Another “Tales from the Veil” story is brought to us by Rachel Kitt who is the Executive Assistant at the Jewish Federation of San Diego County. She loves to run competitively and for pleasure, bake gluten-free sweets, and hang out with her hubby, a San Diego attorney. After eloping to the island of Oahu in December of 2007, Rachel finds herself looking back on her Jewish destination wedding adventure and laughing out loud. Her story will show you how any bride can take wedding disasters and turn them into wedded bliss. Lemons into lemonade. Grapes into Manischewitz. We’ll be hearing more from Rachel as a regular contributor to The Wedding Yentas.

Jewish weddings are filled with fun terms. Maybe you’ve heard of the hora, maybe you haven’t. Maybe you’ve heard of the ketubah, maybe you haven’t.

Yichud is one of those that if you haven’t, you will now. And if you don’t know much, let me help you out. My husband and I observed yichud and it was one of the best decisions we made for our wedding day.

Let’s back up a little. Yichud is a ritual in which the newly married couple spends a bit of time together immediately after the ceremony, totally alone. Yes yes, once upon a time you consummated the marriage during yichud, but thankfully that barbaric practice is no longer expected (you really think that you want to ruin your expensive hair styling and deal with the and wrestle with the layers and buttons and ruffles that took you an hour to get into?). In modern times, it’s an opportunity to be alone before the hoopla of the party. If you decided to fast for your wedding day (another tradition that isn’t required, but something to consider), it’s an opportunity to eat your first “meal” together as husband and wife.

For us, it was the best 10 minutes of the day. And no, not like that. First, we sat down in this little room, guarded by the ketubah signers to ensure total privacy. I should make this story romantic and tell you how we “embraced and whispered sweet nothings,” but the reality is, the first thing I said was “get this freakin’ veil off my head now and do not mess up my hair.” Okay, not with so much anger, but I was definitely done wearing the veil. Once we got rid of that, we sat in chairs facing each other. We stared first. Then, it began. We practiced calling each other “husband” and “wife.” Simple, maybe. Silly, a little. But awesome. Pure tingling-down-the-spine awesomeness.

Oh, and I got my full bling-bling. We decided to be traditional and get married in a ring that was “kosher” (no stones, no holes in it). The ring is a family heirloom that my mother, grandmother and most of my mom’s side of the family got married in. It has amazing significance, but its not my style. Not for every day use. No, my style is a little more sparkly.

So as we sat there, practicing calling each other “husband” and “wife,” for the second time in three months, Tim pulled a velvet box out of his pocket and blinded me with sparkle! We took the heirloom, plain gold band off my finger and put it into the box, and joined the diamond studded wedding band on the same finger as my engagement ring. My hand looked complete. And I felt complete.

We had a few bites of cheese and crackers for our first meal together and then we were ready. We had 10 full minutes of total alone time on one of the most family-heavy days of our lives. When we left that room, we were ready to deal with the red lipstick stained kisses, and the kvelling, and the photos. We really were prepared to start our lives as husband and wife.