Imagine your birthday party. You plan something, you have some beer, and people come. Before said people come though, when you are sitting at home alone with the lights dimmed and a 30-rack of bad beer, you get kind of anxious. Will people even come? Going to parties is such a responsibility at this age, after all. But they do come. And they sit with you and laugh and drink, and maybe even dance. They could be watching Breaking Bad while live-tweeting their cat’s bowel movements but instead they’re willing to stand with you in a darkened room wishing birthday parties were still allowed to have magician acts in college. Your true friends are the ones who haul their asses out off the dents in their couches to celebrate your existence once a year.
Now imagine having seven birthday parties in a row, all in the span of five months. That’s essentially what getting married is like. Sure, the liquor selection is slightly more impressive because the parents are paying, but that benefit gets negated once the need to dress up nicely gets factored in. So anyone who shows up to the second or third party, let alone the fifth, is more or less a god who loves you more than you can imagine being deserved to love. And every time you wonder, who is going to come– and why?
For a quick tally of Jewish betrothal and wedding celebrations:
1. The vort: This takes place immediately after the proposal, and is a cheap lox-and-cookies way of saying, Huzzah!
2. The l’chaim: This engagement party takes place a few days (or weeks) later, and is the party that says, We had no idea you were getting engaged, so now that we’ve had time to really prepare, we can serve fancier fare and dress up even more nicely to show how excited we are for you. Clink.
3. The bridal shower: While men haven’t yet figured out a way to make their own version of this party (as an homage to the pure sexism of the bridal shower, I suggest a Sharper Image or Hammacher Schlemmer bash), the bride gets to sit around, play silly games, and receive a lot of cooking tools. If she’s lucky, one or two of the more raunchy friends throws in some lingerie.
4. The bachelor/ette party: In case she needs more lingerie, and in case he needs more alcohol imbibing. Plus a fancy tiara.
5. The Shabbat kallah/aufruf: While he gets called to the Torah for the last time as a single male, usually the last Shabbat before the wedding, she sits around with female friends and, presumably, thinks about something other than her beloved and their imminent nuptials.
6: The wedding: Lots of music, dancing, drinking, and food. And in case that’s not enough for you…
7: Sheva brachot! Seven whole days of parties every night.
This article isn’t meant as a complaint. On the contrary, I have extensively detailed these wedding lead-ups in order to point out an aspect of weddings that people tend to overlook, which deserves way more recognition: Friends. You may think the wedding is all about the bride and groom, but when you get right down to it, it’s all about celebrating with friends, and friends celebrating with you. You don’t even really get to see your fiance until event number six, if you think about it. And that isn’t even until the party is actually over. The friends are who make the parties meaningful. The love, support, and willingness of friends to get drunk on your parents’ bill is enough to make the headaches and heartache of planning all eleventeen parties worth it.
As I navigate my own overly-stocked wedding season, I’ve realized that you never truly discover who your friends are until they travel two bridges in a suit for you.
