An excerpt from June Bride:

An excerpt from : June Bride:
A Traditional Jewish Lesbian Wedding
by Sara Felder

When I call my mother to tell her the news, she's not overjoyed. "You're not going to marry that musician, are you?" she asks in a tone that reminds me of the time I wanted to buy a motorcycle. "You know darling," the sweet side emerges, "I've never told you this, but I always hoped that when you settled down with someone, it would be with a doctor. Or a lawyer. Or, I don't know, a man." Zinger.

Who could blame her? When I was little I, too, imagined that one day I would walk down the aisle and marry a wonderful man. I had the same expectation that she does. But then, hey, I adjusted.

My mother's not the only person I will have to deal with, now that my lover Dev and I have decided to get married. For starters, many people, noting that our marriage won't be recognized legally, want to know why we're doing it at all or why we're "making such a big deal out of it."

To these people, I explain that Dev and I want to get married and have a big wedding because we want our friends to witness our lifelong commitment to each other, we want our families to take our relationship more seriously, and we want one of those new cordless drills.

Once, a woman sitting next to me on an airplane asked, "How did you ever find someone who would marry you?" How rude, I think, until I realize that she is asking how we found a rabbi to perform the wedding ritual. Which was difficult actually, because you know how booked up they get in June.

As we send out the invitations to our wedding, I realize that I'm inviting many people who will be shocked to learn I'm marrying a woman. These are people who were very important to me years ago, but don't know I'm a lesbian because I haven't seen them in some time. They include my neighbors from when I was growing up in Brooklyn, some long-lost cousins, and my father.

In an effort to break the news gently, I include a special note in these invitations. After a few drafts, I settle on a traditional formula: "I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is I'm going to spend the rest of my life with someone who has about the same earning potential as I do. The good news is she's Jewish."

See, I have always wanted a wedding a big, beautiful, loud, happy wedding. With all the symbols of my tradition present. I want to acknowledge that I am part of a tradition that extends thousands of years into the past and countless years into the future.

However, in planning a Jewish lesbian wedding, there are some difficulties that tradition doesn't prepare us for. For example, who gets to break the glass? Breaking a glass by stamping on it is an essential part of the Jewish wedding ritual. There are many interpretations of the broken glass (this is Judaism, after all). One interpretation is that at the moment of your greatest joy, namely your wedding, you are obliged to remember the greatest tragedy that ever befell the Jewish people. Here I'm not referring to Bob Dylan's conversion to Christianity—or his conversion back to Judaism—but the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. So by smashing the glass you are recalling and invoking all the sorrow and sadness in the world. I mean, God forbid there is one day in your whole life when you can just be happy.

Traditionally, the groom breaks the glass, so we have to decide which one of us will do the honors. Dev and I have been together a long time, and we have what I think is a very safe, fair, and open decision-making process. After talking about it for a long time, we decide that I will break the glass. How we decide it is that I insist. I just put my foot down.

As the day of the wedding approaches, I begin to experience performance anxiety. After all, I've never smashed a glass before in my life, let alone at my wedding. Some friends who have been through this before advise me to practice before-hand, but I think that will take away from the authenticity of the moment. Others suggest substituting a light bulb for the glass, but I think that will also take away from the authenticity of the moment. Someone else says I should just fake it and play a tape of a glass breaking, and I think, hmmm, that's pretty good. But then I get an idea of my own. I go to our rabbi and tell him, "Look, if I miss the glass, or if I don't break it, or if it rolls away, I want another shot at it. I'll just keep stamping on it until it breaks." The rabbi smiles, closes his eyes, and slowly shakes his head. "Nnnnoooo," he says with a wave of his index finger. And then he quotes some ancient Midrashic or Halakhic text, which I can't actually repeat for you verbatim but basically the punchline goes something like this: "By definition, the glass breaks on the first attempt, because even if the person misses the glass, all the good energy from the community and the family will converge together and shatter the glass." Somehow this provides no comfort for me at all.

Finally, the big day arrives. Dev and I are standing under the chupah, the traditional wedding canopy, in front of our parents, families, and friends. We are wearing flower tiaras in our hair, high-heeled shoes, and long white dresses, which is ironic because neither one of us has actually worn a dress since 1976. The rabbi puts the glass under my foot. I raise my foot and I take Dev's hand. I take Dev's hand because I have waited my whole life to stand under a chupah with someone I love as much as I love Dev, and also because I'm trying to balance on one foot. Suddenly, I realize why it's the man who traditionally smashes the glass: heels! I look out into the congregation and I see my mother and my father, Dev's parents, the rest of our families, and all of our friends. I feel the good energy in the room, and then I feel this link between us and all the generations of Jewish couples who have broken a glass under the chupah. I put my foot down. The glass shatters into a million pieces. "Mazel Tov!" everyone shouts. Then the party takes off and people start to dance wildly.

No one really knows how to dance to Jewish music, so it becomes an anything-goes, frenetic improvisation. But at one point I notice that there are two chairs in the middle of the circle of dancers, and that the dance is beginning to spiral into the center and wind its way closer and closer to the two chairs. Dev and I are guided to the chairs, and we're lifted into the air by our friends who dance us around the room. I see Dev up on her chair on the other side of the room and I yell. "I love you!" And she yells back, "I'm going to throw up!"

As the party starts to wind down, Dev comes over to me and says, "Did you notice the rabbi's brother? He has black hair, big eyes, and a great smile."

"Yeah, so?" I ask innocently. Dev leans over, giggling and whispers, "Sperm donor!" We make a note to give the rabbi's brother a call, say our good-byes and leave the party. Two married women in white dresses on a Honda 650, wedding veils in the wind and tin cans on the ground trailing behind us.

Top of Page