A Wedding From A Distance

Daniel and I both have friends and family overseas who cannot make the trek to Denver as well as friends and family in the US who can't make it either. We wanted to find a way that we could share this day with all of you.We will be webcasting the wedding with the help of Ustream. Go here - http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-haykins - on March 10th, around 4:45pm Denver time, and join us for our wedding!More info to come! :)

Wedding Brain

You've heard of baby brain? Well I have wedding brain. I can't remember anything. Not only can I not remember anything... I have the attention span of a gnat. Seriously.I start to work on something and then I start something else then I think of something else then something jumps into my mind then I do something then...Then I have 72 tabs open in Firefox, 18 different documents open, four different Adobe products open, I haven't eaten lunch and it's nearly 4pm. Now, this isn't just wedding related... this is everything related. Call your mom, finish that script, write a press release, make a logo, write a blog, call a vendor ... it goes on.I really think this is a thing... wedding brain... Wait. What was I talking about?

Wedding Attire

I have been sorely neglectful of my guests! I totally forgot to mention what to wear to our wedding and I know there are many questions regarding attire and the religious aspect.Here's the deal:I am calling for cocktail attire for the wedding. I wouldn't recommend too much cleavage or a short skirt  but otherwise, cocktail is fine. Ladies, I might recommend bringing a sweater to cover your shoulders simply because it might be cool in the venue. I have also been recommending to people that they bring boots (like uggs) to wear to the venue because it is just about a block from the hotel and carry your fancy shoes.Gentlemen - if you know Daniel, you know he loves a good suit. He would be very honored if you wore a suit and jacket to his wedding. You can even dust off your cufflinks, if ya got 'em!Colors: We don't have a wedding party, so don't worry about clashing (or matching... ahem Liz...) with the bridesmaids. Our colors are Navy and Yellow... think early garden party.Can't wait to see you all there!

Dance Lessons

Ballroom-Dancers-Couple-600x475Yes, you read that correctly... Dan and I have been going to dance lessons.I found a fabulous chick online (yay wedding websites) and just had a really good feeling about her. I contacted her way back around Christmas time and then totally dropped the ball. She was so nice and accommodating with my whole 'wedding brain' situation (aka I have the attention span of a gnat and get distracted easily). We finally told her we wanted to schedule and chose to do her five lesson package. We are doing three lessons together and then Dan is doing one lesson with his mom and I am doing one with my dad. PERFECT!We managed to squeeze in our three lessons during three Sundays (I mean, as I type this...we still have two more left...) and it is totally worth it. We can talk more in detail about what we are dancing to and what kind of dance AFTER the wedding but suffice to say... we love Elizabeth and her teaching style. She is sweet and fun and makes it a great time.I went with my father and the two of us had a blast (when we weren't tearing up). Dan also had a great time with his mom. I guess we needed the excuse of a wedding to spend this one on one time with our parents... dancing... but what a FUN thing!So I will make these two recommendations:1. If you are getting married and on the fence, get the dance lesson! It's fun.2. If you are in Denver or Boulder, use Elizabeth Marberry - Wedding Dance Coach!(and yes, we are practicing at home so you better bring your A game to our wedding!)

