Spring Brings New Huppahs to Huppahs.com!

Take a look at Huppahs.com’s new line of rental huppahs, including three new designs:

Simplicity Huppah

NEW Organza Huppah

NEW Ivory Silk Huppah

Lace Huppah

NEW Battenburg Lace Huppah

Location: Woodend Nature Sanctuary, Audubon Naturalist Society (Chevy Chase, Maryland)
Photos: Jason Weil

Why do the Jewish bride and groom wear white?

In Judaism, a person’ wedding day is a day of renewal, a personal Yom Kippur. On the wedding day, the bride and groom’s souls are wiped clean. White is a symbol of the bride and groom’s spiritual purity. The bride wears a white wedding dress, and the groom traditionally wears a white robe called a kittel, or a tallit, a prayer shawl.

How old is the practice of using a huppah for Jewish weddings?

Huppahs (also spelled huppas, chuppahs, or khupas) became a part of the Jewish wedding ceremony during the Middle Ages in Europe, about the same time and place that men began covering their heads with kippot (yarmulkes). The Middle Ages sounds like a long time ago, but when you consider that Judaism’s history reaches back 5,000 years, the wedding huppah is a relatively young custom.

The earliest huppah poles were only a few feet tall. Four young men would hold the poles as they escorted the bride, who walked under the huppah, from her home to the synagogue.

Why does a Jewish wedding ceremony take place under a huppah?

The huppah serves as a visible representation of the home, both physical and spiritual, that the bride and groom will share as a married couple. Traditionally, the bride creates their shared spiritual space as she steps under the huppah and circles the groom.

What Makes a Huppah a Huppah?

The huppah’s structure evokes a tent — specifically, the tent that was the home of Judaism’s first couple, Abraham and Sarah, 5,000 years ago.

A huppah (also written chuppah or huppa) has a fabric canopy held aloft by four poles or a frame with four legs. The huppah is open on all four sides, as the tent of Sarah and Abraham is said to have been because of their great hospitality.

An Evening Wedding along the Great River Road

I had to show you these photos of a very pretty evening wedding, from Surrendering to Serendipity, Gayle Harper’s blog about her travels along the Mississippi Great River Road. Serendipity indeed. While staying at the 150-year-old Nottoway Plantation she found preparations underway for this wedding and captured it on film. As dusk fell, the reception began.

Source: Surrendering to Serendipity
Photos: Gayle Harper

Winter Wedding in the Garden? This Couple Shows You How

Miri and Hank share a deep sense of engagement with the environment. The couple met through Habonim Dror, a youth-movement that supports making green choices. “We spent many summers at camps enjoying the beauty of nature.” Because of this, Hank and Miri strongly support environmental causes.

When it came time to make their love for each other official, they were not going to leave their love for nature behind, but they were planning to marry in the middle of January. How to have a garden wedding, surrounded by the natural environment they both love, in the middle of winter? The answer: Miri and Dan celebrated their wedding in the middle of New York’s Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, at the Palm House, which resembles a conservatory with its large pane windows on the gardens — and night sky — outside.

Source: The Green Bride Guide
Photos: Perfect Photo and Video

Brown and Green Wedding in an Alpine Forest

Carrie and Ben raised their huppah in an alpine forest in Beaver Creek, Colorado, outside of Denver. For their color scheme, they chose brown and a very refined shade of green. The natural elements in the decor, including pine cones and wildflowers, are used with restraint, so that we can appreciate their natural beauty.

Source: The Wedding Chicks | Photos: Karie McClain | Coordinator: Debbie Orwat, Save the Date Events | Flowers: Plum Sage Flowers

Brown and green wedding accessories
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A Handcrafted Harvest Wedding

Apple place cards.

Mosey and Alexander’s wedding was destined be a home crafted and home grown affair. Mosey creates a line of recycled woolen crafts and wedding items, and Alexander works on a sustainable farm during the summer. And with lots of friends and family members who are artists, bakers, farmers and gardeners, many of whom contributed their talents to the wedding, the event was bound to become not only a community celebration, but also a celebration of community.

In planning the wedding, the bride and groom were inspired by the local Maine woodlands and the autumn harvest, especially the apples in the local orchard. The wedding colors were moss, apple, and the hues offered up by the locally available foods and flowers.

Mosey and Alexander under their huppah. The huppah was built by a friend who is a talented woodworker.

The bride's mother decorated the huppah poles with bittersweet and crab apples from the backyard.

The flowers were picked the morning of the wedding at a local sustainable farm by the ladies in the family. The bridal bouquet: Ranunculus, larkspur, yarrow, eucalyptus, straw flower, snap dragons, Chinese lanterns, and zinnias.

