The Story of Our Wedding
- Vaughn Bergen
THE WEDDING
It was the end of 2023 and my partner, Kayla Rose, and I had just arrived in Bali, Indonesia when we got the most difficult call of my life. It was my mother Dorian calling about my father Jeffrey. His liver cancer, it seems, will be taking him quicker than expected. He hadn’t eaten or drank anything for three days now. It could be weeks, or a month, but it would likely be very soon. Two days after the call we were on a very long flight back to New York City.
When we arrived, we showered off the plane and went right into my father’s new room, the room I lived in for most of my life. Being the warmest, he chose this room and my bed to live and die in. Soon, any conflicts left unresolved, any emails still to respond to, soon none of it would matter. Only his legacy would remain.
Every moment suddenly became so precious. He shared every story that had never been shared, and his vision for our family after his passing.
Then he looked at Kayla and I for a long time with a sad smile and said, “I have lived a beautiful life. I have experienced things that few can even imagine. I do have one regret. I will never see your wedding day. Your love is very rare and precious, and I know you will have a special ceremony. On that day, I’d like you to wear Dorian’s wedding dress. It’s a 200-year-old dress made of hand-woven Irish lace, and it will look gorgeous on you, Kayla Rose.”
We looked at each other and knew that we were about to get married. My father’s dying wish would be granted. But as we looked at him it was clear that time was of the essence. We decided to be married by Sunday.
The idea was to have a simple wedding ceremony in my father’s bedroom with only our small Bergen family and my father’s beloved Rabbi David Ingber. But my father wanted a more momentous affair, so the next day we invited about 20 close friends. The day after that, word had spread and the guestlist kept growing. Three days before the wedding day we had 58 people in attendance. It was a deeply concerning number considering we had barely planned anything and had no room for such a gathering. My brother saw the guest list and named some of our closest friends, our biggest clients and most respected members of our community and finally spoke out loud what none of us wanted to admit: we had an unimaginable feat before us to organize a full-blown wedding in a matter of days.
Now we were calling all our closest friends with another invitation:
to help us to pull off “wedding: impossible”.
We were called crazy or worse by everyone we called. But it was the dying wish of someone we all loved so deeply, so nobody hesitated to drop everything in service to the cause, and soon we were all crazy together! The A-Team had assembled.
I’m pretty sure we all got a full night’s sleep…collectively, for the rest of the week. There were never enough hours in the day. And even though we had the A-Team we weren’t always on our A-game. We all loved my father so much and were mourning him deeply in our own ways throughout it all. But perhaps it was our love for my father that fueled us, our collective need to bring joy and hope amongst the sadness and despair.
It was all a blur. I woke up the day of our wedding beside my bride to be and scanned my brain for the remaining to dos on the “honey-do list.” Kayla Rose added a few more tasks to the list, all of which I hadn’t even considered, before going off for her hair and makeup appointment which to my surprise would last practically until the opening ceremony!
Off she went and I suddenly felt very alone for the home stretch of the ever daunting to do list. I remember thinking I finally understood the true meaning behind “I do” and feeling there will be a lot of “I do’s” in my future. It felt like my first initiation of the family man I was soon to be. I vowed to do everything in my power to show up fully for this exciting and demanding new chapter.
I first went to West Side Judaica to buy a Ketubah, an unspecified amount of yahrzeit candles and two breaking glasses. I wondered how buying glasses for breaking could ever be a business model. Then I remembered that I was about to be a customer. The store owner, a very old conservative Jewish man, asked me what kind of ketubah I’d like to buy. I honestly didn’t even know what a ketubah was. I just knew I desperately needed one. “Do you want conservative, reformed, orthodox, ultra-orthodox, Sephardic, Ashkenazi, Mizrahi? What do you want?” The old man inquired with a tone of equal kindness and impatience. I looked at the great wall of parchment and replied. “Honestly sir, I don’t really know what you just said. I was just asked by the Rabbi to get a Ketubah.” He sized me up for a moment. “So, conservative?” He asked. My words appeared incomprehensible to him. “Sure, that sounds great.” I replied. I quickly bought everything I needed and hurried back to my parent’s apartment to finally write my vows.
I somehow finished with enough time to quickly take a much-needed shower and get dressed in my wedding outfit, a striking grey and dark blue Indian kurta pajama (If you hadn’t realized, I’m not exactly as conservative as my Ketubah), and hurry over to the wedding venue. As I arrived, I could feel the electricity in the air as everyone scrambled with the final touches, while I stood in stillness for the first time that week.
Everything looked so incredible, and I was frozen in disbelief at all we had accomplished. None of us believed we could do this, even if we didn’t dare admit it.
But we hadn’t only pulled it off, but I swear it looked like we had been planning this thing for a year not a matter of days!
The décor, the table settings, our slideshow of photos from our many travels, and the Zoom room with over 18 countries in virtual attendance had been seamlessly arranged. The Chuppah was especially stunning. Kayla even had two absolutely gorgeous wedding dresses: of course, we honored my father’s request for Kayla to wear my mother’s 200-year-old wedding dress and the other dress was made by our dear friend and couture dress designer Cassandra Youngs flew in from Miami, and in 24 hours handmade a whole wedding gown. The top/bodysuit alone has over 1000 hand stitches. It was looking like we had accomplished the impossible with style and flair to boot!
I felt it rippling through the laughter when Kayla danced the horah as her fantastic plethora of proof of a wedding dress caught every branch of what Rabbi David announced as the “world’s smallest Chuppah.” I felt it flowing through the breaths between the tender moments in our vows. I tasted it on every bite of wedding cake and smelled it on the delicately yet swiftly placed abundance of flowers whose aroma saturated every corner. And I heard it in the sighs and through the tears when I gave my father a kiss of ineffable appreciation upon his head at the end of the ceremony. The chaos and the beauty of this week were all his doing after all, like the birthing of the first of many children, a true legacy of light.
My moment of victory was followed by the arrival of Rabbi David. He had a herniated disk in his back and looked as pale as my father. He went to lie down on the bed we prepared for when my father ran out of energy after the ceremony. One look at him and nobody believed he could even move let alone lead the ceremony. But when Kayla arrived, she sat with him, and prayed with him, and together they sang our wedding song, “Hymn to the Soul” by LAOR. And after some time, we had all witnessed a miracle; they sang him back to life, and soon, he was ready to lead the ceremony.
I felt it rippling through the laughter when Kayla danced the horah as her fantastic plethora of proof of a wedding dress caught every branch of what Rabbi David announced as the “world’s smallest Chuppah.” I felt it flowing through the breaths between the tender moments in our vows. I tasted it on every bite of wedding cake and smelled it on the delicately yet swiftly placed abundance of flowers whose aroma saturated every corner. And I heard it in the sighs and through the tears when I gave my father a kiss of ineffable appreciation upon his head at the end of the ceremony. The chaos and the beauty of this week were all his doing after all, like the birthing of the first of many children, a true legacy of light.
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