A Holy Bath

Another ancient tradition that comes up around a wedding is that of the Mikvah. It is a place of ritual immersion, a facility used by both men and women (at different times, of course) with a certain amount of fresh water. A woman goes before her wedding and after every period to immerse. This is a woman's mitzvah (commandment) and a very special one. As for men, many go daily or on Friday before Shabbat begins. And it is a Chabad tradition that everyone, men and women (regardless of where they are in their cycle) go prior to Yom Kippur.Boulder MikvahBut there is a lot of misinformation around the idea of Mikvah. Words like impure and dirty get thrown around a lot in English but the reality is, the word Tamei or טָמֵא in Hebrew is hard to translate to English. Many say "ritually impure" but that holds negative connotations. It truly is a "state change." Your body is in a place of change. I don't want to go into details here because I am sure not all of you are visiting this website for that reason, but please, trust me when I say... it isn't a state of "dirtiness."Moving on. The mikvah is a very special piece of preparing for the wedding. When a bride is eligible (having to do with her period) and as close as she can to her wedding day, she will go to the mikvah. Preferably, she goes with her kallah (bride) teacher and perhaps her mother. Leading up to this time, she is learning with a woman who teachers her all about the laws of taharat hamishpacha (literally: laws of family purity). Again... won't go into that here... email me at thehaykins @ gmail . com if you would like to learn more or be in touch with someone who can teach you these laws.Once at the Mikvah, the bride cuts her nails short, removes all jewelry and make up. According to tradition, there must be nothing between the woman and the water at any point of her body. No nail polish, no hair ties, no nose ring (ahem). Then she takes a shower to clean off. Once she is free of all dirt and sweat, she goes to the Mikvah. Mikvaot (the plural) these days are beautiful affairs. Stunning "get ready" rooms and tiled beautifully. Almost like a spa! The bride goes into the Mikvah room and walks into the water. There, she will dunk three times completely (there is an attendant in the room to make sure every hair is submerged) and say a prayer. Once she emerges, it is as if she is a new person... yet again, she has changed states. In the case of a bride, she has gone from an engaged woman to a queen... she is about to be married.Today, many women keep the mitzvah of the mikvah. Even women you would not expect. This is a powerful act that many women identify with.There are some technical things about a Mikvah, see this picture to understand just a piece of it:Modern_mikveh

Auf Ruf?

If you happen to be in Denver, Dan and I hope you can join us on March 2nd at 9:30am at Rodef Shalom for our Auf Ruf.Auf Ruf? What the heck is an Auf Ruf, you ask?reading Torah_THDPRWell, every Saturday Jews read a section of the Torah during services.  The weekly parsha, or Torah portion, is scheduled on a cycle to ensure that the entire Torah is read out loud during the course of one year.When the Torah is read aloud in a synagogue, members of the congregation are called up to say a blessing before and after the reading; being called up to say these blessings is called receiving an aliyah and is a great honor.An auf ruf is the custom of being called up to the Torah for an aliyah, usually the shabbat before the wedding. It is usually the groom, but in our case, we will share in the honor. We will come up to the Torah, say the blessing, the Torah will be read, we will say the next blessing and then the rabbi and congregation will shower us with (preferably soft! wrapped!) candy as a symbol of sweetness and support. The rabbi will then bless the us and our union.Once we have completed the whole service, join us afterwards as Dan's parents have graciously sponsored a kiddush and oneg (meal). There will be delicious food and good company.A special thank you to Michael and Elena Haykin for sponsoring this for us and to Rabbi Gerson and Rodef Shalom for welcoming us into their community.

A culinary decision

Our wedding is in 18 days. 18 DAYS I SAY! I can't believe how soon that is.We have planned our wedding relatively fast. One of my brother's best friends from elementary school used to work for the Knot.com... when I told her we were getting married in 5 1/2 months she was shocked and then proceeded to tell me that the average engagement these days is one year. ONE YEAR! Oy! Anyway, we held our invitations back until we made final decisions on our meal at the wedding. We wanted to give more detailed choices and I am glad I listened to Dan's urging to wait. We ended up going a different route completely than I had anticipated. That being said...Drum roll please...Cow and FishWe are having a dairy wedding. While I am sure some of you totally understand that sentence, I am sure many of you don't. Let  me explain.Dan and I keep kosher. We don't mix milk and meat, we don't eat shellfish, we don't eat pork... anymore. We had our last traif hurrah and now none of that is on the menu. Honestly, we pretty much kept kosher the whole time we knew each other other deciding to start our lives together and build a Jewish home together, we decided there was no wiggle room. We would have a last day for traif and that was it. Anywho, we had to make a decision for our wedding. We could have a fully kosher meal, with kosher protein. That means the cake would have NO dairy in it (aka fake icing and no butter). Everything we serve would either be meat based or have no dairy in it. This would double the price for our catering, we would have had to cut back our guest list even further and to add "insult" to "injury" we could not serve the delicious wine and booze we want to. It would have to be kosher wine and only liquor that is kosher as well (no sherry casks for the scotch). There would be someone on site monitoring everything and it seemed rather... limiting.After much discussion, we chose to go the path of a dairy meal. Yes our guests would have to forgo the traditional steak or chicken but we could offer them a much more exciting meal with more food and more options. We could also then have a delicious dairy cake with buttercream frosting and the most delicious wine and booze we could buy. This also enables our kosher keeping guests to have the fish or pasta option OR if that doesn't work for them (because there is no kosher supervision) we will order a special glatt kosher meal for them from the kosher deli.Additionally, it allowed us to give  further options to our guests. Instead of a meat and a vegetarian dish, we offered a lovely fish dish and two pastas! If I may say so myself, all of the food is amazing.The fact of the matter is this, we are so excited to celebrate with our family and friends and we wanted to provide the nicest meal we could. In this case, that meant offering fish and dairy in abundance. I know it is different than usual, but we hope that our friends are coming to celebrate with us... not just to eat the food.

