Spinoff - Who Walks the Chosson/Kallah down the aisle....

amother

Fri, Oct 22 2010, 10:39 am

..when it cannot be the parents?

When DH's brother got married several years ago, it was just three months after my MIL A"H passed away.

None of us wanted to take her place. It was so soon. In addition, we SIL's felt uncomfortable to be the one to walk beside my BIL.

DH had only one sister who was married. She and her DH ended up walking her brother down. It was very hard for her and she cried the whole way. She's an emotional, sensitive person, plus she had just lost her mother. It set the tone for a heavy chuppah.

For a long time afterwards, I heard that my SIL's family was upset that one of us SIL's did not walk BIL down, as the wedding would have been "happier".

What have other families done in this (or other) situation?

amother

Fri, Oct 22 2010, 10:54 am

we had this exact situation, except it was a few years after my mil passed away. it was easier because it was my bils wedding and our minhag is to have the 2 mother walk down the kallah and the 2 fathers the chassan.

so bil had his father, brother and future fil walk him down, and his kallah had her mother and her future sil.

in fact my sil was the oldest so she could have done it but a) she didn't want to for emotional reasons b) we thought the chassan would rather have his brother then his bil.

if it wouldn't have wanted to do it there is no way I would have made my sil do it beausue it would be uncomfortable for me. Uncomfortable is one thing. Pain is another.

I think you guys were wrong to make her do it. And it is understandable for them to be upset. But you should all move on. maybe an apology would be in order.

Ruchel

Fri, Oct 22 2010, 11:05 am

amother wrote:

our minhag is to have the 2 mother walk down the kallah and the 2 fathers the chassan.

That's my dh's minhag. He wanted my father and his cousin (his father is deceased) to walk him, and me to walk with my mom and his mother. There was no way my dad didn't get to walk me, and there was no way I was walking with his mother. I ended up going with my parents and him with his mother and his cousin. He wasn't so happy about it. I wonder why we didn't think of telling my grandfather to go with him?

amother

Fri, Oct 22 2010, 11:15 am

OP. Thanks to the poster who had the same situation. In a certain way, it validates my feeling to know that what we did wasn't right - because I feel that way myself. fYI I was the youngest SIL (until the new SIL) so I didn't want to jump ahead of the other SIL's who didn't want to do it, but I think I should have, to spare DH's sister the pain (we didn't force her - but she felt obligated because we didn't want to - and it was painful for her). Also being the brother right before the Chosson, DH and I were close to him so techinically we could've done it.

Instead, I was busy outside the chuppah room calming her children who were crying for their Mommy, watching thru the glass doors and feeling terrible for her.

My SIL (the youngest) talks to me alot, and it was very hard for her to join a family that was going thru such a hard time, and this was one more thing in the pot. I think I will apologize to her. It will mean something to her, I know - and I am sorry.

louche

Fri, Oct 22 2010, 11:20 am

There's no right or wrong answer here as it all depends on the people involved. However, I do think it's a little strange for a SIl to escort a BIL down the aisle. Or did you mean they wanted you and your dh to escort him?

You didn't say what the chosson's preference was. Regardless of how you felt about "taking mil's place"--the woman is still gone and someone still has to fill her shoes. Inasmuch as it was the chosson's wedding, if his wishes conflicted with those of his sister/s, his are the ones that should have been respected.

If the chosson didn't care, and all the sisters/sils objected, I would have suggested either another close relative, maybe an aunt and uncle, or his brothers if he has any or his rav, or best friends or some other combo that the chosson felt would be meaningful to him. Maybe even the kallah's parents.

When my friend got married, neither of her parents was alive and the chosson's mother was a widow. The chosson's mother walked him down, then went unobtrusively out via a side aisle and walked the kallah down when her turn came.

morah

Fri, Oct 22 2010, 11:23 am

When we got married, my DH had one dead parent and one not-in-the-picture parent. He was walked down by his 2 living grandparents. When my BIL got married, one of the living grandparents was incapacitated, so we walked him down. Very sad situation in general, and also kind of weird because we're younger than my BIL and because I couldn't link arms with him, but it meant a lot to him.

