Juneau Brides Home
 Accessories
 Accommodations
 Alterations
 Beauty
 Bridal Shops
 Cakes
 Catering
 Coordinators
 Gifts
 Invitations
 Jewelers
 Music
 Rentals
 Registries
 Tours
 Tuxedos
 Venues
 Your First Home

Wedding Announcements

Something old, Something new
Which traditions mean something to you?

When she got married in 1997, Joni Gill-Pico wanted her wedding to embrace old-fashioned Jewish wedding rituals. While she and her husband, Mickey are not Orthodox Jews, they felt a deep affection for, and connection to, the symbolism of the service.

Joni and Mickey embraced their faith and culture in every aspect of their planning, even traveling to Chicago and Los Angeles to find some of the more uniquely Jewish items they wanted.

"We followed Jewish customs, but we used a little Juneau ingenuity," she said. A strong desire to include their family customs carried them through the inevitable snags of wedding planning.

"We got married on Lag B'Omer [a Jewish festival]," said Gill-Pico. "It's a very popular wedding date for Jewish people. Every rabbi in America and in Israel was probably officiating at a wedding that day."

Unfortunately, this left them without a rabbi for their own wedding. Undaunted - or maybe just a little daunted, but still hopeful - the couple contacted a rabbinical college and convinced the leadership to grant special permission to perform the wedding to a student named Marla Hornsten. According to Joni, this is "never done" and constituted the one really radical act of the Gill-Pico wedding.

Whether they are religious or cultural in origin, traditions have a tremendous effect on the atmosphere of an event, and they can be a powerful tool in the wedding planner's kit. This is almost certainly one of the main factors in the continued popularity of many wedding customs.

For example, one of the oldest and most wide-spread marriage traditions is that of inviting many guests to bear witness to the event. No doubt in pre-literate societies, this helped spread news of the marriage far and wide. In the present time, guests are more symbolic of the community's support for the couple.

Although smaller weddings and elopements are more socially acceptable these days, many couples still feel the need to include at least their immediate family and close friends, even at the expense of other parts of the wedding.

The majority of weddings are planned by brides - yet another tradition that seems to be going strong - and some of the most durable rituals are those that affect her. Christian weddings still bring to mind the white dress, the exchange of rings, and marching down the aisle.

Regardless of how modern or Reformed the Jew, most of them still want to be married under a wedding canopy called a huppah. Even if they forego some of the more formal customs, most Jewish grooms expect to break a glass as a part of the wedding.

Just as a marriage has long been considered a legal matter, weddings have been considered religious ones. The appropriate preacher, priest, rabbi or other religious leader used to be considered a necessary player in the proceedings. Now, especially in Alaska, anyone can get into the game.

For Alaskans, one common deviation from tradition is to be married by a friend or a family member. This requires the officiant to apply for a wedding commission from the court system, a process which typically takes about two weeks in Juneau.

Indeed, this has become so common that some weddings - like that of Mike and Karen Hatch - could not take place without an appointed wedding commissioner.

For their 1992 wedding, the Hatches donned their drysuits and dropped into Barlow Cove. They said their vows using an underwater voice communication system provided by John Lachelt of Channel Dive Center, who provided most of the equipment and guidance for the event.

"The water temperature was a refreshingly astringent 43 degrees," said Lachelt, who performed the ceremony. "[It] was calm and flat. . . You couldn't have asked for a better time."