Card Shower

Special thanks to my awesome bridesmaids who have made me feel loved from afar by organizing a card shower for me! Many wonderful women in my life wrote in with good wishes and helpful suggestions for planning the wedding. On the first day the cards arrived, I was a bit confused (how did everyone know my birthday is coming up?). On the second day, I went to the mailbox in my pajamas:

I want you to know I am taking all your suggestions. We will be sticking with the vegetarian Indian buffet, but now there will be so much more to look forward to...

To begin, we've moved the wedding to Goa. If you're going to serve Indian food, why not do it in India? We aim to be authentic. In keeping with our love of animals, we will be incorporating them in many creative ways into the ceremony. The aisle will feature a pool with graceful swans, and we will open the ceremony with a parade of dogs and goats, Goldie proudly in the lead as our ring bearer. Following this menagerie, the bridesmaids will come down the aisle. I've been informed that I have far too few, so I am tripling the number. All will be dressed in traditional Indian attire (again, we aim at nothing but authenticity!), preferably in gold, purple, and green to match the New Orleans jazz band that will play at the reception. They will be precisely identical, from tip to toe. We are investigating hair dye, tanning lotions, colored contacts, and plastic surgery as various means to ensure that they cannot be distinguished from one another.

Once our entourage has set a tone of dignity and majesty, Mordu and I will enter. We were advised that riding side-saddle and bare-backed on a horse would be the most romantic and that ziplining in would be the most dramatic. We are taking both suggestions and will be side-saddle and bare-backed on a horse dangling from a zipline. We will thus glide in gracefully to the theme music of Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On." The heart theme is carried over in our elegant and richly ornate huppah. The huppah itself will be constructed of liquorice, a symbol of the cloying sweetness of our union. The inside of the huppah will be a recreation of the bridge of the enterprise. My mother, as officiant, will sit in the captain's chair, wearing full dress uniform. Mordu and I will be dressed as Deana Troi and Will Riker, naturally, though I'm considering that perhaps we should dress him as Worf. Dangling from the canopy of the huppah will be heart-shaped crystals and diamonds, each engraved with the name of a guest—your party favors at the end of the night! Above this, two interlocking neon hearts will blaze out the message of our eternal love.

Erusin (the traditional betrothal ceremony that has become part of a contemporary Jewish wedding) will be accomplished by our Picard double simply pronouncing "Engage!" The main substance of the ceremony will be mixing two colors of sand in a jar, symbolizing that we are eternally bound to one another and forever imprisoned by a monochromatic love. As the ceremony draws to an end, we will release butterflies and carrier pigeons that have been trained to spell out "Mordu and Rachel 4ever" in the sky. We pull away from the ceremony in a horse-drawn crystal carriage.

You have much to look forward to at the reception! Previously, we had simply planned food and dancing. Now it is so much more! You will be seated at romantic, heart-shaped tables featuring tasteful centerpieces of real live pigs wearing cow slippers. We will dance the night away to the strains of the aforementioned New Orleans jazz band, also flown in for the occasion. Mango Grove will fly over their best chefs from Baltimore to ensure that we have authentic Indian food. The cake will be constructed of Girlscout cookies glued together with chocolate frosting as a reminder that we live by the Girlscout motto ("be prepared") and also its slogan ("do a good turn daily, but not more frequently unless the subject in question buys more boxes of cookies."). We will be entertained by professional acrobats and Bollywood dancers. Ice sculptures will be everywhere (no mean feat in Goa in June!), including two that depict the happy couple and others depicting our academic idols, whom I've been reminded are Hanokh Albeck and Saul Lieberman. Remembering that this day is all about us, we will make sure you go home with a list of our accomplishments and talents as summarized on our CVs, at the top of which you will find the title "Wedding Planner Extraordinaire." The evening will end with a literal bang as we light the sky with fireworks.

As you can see, our wedding has been much improved thanks to your many creative suggestions. I'm sure you are now even more excited to celebrate with us!