It's nice to talk about happiness at wedding, but it is also a time when we think of those who unfortunately cannot be there, and especially when it's a parent, it can be sad. And that's ok.

amother

Fri, Oct 22 2010, 11:38 am

OP We asked BIL what he wanted, and he sort-of didn't really know. Poor kid, he was so young and was working thru his own grief as well. He was happy with the decision that his sister would walk him, but I don't think he realized (or any of us did) that it would be so hard for her. I think he just wanted everything to go smoothly and there shouldn't be any arguements, he was happy and just wanted to be happy and everyone should be happy and share his happiness..... He didn't realize it would make his inlaws upset and how things would turn out....

At one point he mentioned maybe his oldest brother, but that SIL adamantly refused. At one point he said maybe us and I thought they were joking, I mean there are SEVERAL SIL's ahead of me, we were the youngest. I guess that's what I feel bad about - I didn't think anyone was SERIOUS. I should've just done it. I thought it would be odd if we did - the youngest couple before this BIL....I thought it would make more sense for DH's sister.

All this took place just about now - this time of the year - and the post about walking down brought it all back, and the repercussions till today. They are B"H a happy couple (I think) with kids, etc...but there are things that she is upset at her husbands family for, and this is one of them.

It never occured to us to ask an aunt/uncle, I wonder why. But my MIL A'H siblings were Aveilim - they had to sit outside, I wonder if they would've been allowed to walk him down - I guess probably, why not. FIL's family is not as close to us, but I'm sure BIL would've been comfortable with one of his mother's A"H sibling and spouse.....we never thought of that option.

amother

Fri, Oct 22 2010, 11:45 am

rosehill wrote:

The "heavy tone" of the chuppa was set, not by his sister walking him down, but by his mother's absence. Everyone in that audience who knew this young man, and who had known his mother, was thinking about the mother, not the sister.
IMHO, it would not have made much of a difference whether a SIL or anyone else had walked him down. As long as his mother wasn't there, and the wounds were fresh, it was going to be an emotional Chuppa.

Yes this is true. Everyone knew that the baby of the family was getting married, and his mother had been there to marry off all her kids except him (B"H she had met his Kallah, but that's it, she was already very very sick then). All her friends, relatives, etc...cried at that chuppah.

But SIL's family feels it would've been more composed, if one of us would've walked him down. And I also feel bad for DH's sister, realizing how hard it was for her.

I don't know why I'm even rehashing all this....there's alot of pain it all that happened and most of it is no one's fault. Hashem gives and takes. We make decisions and we don't always have the presence of mind to realize what's going on by someone else. Even we SIL's were in pain - not the same pain - but pain nevertheless, for a MIL we loved.

Our youngest SIL has her own pain - because she joined a family at a time of grief, and she feels that there are things she lost out on. In some ways she wants us to compensate for this, and it's hard. We didn't realize her expectations of us much of the time, but we do care about her, though sometimes it didn't seem that way to her.

louche

Fri, Oct 22 2010, 11:48 am

rosehill wrote:

Very true, but a member of the wedding party weeping her way down the aisle makes it more than just "an emotional chuppah". Absent this public display of grief, the participants could have pretended that it was a wedding like any other. A sister grieving in full spate made this impossible.

amother

Fri, Oct 22 2010, 1:27 pm

amother wrote:

It never occured to us to ask an aunt/uncle, I wonder why. But my MIL A'H siblings were Aveilim - they had to sit outside, I wonder if they would've been allowed to walk him down - I guess probably, why not. FIL's family is not as close to us, but I'm sure BIL would've been comfortable with one of his mother's A"H sibling and spouse.....we never thought of that option.

