ber of the family. Jeri Rope, an inveterate needleworker, never liked the canopies she saw at wedding cere- monies; she thought they were too plain. So when her daughter an- nounced her engage- ment last year, Rope, a resident of Southfield, Mich., took matters into her own hands and needlepointed a chuppah. The result was a large, magnificent canopy that features Jewish stars and Chasidic wed- ding scenes, as well as the Hebrew words, "Ani le dodi ye dodi li" ("I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine")— a phrase tradi- tionally recited by the bride. To make the canopy, Rope selected illus- trations from needlepoint books and had them painted onto a canvas. She then stitched three or four hours a night for about a year, using bright, primary threads on a white back- ground. She finished two months before her daughter's wedding. Making the chuppah, Rope feels, allowed her to contribute something to the wedding besides money. "It made the wedding more special for me. It made me feel like I was ac- tually a part of it, more so than just picking out a caterer or picking out a band." In suburban Philadelphia, artist Elsa Wachs has been sewing heirloom chuppot for about eight years from such materials as ties, baby This heirloom chuppah, created by Elsa Wachs for a Florida bride, bears family pho- tographs trans- ferred onto fabric, the bride's varsity letter, pieces of family wedding gowns and the keys to the hotel room her parents shared on their honeymoon. 48 • JANUARY/FEHR 1 JARY 1994 • s-rvi.E. dresses and tablecloths. She usually embroi- ders the names of the bride and bridegroom and their family members— creating what is essentially a family tree. `There's a feeling that when a couple mar- ries, there's an umbrella of history, family and continuity that you come to it with," Wachs says. Wachs, whose canopies sell for $1,000 to $10,000, often incorporates memorabilia such as fraternity pins, keys, jewelry, or bottle corks into the canopies, and transfers photographs onto the fabric. One chuppah was made out of wedding dresses worn by the bride's moth- er, grandmother and great-grandmother. An- other depicted, in embroidery, a plane and a coffee cup— a reminder that the bride's par- ents met when the mother spilled a cup of cof- fee on the father 4:13A11 during a flight. "I've ;1Don taken actual letters and reproduced them on fabric," 41 1111 Wachs notes. Wachs usually crafts her chuppot in sections that can be separated and dis- played, then brought back together for Jeri Rope, of South- field, needlepointed four hours a night for a year to com- plete this canopy in time for her daugh- ter's June wedding. another wedding a symbol of family reunification. That was what Alvin Gershen had in mind when he asked Wachs to design a chuppah sev- eral years ago for his daughter's wedding. The Princeton, N.J. resident knew he wanted to use the canopy for each of his six children's weddings, and he wanted it somehow to symbol- ize the family itself. Wachs came up with a design that con- sists of a center panel sur- rounded by six panels. Each panel is devoted to a child and embroidered with his or her name. As the children marry, their spouses' names are added to the panels, as are relevant symbols. And as grandchildren are born, their names are stitched on their parents' pan- els, as well. So far, the canopy has been raised six times, says Mimi Gershen, Alvin's wife. (Alvin has since passed away.) Eventually the panels will be given to the children and displayed in frames with glass doors. When grandchildren many, the panels will be brought together to form the chuppah yet again. "My husband and I felt very strongly about family, and we felt that this is one way that the family will always come together, because the chuppah can't stand alone," Mrs. Gershen says. In her studio, Shaffer layers pieces of silk and brocade and adorns the fabric with intri- cate braids or colorful ribbons to create beau- tiful, delicate chuppot. Shaffer and partner Shoshana Enosh paint floral designs on the fabric, as well as the names of the bride Nuiri and groom and the 112t date of the wedding. To personalize the chuppot, which range t4ti tr5 4214 in price from $1,000 to $3,000, Shaffer and Enosh might incorpo- rate beads from a grandmother's wed- ding dress, or parts of a mother's bridal veil, or fringes from a grandfather's prayer shawl. "This way, people feel that they Photography by Buz Holzman