The wedding

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The wedding

We were on Aruba for the wedding of Jake Shillman, Carol's nephew, and Nicole Liebman, a very beautiful and talented young woman from New York. It's Aruba because Nicole's family has been coming here every year since Nicole was very young, and they seem to feel at home in this incredible place. The wedding invitation said "formal", so we packed all our black Edwardian finery. We were a little surprised then when we found out the wedding was right on the beach behind a huge Marriott hotel. There were hundreds of white chairs lined up in full late afternoon sun, and at the edge of the sand you were supposed to put on your yamulka and take off your shoes. So there were a lot of men in tuxes with sand between their toes, and many barefoot elegant women. The best had little black dresses cut somewhere between a short cocktail dress and a backless one-piece bathing suit. They looked really good on bare carefully pedicured feet kicking around in the sand. There was no Wagner nor Mendelsohn; instead, some nice contemporary harp music for the processional and recessional. Very appropriate, I thought; the harp was King David's instrument. The bride was spectacular and both mothers quite beautiful. I think the fathers were there too, but of course no one noticed.



Aruba has one rabbi, and he was there, with shoes on. He did his best to get us to chant along with him in Hebrew, but not many could. Jake did a fine job of stomping the glass and kissing the bride, while the sun lowered itself behind some low clouds on the horizon. There was a nice cool beach breeze, and nobody suffered excessively. I myself have now witnessed the weddings of all of the grandchildren of Max and Edith Bluestone. These big, well-attended weddings bring families closer together than in any other tradition.

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Comments

[Ellen Shillman]

Sincere appreciation
Jay and I were so delighted that you and Carol graciously made the trip to Aruba for the wedding. I have no doubts that my parents would have been so pleased that you witnessed this union. Glad you could make this a jumping point for your true adventure. Enjoy Columbia and I look forward to reading about your time there.

[Carolyn Clock Allen]

What are the Aruba social groupings, and other vaguely related questions.
What people, for instance, did Nicole's family hang with when they were on Aruba? Any actual Arubians? (Is that a word?) Why are all the waiters American?? Just naturally curious about what there is to know. Enjoyed your analysis of the language in your first blog entry. But then how many people know what Tagalog is? (I'm sure you do; just pointing out that not all languages are well known). Enjoy.