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CONGRATULATIONS ON
THIS SPECIAL OCCASION

Come... Preview the latest collection of
wedding invitations and stationery in
traditional and contemporary styles.

Also... Calligraphy and printing services
available.

CO

ry

W.BARBARAS_,_, L.)

7) mention this ad & re-

171 ceive a complimen- Fri

135 Pierce Street

Birmingham 642-3860

Mon.-Sat. 9:30-5:30 Thurs. until 9:00

A..) tory box of thank AJ
you notes with any
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> order.

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S'A]LJciVtd SVL

nzationd, gy gioffak'l mna.

White Tie And Tales

RABBI RICHARD J. ISRAEL

S

A once in a
lifetime event,
Deserves a once
in a lifetime look.

Creations by Pollak's
for the bride,
her mother,
and the
bridesmaids.

nzationd. gy .1Poirak' ilna.

14 Mile Road At Orchard Lake
Farmington Hills,• Hunter Square
851-5111

B-6 Friday, February 13, 1987 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

ome weddings are
hard to forget.
It certainly was
hard to forget a wed-
ding I conducted in a
fraternity house. At the
end of the ceremony, when
the groom stamped hard on
the glass, the stuffed
moose, who had been
balefully overlooking the
entire event from above the
mantle, was jarred off the
wall and crashed into the
wedding cake and
champagne.
But for sheer drama, that
hardly compared to the
time the rabbi with whom I
was co-officiating had a
heart attack during the
signing of the ketubah, the
marriage contract. An am-
bulance had to come and
take him away. It took
quite a while for that wed-
ding to get started again,
though not as long as it
took to resume the
ceremonies the time the
bride misplaced the civil
license and my colleague,
the other rabbi, wouldn't
continue with the wedding
until the license was
recovered some five hours
later, around midnight.
The rowdiest wedding I
ever did was one where the
groom's mother punched

Rabbi Richard J. Israel,
formerly a Hillel director, is
the director of Central Ser-
vices and Judaica for the
Jewish Community Center of
Greater Boston. This article
appeared in Moment
Magazine.

out the bride's mother over
a derogatory crack the
bride's mother made about
the father of the groom.
People's nerves are often a
little frayed at weddings.
Weddings can bring out the
best in us, but also the
worst.
Sometimes, the setting
can make the wedding tru-
ly memorable. Outdoor
weddings can be very nice.
Jewish tradition in fact
prefers weddings to be con-
ducted out-of-doors.
The prettiest wedding
site I have ever seen was in
the middle of a state forest.
The hardy wedding party
drove into the woods as far
as the rangers would allow
and then, in a high-heeled
safari, trekked the rest of
the way to .a high plateau.
The couple had chosen to
put up the chuppah, the
traditional wedding canopy,
on a large flat rock
overlooking an immense
and beautiful meadow far
below. But the altitude was
so high that we had to deal
with a brisk wind that
turned the chuppah into a
sort of parachute. After we
tied the chuppah to the
poles in order to keep it
from flapping loose, there
were moments when I was
worried that the pole
holders, one of whom was
not very young, might be
carried away over the cliff
like four Mary Poppinses
bravely holding onto their
square, magical umbrella.
But even after the
ceremony was over, the
problems weren't. The cou-
ple had planned to serve
dozens of fancy little sand-
wiches at the reception, but