhic_uait had never been to a Jewish wedding before, and not even set eyes on a chuppah before standing under one, which seems like a bit of a failure on my part as a student rabbi partner, but it was all ok. I was impressed by how many people showed up for the pre-wedding study session which was my contribution to the occasion. I taught the book of Tobit, focusing on the marriage-relevant bits. That was really an interesting exercise with a mixed audience of mostly Christians with no experience of Jewish-style text study, and Jews who have never heard of Tobit and don't know the plot, since it isn't in our Bible. Fortunately I had to write an essay last term about how I might present Tobit at a wedding or blessing ceremony, so Rab school had definitely set me up well for that one. People seemed interested and asked good questions.
There's quite an overlap between
ghoti_mhic_uait and cjwatson's friendship group, and doseybat's friendship group, mostly because lots of the core people were contemporaries at Cambridge. But I avoided the temptation to go around making connections between the people who came to the Sunday wedding with the people I'd been hanging out with the day before; I think the centre of the Venn diagram is probably wildeabandon, the_alchemist and themidnightgirl. Also lots of Jewish community people as you'd expect, and some home ed people, some of whom brought children / teenagers so OSOs' weren't the only young people. Also my Dad and brother and his friend who finally made it over from France after total visa doom, which was awful but their being there at all was a silver lining because they'd otherwise have been away this week.FK led the ceremony, which she is brilliant at. We included bits from the first, Christian, wedding which are suitable for use in synagogue, such as a hymn which is a setting of Ps 148, and the couple renewing their vows (which isn't usually part of a Jewish wedding). The three younger kids and
fivemack supported the chuppah (the eldest was supposed to be there too but was delayed due to traffic and missed the ceremony). Various friends and family read the 7 blessings, changing 'bride and groom' to 'man and wife'. cjwatson stamped on the glass, FK made a sexist joke and ghoti_mhic_uait heckled her, so that was all in order. Then we ate the extremely tasty tea and drank prosecco and chatted to the guests and I was again reminded that I should make more effort to spend time with our generally awesome friends.
fivemack had managed to conjure up a ceilidh band, and themidnightgirl called the dancing with huge brilliance. There was a mix of experienced dancers and people who needed a fair amount of support, not to mention the two francophones who had never experienced British folk dancing at all before, so we all had fun trying to translate the instructions into English; they threw themselves into it with great gusto and did not have too obvious «ils sont fous, ces anglais» speech bubbles. Z even explained what on earth went on with the cultural appropriation drama over Cherkassia Kefula, which is sort of an English folkdance take on a Jewish origin dance based on the vine / mayim step, and I only just realized that the Kefula part is the Hebrew word for circle. And taught a bunch of recently created dances including one about the Dune sandworms (timely, as we'd just heard that Dune won the Long Dramatic Presentation Hugo), and one of her own. It would have been an absolutely perfect occasion if we hadn't been very overheated. We had every window in the building fully open but it wasn't much cooler outside than inside. Not unrelatedly, takedown ended up taking ages and people were getting a bit frazzled by the end. But I think we did ok. Covid safety boiled down to pretty much relying on the open windows; it wouldn't really have been possible to eat with a mask on, and very challenging to dance, and I generally don't mask when I'm teaching. So I could have worn my mask for the ceremony but that was only like 20 minutes out of the whole afternoon so wouldn't have gained me much.
I sort of want to see if I can make it to my brother's charity's ceilidh next week. But Friday evening events in Brighton when I have a bar mitzvah in Cambridge on Saturday are a bit unworkable. And although I enjoyed the dancing, what I want more of isn't mainly dancing, it's spending time with people. And waiting for my friends to have reunions in the form of weddings isn't very efficient! I'm amazed that there were even two weddings this year, with most of my circle being in our 40s.
jack has planned a bank holiday picnic next Monday; it will be fully outdoors, which is good for infection risk but possibly bad for enduring summer weather. But if you happen to be in Cambridge you're most welcome.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-08-19 07:42 pm (UTC)This all sounds lovely!
I haven't yet been asked to do a non-theistic Jewish wedding, but I have thought about how such a thing might work.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-08-19 08:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-08-19 09:01 pm (UTC)I am tangentially reminded that
That's tangential because I assume that by "non-theistic Jewish-flavored wedding" you don't just mean that it would be Jewish-flavored because ithe officiant was a rabbi.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-08-19 09:10 pm (UTC)So in theory that should be easier than a Christian wedding which is much more overtly about God. But there's a sticky area which is that if you're a culturally Jewish atheist, you might be unhappy about mentions of rabbinic law, and you might be unhappy about mentions of the redemption of Zion. Because those are kind of religious things, even if not exactly theistic things. (Actually I thought my Christian partner might object to the redemption bit, since she believes the Messiah has already come rather than being something to hope for, but she was fine with those sections.) I think a wedding that has the trappings of a Jewish ceremony like a chuppah and ring exchange and a feast (and the customs which aren't really religious at all like veiling, circling, breaking the glass etc), but didn't mention Zion rejoicing with her children, would still be Jewish. But it's difficult to get away from the rabbinic law part of it, that's rather central to what a Jewish wedding is even if you change the words around.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-08-19 09:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-08-19 11:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-08-20 08:22 am (UTC)I miss there being more parties and meet ups and things too.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-08-20 10:36 am (UTC)A rabbi officiating is neither necessary nor sufficient to make a wedding Jewish. A lot of people ask rabbis because they're (hopefully) competent but both Jewishly and in civil law anyone can officiate at a valid wedding. Or indeed no-one at all; the couple are simply marrying each other, and Jewishly they need witnesses and civilly they need a registrar, but the registrar doesn't have to also be the officiant, they can just observe. I think Jewish but non-theistic means having the sort of shape of a Jewish wedding; symbols like the rings and the chuppah count, rabbinic requirements like the ketubah and the feast with seven blessings definitely count, but they're edging into actual religious content not just flavour.
One of the issues can be, and I found this with planning my own non-religious wedding, that people's cultural defaults for what a wedding is are basically Christian. Even Jewish people and committed atheists, it's the water we swim in it. Not overtly mentioning Jesus is easy enough, but making vows that follow the rough shape of standard Anglican vows is almost expected, you have to make an active effort not to do that.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-08-20 10:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-08-20 04:04 pm (UTC)And yes, most Americans who write their own vows also wind up with at least some of the standard Protestant Christian formulas, even if they also throw in some of their favorite poetry or a non-standard promise to support each other's careers or keep listening to live music. I don't think Velma's Uncle Kenneth ever did that stripped down a "so, you want to marry her? and you want to marry him? Great, you're married." At least part of the point of that was that it doesn't have to be "do you take this person to be your husband/wife?" and "I do" as the answer, but that "yes" or "Absolutely!" were equally valid answers.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-08-20 08:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-08-23 07:53 am (UTC)It was good to meet you last Saturday, at a memorable wedding, in an obscure corner of London that I'm rather fond of.
I think we all have some rebuilding to do, after five years of Covid.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-08-27 11:07 am (UTC)Ooh, T41K is your brother? Very cool.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-09-06 02:31 pm (UTC)There are also awkward restrictions on not allowing any "religious" content in a civil wedding, which seems to include songs that mention angels, any music by Bach even if secular, but doesn't include, like, giving to charity in honour of the simcha.
Indeed, I remember being required to elide a purely metaphorical reference to God in one of the readings at my wedding, which was surprising and a mite annoying.