KAREN YOSSMAN
WHEN I first got engaged, I was confident of two things: it was going to be a small wedding (for a Jewish wedding, that is) and I was not going to be a bridezilla.
I’d heard too many tales of brides who’d spent more time contemplating napkin rings than their choice of groom and, as I kept telling myself every time I plummeted down a rabbit hole of floral arrangements and seating charts, the wedding wasn’t the important part — the marriage was.
We agreed to a religious ceremony followed by a lunch reception at a nice hotel in Herzliya in order to keep our families happy, but eschewed some of the more traditional wedding customs, such as dancing, best-man speeches, and bridesmaids.
Admittedly, there was one thing even I couldn’t help conceding to: the wedding-industrial complex, which was The Dress. I picked out a voluminous ivory concoction along with what the bridal store assistant described as a “cathedrallength” veil that was, perhaps, not the ideal ensemble for a beachadjacent ceremony performed by an Orthodox rabbi at the dawn of an Israeli summer.
Still, having refused to subscribe to the notion that my nuptials should be the Happiest Day of My Life (what about all the days to follow?), I wasn’t too concerned when little things started going wrong as the wedding drew closer.
Seventy-two hours before the ceremony, the fake tan I’d applied, to alleviate my ghostly Ashkenazi complexion, began to crack, leaving uneven white patches across my body, which meant my fiancé and I spent a less than romantic evening frantically scrubbing my torso with lemon and baking soda. The following day, the EasyJet plane carrying my brother and other guests from London was turned around midway through the flight and delayed for 24 hours with no guarantees it would arrive in Israel in time for the wedding. On the day itself, the wrong date was printed on the menus, our parents’ names were misspelled on the seating chart, there weren’t enough chairs for guests to sit on during the ceremony and the florist lost my bouquet. But, as each new problem arose, I took a deep breath and reminded myself that none of it mattered as long as we ended up married.
About ten minutes before the ceremony was due to start, as guests were assembling outside, I was waiting in my suite for my father to come and get me when someone started pounding frantically on the door. I gathered up my numerous skirts and shuffled over to open it.
There stood a member of hotel staff holding a walkie-talkie.“You have to evacuate your room,” he insisted breathlessly.
“What? Why?” feuille