Connections: UpIsland Wedding
The graceful rituals of a Greek Orthodox wedding took us UpIsland last weekend, when one my husband’s sons and the woman of his dreams were married on Saturday at the exquisite St. Demetrios Church in Jamaica, Queens.
Amid chanting by a cantor, the traditional, and quite moving, rites included some that were entirely new to us and, apparently, unique to the denomination. The priest placed simple white crowns, connected by a ribbon, on the heads of the bride and bridegroom, symbolizing their unity. The couple drank from a common cup, which is meant to express the belief that their joys will henceforth be doubled and their sorrows halved, and they took their first steps as a married couple circling a table holding the books and artifacts of belief.
The ceremony was solemn and tranquil, but the party that followed in a popular wedding catering hall was anything but. The guests, on both the bride and groom’s sides, worked their way through a jaw-droppingly vast appetizer buffet (honestly, a spread of food more extensive than any this side of Las Vegas, I’d bet) before making their way to a fairy-tale dining room — decorated in white, with soft lighting and towering bouquets of white hydrangea, peonies, and roses — for a four-course dinner. Families from both sides of the aisle danced under colored lights that beamed down as if by magic from the ceiling (impressing the heck out of the youngest members of the party).
There were top-40 tunes, a bit of 1970s funk, and also Greek circle dances that brought just about everyone onto the floor. The highlight, however, for me and I am sure the couple, were the toasts made by immediate family members. It isn’t often that wedding toasts are sincere enough to bring the entire room to tears.
The wedding had another plus for the my husband’s family: Many of the Corys were able to gather at a Hilton hotel, where breakfast and other spare moments became rare together times. Brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and in-laws — or outlaws as a few of us call ourselves — caught up with what the others were up to, sharing news of the recent past and plans for the future.
Our weekend wound down with lunch at a large neon-signed diner, the Majestic, which was full of people celebrating Valentine’s Day and birthdays. By then our group had dwindled to only six, but we were still in enough of a party mood to join the waiters in singing “Happy Birthday” to strangers — twice.
The Hilton we stayed at is in Westbury, in Nassau County, which encompasses the North Shore (of F. Scott Fitzgerald fame) and Brookville, the town that the Bloomberg organization has ranked as number-one for wealth in the entire country. What we saw definitely wasn’t Gatsby country, though. We did get a good eyeful of congested highways and endless shopping malls, not usually the sort of places I would choose for a winter vacation. Nevertheless, we all had a smashing good time.
My very-much-impressed youngest granddaughter, who must have danced for two hours solid, said it was the best party she’d ever been to in her life. “When I get married,” she said, “I want to have the reception in Queens.”