Thursday, December 18, 2008

New Square Wedding

Sunday night I went to a Square wedding, it was a really interesting experience. To start off with, the wedding was of relatives of mine, where the chosson and Kallah were both related to us and each other. So the whole wedding was one big family wedding.

Here’s a little diagram to understand how everyone was related.

square wedding

When we got there for the wedding it was late already, past 10:00. We missed the Chupah but they had just finished eating the main course. So when we got there relatives came over to say hello and surprisingly they did all speak English. Then one of my father’s cousins prepared me and my mother a seat and a main dish, and she told us to sit and eat. At this time they started dancing.

By them they do things very different. They don’t have 2 dances, but rather they eat first and then have one long dance for the rest of the night. So as we were sitting eating it was right next to them dancing so it was some cool entertainment, to sit facing them dancing.

The next different thing is that the hall is very different, it has 3 floors. The men get the first floor and they have a huge room. Then the woman are on the third floor and they have a medium sized room. I found this very strange, I have never seen a wedding before where the men’s section and woman section are on completely separate floors. It made it feel less like a wedding and more like a woman’s party.

Although, on the second floor, when you go to hang up your coat, that room is filled with windows and if you look down then you can see the men dancing, but there’s such a height difference between the two, that you can barely see faces.

Another thing I noticed was the clothing, besides for the obvious chassidish garb, I noticed that the girls all looked like they were wearing uniforms. The teenage girls I mean, they had white blouses, with jumpers. Not fancy jumpers that can look nice, but uniform looking jumpers. All the girls looked like they were wearing the same clothes, making it look more like a uniform.

The little girls had gowns and their hair was done fancy, but yet they didn’t seem to be dancing much, they were laying down on the stage part where the Kallah’s table was. I figured it’s probably because they go to a wedding every night, that this just isn’t new to them anymore. I mean this was the only dance, so it’s not liked they got danced out before. But then when the ices came they all ran over to get some.

Overall, it was a really cool wedding, I’ve been to a Square wedding once before when I was younger, but there he married a Sephardi girl, so that was different in a different way.

We were talking to some relatives that we never met before and it was actually funny how these chassidish woman who have 12 kids on average think it’s amazing how my mother was able to raise a bunch of twins. Not to take away from my mother’s greatness or anything.

16 comments:

BrooklynWolf said...

That's not that difficult. The chosson and kallah are first cousins once removed.

The chosson is your second cousin and the kallah is your second cousin once removed.

Glad you had a great time!

The Wolf

Shorty said...

Why is it called a square wedding? (pardon my lack of knowledge :( )

Anonymous said...

Wow! Thanks for putting all that work into making the diagram. I realized from looking at the chart that the Kallah's parents are first cousins! Why look far lol! I didn't know it's called a "Square wedding." I know some people who have done that also.

BrooklynWolf said...

I don't know The Babysitter, but is it possible that her family is of the Skver hasidic group? (And that "square" is used because the town they live in is New Square, NY?)

The Wolf

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

BrooklynWolf: yea, you got it right, but it took me a while to figure it all out. My father had said that one cousin's child is the chosson, and 2 other cousins grand child is the Kallah. So at first I thought the Kallah was marrying her uncle, but it's her parents cousin, so it's her first cousin once removed.

and yea, you got it right about the Skver part, I just wasn't sure how to spell skver. I thought it was "sqverre" and that didn't look right so I wrote square instead.

and Thanx!

Shorty: BrookllynWolf got it right, it's because they were relatives of mine that live in Skver, and their type of chassidish is called skver.

KT You're welcome! lol, yea, it's cool that her parents are first cousins. But it's also cool, that her parents are cousins with her chosson! There's been a lot of family/related weddings before there, I think it's a common thing. It could be that regular people do it too, it's just less common in non chassidish families.

Anonymous said...

The chart helped me. Love all your careful observations. I don't care for separate seating weddings; I like being with my immediate family. But family members throw them, so off I go... one cousin had separate entrances. My nephew had this high, high wall separating us. My one married niece said she never goes to weddings with her husband (of her husband's friends), because she would have to sit separately anyway, with people she doesn't know.

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

Leora: glad it was helpful!
Thanx!

Well, where I'm from 99% of the weddings I go to are separate seating, and we are used to that. My brothers had actually refused to go to my cousins sheva brachos cause it was mixed, that I found extreme. But how does it work if a wedding is mixed and it's time for dancing? you have 2 separate circles for men and woman? or it's couples? I can see why you would like it to be mixed when you're married, so that you have someone to talk to. But it can be looked at as a new challenge, to go to a wedding where it's you're husbands friend, and you don't know the woman. It's like the first day of school, you make new friends. These people you sit with don't have to be you're friend, but it's possible to still have a conversation with them and not be bored. Plus most of the time it's either eating and dancing with the music too loud to even have conversation. Then there are those that always stand by the mechitza talking to their spouses the whole time.

Actually by my cousins shabbos ofruf it was funny, the chosson's friends were all single, except for one guy, so he brought his wife along, and she didn't know any woman there, so there was a table of like 10 guys, the chosson's friends, and she sat there with her husband. I thought it was strange, and I felt embarrassed for her, the only woman with a table of guys, but she didn't seem to mind.

Anonymous said...

Halachically you can marry your cousin, but genetically you shouldnt. Especially Ashkenazim. We already have enough genetic problems from two thousand years of genetic bottlenecking. This is how things like Tay-Sachs propagate.

Ookamikun said...

Freaking inbred rednecks.

Men were on 1st floor and women on 3rd?! So I guess the 2nd floor was the mechitza?

You can have mixed sitting and have mechitza put up for dancing, I was at a wedding like that. If more wedding would have mixed sitting there wouldn't be a shidduch crisis.

Mikeinmidwood said...

Moshe

Seems right

DavenedByDeKoisel said...

High walls make good neighbors or good jews??

Lion of Zion said...

"to raise a bunch of twins"

a bunch? how many twins in your family?

שבת שלום

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

FrumPunk: Thanx for your input :-)

Moshe: You are too funny! No, the second floor wasn't a mechitza. It was because it was in a school building and that was the way it was designed don't know why. The second floor was classrooms.

Interesting idea, I haven't thought about that. But I can only see the mixed seating as being good for the married couples. For the singles it's just uncomfortable.

MikeInMidwood: Well, now that you say that, maybe he can be right.

DavenedByDeKoisel: Funny, interesting thought. I think it can make good Jews too!

LionOfZion: Not that many just too sets. But when we were born, my mother had 3 kids under the age of 2, so I can imagine that part being hard! But then there's an 8 years break till the next set, so I would imagine they were easier, although there were difficulties...

Thanx, Shabbat Shalom to you too!

frumskeptic said...

Babysitter- "Interesting idea, I haven't thought about that. But I can only see the mixed seating as being good for the married couples. For the singles it's just uncomfortable."

If you're in shidduchim, mixed seating shouldn't make you uncomfortable. How do you date? Are you uncomfortable?

If so, I feel bad for you.

Jewish Side of Babysitter said...

FrumSkeptic: Well now it doesn't make me uncomfortable, but in HS it did. I would imagine for those not used to being in a mixed situation it would be that way.

Plus there's always the three's a crowd thing. What would happen if everyone on the table had someone to talk to, except one person.

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