An old Jewish tradition, that we are skipping

There is an old Jewish tradition that the week prior to the wedding, the chasson (groom) and kallah (bride) don't see each other. In fact, they are even given shomrim (guards) to ensure that they don't run into each other. I have seen this practice when I went to Crown Heights, the headquarters of Chabad Judaism, for my friend's weddings. I even acted as a shomeret (female guard) for one friend (it's a big honor to be asked). Basically, you are their chaperone.A friend of mine in Israel, Chaviva, is getting married tomorrow and she was discussing on her blog that they are not holding to this tradition either. What I found so interesting was the history and details of the halacha (Jewish law) behind this... or really the lack there of. She says:

This custom seems to date back to as early as 1228, but in Jerusalem it was introduced in the early 1700s. The main reasons cited by poskim for why a couple shouldn't see each other in the week leading up to the wedding are that forced separation builds excitement and that it decreases the likelihood of premarital relations (seriously?), but also that it can be a tense period of time in which strife could arise and the wedding could be called off as a result of stress, tension, and arguments (“There is no marriage contract that does not contain a quarrel,” Shabbat 130a). After watching a few episodes of Bridezillas, this makes gobs of sense, but it also doesn't explain why in most religious circles this has become the required "law." Where exactly does it all come from?Let's start with this interesting morsel.

"In a footnote, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (Made in Heaven, [New York, 1983], p. 67) cites two other works that mention the custom, and then states that the source for the custom may be YD 192:1, the section that deals with dam chimud ... [which is the] concern that meeting the chatan [groom] may cause the kallah [bride]to have a discharge that could invalidate the shivah nekiyim (seven clean days before going to the mikvah)."

Both Rabbi Kaplan and Rabbi Binyomin Forst find this tie suspect at best, because the Talmud requires that upon accepting a marriage proposal or setting a wedding date that she might discharge blood as a result of the excitement (talk about a complete lack of understanding about the female body, am I right?). Even if this were to happen, she's still required to observe seven "clean days" prior to the wedding, so unless she's getting engaged and married seven days later, there's no concern here (also, because, you know, women don't bleed when they get excited).
In Sefer Minhagim: The Book of Chabad-Lubavitch Customs, the footnote simply cites letters from the Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson as the basis for the tradition. However,

"Nitei Gavriel, a recent, comprehensive source of customs, does not mention this practice, but records that around one hundred years ago, there was a custom in Jerusalem of the bride and groom going together to famous rabbis to get their blessings during the week before the wedding (Hilchot Nisuin, p. 55, in the name of Sdei Chemed, Ma’arechet Chatan Vekallah, 22)."

The reality is that halakah requires that a bride and groom must see each other before the wedding, which makes this custom kind of strange even at its very roots. Even Ravs Moshe Feinstein and Aharon Soloveichik advocated for not letting this custom serve as an inconvenience to couples prior to the wedding.

I find this all so fascinating. I watched my friends struggle with this custom but still take it in stride. But remember, their relationships were limited from the start (no touching at all prior to marriage) and their engagements, relatively short. In fact, my friend Rucheli writes on her blog here that she missed her husband to be during that week and missed his council when she needed it but it was more of a pain to drag a shomeret to New Jersey with her for a job interview.While I like the idea that it would be like seeing Dan for the first time on our wedding day when he veils me, I know that it will still feel that way. We will leave each other the night before our wedding to go sleep in separate places. It will be the hardest night for me, not only without the man I love, but because I know I will be in transition. When I wake up in the morning it will be my own personal Yom Kippur. A day that I am intimately connected to HaShem, G-d but also to my husband.I will go to bed a fiancé and wake up a bride.