A few words about the wedding...
The whole reason we are here in Israel is for the wedding of Paul's cousin's daughter, Nili. She is a delightful, bubbly and beautiful young woman who works both as a nurse and as a waitress in restaurant. (Interestingly in Israel, nursing is not a well paid profession and she actually makes way more in her restaurant job.)
She did all the wedding planning and the event was really fun.
It was held in a big facility specifically designed for weddings and receptions which was slick and modern and had a bit of a Las Vegas feel to it.
I had never been to a Jewish wedding before and it was a big, raucous event with nearly 400 guests, tons of food and hours of dancing.
Before the ceremony there was a reception buffet which started about 8 pm (on a Monday night). Around 9 pm the actual ceremony happened under the wedding canopy and it was short and sweet. About half the guests were not paying attention at all and there was a constant buzz of talking during the ceremony. The crowd adjourned to the room next door which was set up with dozen of tables surrounding a huge dance floor. We danced our way through dinner to a variety of pop music which blared from the DJ station. In between each course people would get up and dance for a while until the next course was served. A good way to work off the calories of all the food that was consumed! It was a super fun event and I was pleased that I actually stayed awake and danced until the very end.