Weddingbee Blog

And when you’re done and ready, I’ll get married under you!

(Picture courtesy of www.chuppah.com

Although I have a Bubbi, I am not Jewish. I was raised by an Irish Catholic mother in a completely non-religious setting, so I don’t have any religious tradition to really bring to the wedding ceremony table. However, when planning the wedding, I looked at various beautiful ceremony pictures and was drawn to one element specifically - the chuppah.

For those of you who have never seen one or heard the word before, the chuppah (sometimes spelled as huppah) is a canopy traditionally used in Jewish weddings. It is made of a cloth or sheet - sometimes a tallit or “prayer shawl” - which is stretched over four poles to form a little house like structure, symbolizing the home the couple will build together. Usually, this structure is placed under an open sky and is carried to the ceremony site by attendants who may or may not hold the poles during the ceremony.

While there is further religious meaning to the chuppah in the Jewish faith, I was touched by the essential sweetness of the symbolism and sentiment behind it and wanted to incorporate something similar into our day.

So with Mr. Hum and his brother being expert craftsmen, they’ve begun working out plans to build our own little chuppah type structure out of bamboo, while a lovely clothing designer friend of ours, Ashley, has offered to help us screen-print some nice fabric that we can use as the canopy drape.

By doing things this way, while the structure can be broken down after the wedding is over, we can take the fabric home with us to keep as a keepsake, hang as a wallhanging or maybe even someday in the far distant future, turn into a blanket for our first child.

It’s probably a little bit unconventional of us to borrow this idea, but since weddings are all about uniting and sharing as one, we figured it would be a nice way to tip our hats to that.

What about you ladies? Are you doing anything unconventional when it comes to your wedding ceremony? What kind of ceremony ideas have you borrowed?

(Ceremony picture also courtesy of www.chuppah.com