Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Making Eyes Under the Chuppah

There are two types of weddings: those where the bride and groom constantly glance at each other and smile, and those where the bride and groom pretty much don't look at each other.

As an observer, I always get this feeling when I'm at the ceremony and I watch the couple. I think: a couple making eyes are in love and are going to be happy. The second type are going to be fighting a lot.

I have no statistics on how the marriages that follow each of these two types of ceremonies fare. My own first marriage is a direct contradiction to this theory; we looked at each other lovingly, and we ended up getting divorced. Furthermore, people are different; more nervous, less nervous, more modest, more assertive. They come from longer, shorter, and ultimately different types of relationships before the marriage.

I'm only telling you what I feel. When I see a marriage, I want to see the couple making eyes and smiling. That's what makes it a beautiful ceremony. Nothing else.


My last post, The Gamer's Wife, of course parodied The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe (follow the link to Gustave Dore's beautifully illustrated version).

The game BattleLore is currently ranked number 5 on BoardGameGeek. It is a fantasy game based in a historical setting, kind of a hybrid Euro/war game (more war game than Eurogame).


The controversy over where Chess was invented is being stirred up again. As if it really matters.

And Freemasons now have their own trivia board game.



Richie Sevrinsky said...

Sorry, Yehuda -- I have to disagree here. The wedding day is like a personal Yom Kippur for the bride and groom. I know that my wife and I treated the chupah as a very serious moment, as standing before Hashem as the ultimate Witness to our commitment. The celebration that followed and the years since (13 so far, kein yirbu) have been filled with love and laughter.

My inclination is to be more suspect of the couples given to levity at the chupah, but hey, there's room for all types in this world.

Yehuda Berlinger said...

Richie: Thanks for the response.

I didn't mean to equate "Making eyes" with "levity". I think I was trying to pin down that quality that makes me think that one or more of the participants thinks of the wedding as "my" wedding rather than "our" wedding.