The flower girls wore simple white cotton dresses embellished with satin and grosgrain ribbon.

Candied apple hors d'oevres.

Apple tarlet hors d'oevres.

Guests were invited to share handmade pies, tarts and cakes.

For the reception, the wedding moved to a local restaurant and art gallery. Tablescape of moss, Chinese lanterns, acorns and tiny pumpkins.

The big splurge: Wedding cake by Wendy Kromer with forest elements crafted in marzipan.

Photos: Karen Rusten

Source: From Seedling to Sachet: Growing Your Own Wedding by Mosey.

And Check this Out:
Real Life Wedding: Hipsters Marry in their Native Environment

Natural Elements and Stripes Create a Sophisticated Wedding Style

Natural poles with soft ribbon stripes.

Cari and Dan’s wedding at Blue Hill Farm in New York shows how details from nature can create a sophisticated style.

Their unifying approach: Set natural elements against a backdrop of stripes.

The keys to making this motif sophisticated:

1. Strive for high quality in the natural elements.
2. Keep the stripes soft, not bold.

Let’s break it down. Take a close look at some of the details that make Cari and Dan’s wedding decor work:

• White ribbon wrapped around the wooden huppah poles.
• Striped ribbon of natural fibers laid across wooden chairs.
• Informal table bouquet contrasts with the straight lines of the place cards.
• Inlaid stripes on the hors d’oevres trays.
• The groom’s boutonniere, a masculine arrangement of natural elements, finds contrast in the tie’s softly suggested stripes.

Photographer: First Comes Love Photography
Florist: Sandy Clotheir
Source: Style Unveiled

A Huppah in Chapel Hill

Meredith and Brian’s wedding at Rigmor House in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is described by their minister, Reverend Kayelily Middleton. Here’s a sample:

"...Our Chuppah holders then processed in. The original plan was to have the Chuppah already in place but the wind was such that the Chuppah would have been air borne had we left it unattended!..."

"...Diana, sister of the bride, was the reader for one of the readings. It was ee cumming's "2 little whos," the same poem that was read at their parents' wedding..."

"...After the vows, the rings, the wine, the seven blessings, and the glass breaking and the shouting of "Mahzel Tov," the couple were pronounced married and scampered happily down the aisle!..."

Read more at Kayelily’s Raleigh Wedding Blog…

Outdoor Huppah Inspiration: With a Love Like That, You Know You Should Be Glad

"...We circled each other. We did, in fact, feel our lives intertwining..."

With friends taking part in the Jewish wedding traditions, Meg found true bliss in the loving atmosphere of her intimate wedding. Their huppah is a tallit suspended by hand-held poles. Thank you for sharing, Meg. Read more…

A.’s Shower of Huppah Blessings

A.’s huppah, crafted by her Mom from huppah squares made by family and friends, became a way for her non-Jewish family members and friends to feel intimately connected with her wedding ceremony. Standing underneath the huppah, it felt to her like a shower of blessings and love.

Wedding photo taken by Davina + Daniel of New York and Montreal.

Read more…

Outdoor Huppah Inspiration: Sarah and Josh

You can find more beautiful photographs from this wedding, with inspirations and ideas for outdoor weddings, at Elizabeth Anne Designs.

The photographer behind these breathtaking images is Heather Gilson. She and her photographer husband, Jon, are based in Seattle and Hawaii.

What do you call the people who hold the huppah poles?

The conventional American term is “huppah bearers”. The classic term is unterferers, which means “supporters”.

Beyond Green Weddings: Green and Just Weddings

Jews United for Justice (JUFJ) in Washington, DC held its annual award dinner last week, which makes this a good time to give a shout out for JUFJ’s event planning guide, Green & Just Celebrations. The guide goes beyond the basic buy-local green wedding tips. JUFJ helps you dig deep, so that your once-in-a-lifetime wedding purchases can be as green and just as you can make them. Among the topics covered are buying rings and negotiating the venue contract.

Most of the vendors in the buying guide are local to the Washington, DC area, but some are national organizations that you can find online. And the ideas work where ever in the world you raise your huppah.

By the way, at the award dinner, JUFJ honored four Washington, DC and Maryland area activists:

• David Cohen, co-founder of the Advocacy Institute.
• Carla Furstenberg Cohen, civil rights activist and founder of the independent Washington, DC bookstore Politics and Prose. Carla passed away a couple of weeks before the award ceremony.
• Gustavo Torres, founder of CASA de Maryland.
• Elissa Froman, legislative associate for the National Council of Jewish Women. As a student at The George Washington University founded the GW Jewish Progressive Political Association.

See our list of unique Jewish wedding vendors in the Washington, DC / Silver Spring area.

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