Volume 15, Number 3 September 2015 • Elul 5775/Tishrei 5776 Shalom from Rabbi Chalom The Stress of Celebration by Rabbi Adam Chalom (
[email protected]) Sometimes the happiest occasions of your life can be the most stressful. I love participating in weddings: the beautiful flowers and decorations, the creative invitations and mementos, the joy of young (and sometimes, not-so-young) love. And for most guests, the experience is an overwhelmingly positive celebration of their friends or family. But sometimes, behind the scenes things go awry. Yet it goes much beyond “bridezilla.” In fact, I can recall very little drama or attitude from either brides or grooms in my ceremonies. The people actually getting married seem to respond to their wedding day as I did to mine — there’s no more wedding planning, and any small details that go wrong don’t matter because I’m getting married today! No, the drama and stress comes more often from their families: parents and siblings. Sometimes it’s control issues — whose wedding is this, anyway? Sometimes it’s jealousy for attention: you might not believe the wedding dresses or jewelry I’ve seen on some brides’ mothers. Sometimes it’s family conflict, in which divorced partners have not been in the same room for a decade and everyone fears a blowup. And it’s not simply the stress of putting on a major event — one wedding in 2003 had to change venues at the last minute because of a multi-state, multiple-day power outage. Everyone pulled together to get it done cheerfully.