Hi all!
FervidPrincess, I'm glad you found that link about the Jewish wedding ceremony interesting.
Wendy & I were married during Hanukkah 1988 here in Jerusalem. Our wedding was a little different from that described in the link.
We didn't meet through a matchmaker (well, yes we did, God!).
We noted our engagement by ads in the Cape Town (where Wendy is from) & Pittsburgh (where I'm from) newspapers.
We didn't get a fancy, illuminated
ketubah (marriage contract) but simply used the one we got from the Jerusalem Rabbinate when we went to register to get married.
I remember when I went to lower Wendy's veil. I saw her eyes (I still see those eyes, I will always see those eyes) and knew absolutely that I wanted to live together with her & be with her always. (We didn't not see each other for a whole week, merely on the day of the wedding prior to the ceremony).
We didn't have to fast before the ceremony since there is no fasting during Hanukkah (not that I ate very much; I was
waaay to nervous to eat!).
Before the rabbi started the ceremony, I gave my brother my wallet, my keys & whatever else I had in my pockets at the time. There is a custom (not mentioned in the link) that the groom have nothing in his pockets during the ceremony. This symbolizes that his bride is marrying him for who he is, not what he has.
The custom of the bride circling the groom 7 times has two other meanings that I'm aware of. 1) By doing so, she is proceeding through the outer layers of his soul to the very core of his being, where no one but God will know him better than her. 2) She is marking him off vis-a-vis all other women & announcing that he is now hers (i.e. she says, "Ladies, this one is now all mine!").
In the
cheder yichud "room of privacy" after the ceremony, we simply stared at each other in shock.
There is a chasidic (see
http://www.jewfaq.org/movement.htm#Chasidim) hymn that Wendy & I try to live in accordance with. Roughly translated it goes:
Don't walk in front of me, I will not follow.
Don't walk behind me, I will not lead.
Just walk beside me and be my friend
and together we will walk in the paths of the Lord.
So...what were all of your weddings like?
You asked about Mel Gibson's movie. I posted the following
http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=1874603#post1874603 earlier today.
Be well!
ssv