First to address this: In the Nitei Gavriel, he brings down that an avel can attend the chuppa as the music has nothing to do with the guests, it's for Kovod Hamelech- in honor of the king and queen walking to the chuppa. As well, the chuppa itself is a religious ceremony and therefore not subject the same issues as other things (the issues with weddings isn't the chuppa. The biggest issue is the meal and after that the dancing)

As for what we did in such a situation: Let me preface that the minhagim I'm going to cite are minhag Chabad and so our solution had to conform to this. Our minhag is that the 2 fathers walk the chosson and the 2 mothers walk the kalla. As well, the minhag is that the people walking the chosson and kalla down should be a married couple. Add to that, a pregnant woman should not be an unterfirer because of this couple rule- ie. it should just be units of 2 walking down the chosson/kalla.

My father passed away 4 days before I was to be married. I got married the day we got up from shiva. The night before my chassuna my mother asked me who I'd like to be my unterfirer. (Grandfather couldnt make it or my grandparents would have been by default). That meant I had to choose a couple, and the wife couldn't be pregnant....I chose my oldest sister as she's the oldest. Was it hard for her and her husband? Sure. Was the chuppa emotional? Sure. When my younger sister got married a year later she also had to choose. Made it a bit harder cuz a bunch of us were expecting. Was her chuppa emotional? Yup. Definitely not like mine (though by mine we made an agreement that we would not cry walking down to the chuppa as we, the mourning family, did not want the wedding overshadowed by the events of the preceding week) but it's emotional when a parent is missing.
I will say that while my sister would have loved to not be in the role of walking her younger sister down, who says my sister in law would have had it easier? Who says my brother in law had it easier walking my husband down?

Anyhow, amother cuz I am easily identified by what is b"h a very uncommon phenomenon...

amother

Tue, Oct 26 2010, 11:17 am

This is the OP. If one of us SIL's would've done it, we would've just walked beside my BIL without holding his arm, and being careful not to touch him...so you understand why it would've been uncomfortable, and why we all thought DH's sister should do it. She could hold his arm and so could her husband.....

However as much as I was grieving myself, I would for sure have been more composed walking down the aisle...I didn't realize that Kallah's side really wanted that. We should've done it, for the sake of Shalom, as much as it would've been uncomfortable.

FYI DH's family is very yeshivish and the minhag is that a married couple walks both the Chosson and the Kallah down. It's usually the parents...

amother

Tue, Oct 26 2010, 11:31 am

Quote:

My father passed away 4 days before I was to be married. I got married the day we got up from shiva.

This is the OP.

Hug

How did you get thru that time? I can't imagine how hard that must've been. When my BIL got engaged, many people asked us if we (meaning DH's family) would hurry the wedding. We asked a shaila and were told not to. My MIL A"H was so sick she couldn't have come anyway....and it would've just put pressure on the Chosson and Kallah. In the end, I think it was easier this way though it was still so soon for us....

As much as we all told each other we'd be happy by the wedding, it was hard especially for the Chuppah. By the rest of the wedding we danced away, as did everyone else, everyone commented how intimate the wedding was, every single person there counted and added to the joy. But the Chuppah was very emotional.

There was a lady from the hall staff who kept coming over to us at the Kabbolas Panim and telling us to SMILE, and that my MIL A'H wants us to SMILE and truthfully we found her to be very intrusive. We were all trying to smile and be happy and we WERE happy for the young couple. What did she want, big fake pasty smiles plastered on our faces till they hurt? This beginning of the wedding was also tough as usually my MIL A"H would've been up there sitting near the Kallah....we SIL's kept taking turns, it was hard as we had kids to be busy with and we also felt funny being up there....but someone had to.....

..these are so tough, I always wondered what everyone else did. Thanks to all of you for sharing. Maybe someone will be helped by some of this airing (I am feeling some clarity getting it all out, that's for sure.)