How I Had 2 Weddings and Didn’t Invite Anyone

I’ve married the same man twice within one year and didn’t really invite anyone to either wedding. From the perspective of my friends and family, I’m pretty sure I seem like a real asshole, but the only real goal was to marry the man I loved and live happily ever after. You see, I got engaged last November to a lovely man we’ll call “Yossef” (mostly because that’s his real name) and we were sort of confused about how to handle the wedding thing. We’d both never been married before (much to the shock of many people considering I already had a kid at that point), and most of his family lived in Europe and the Middle East. How could we both possibly coordinate my love of small, understated affairs with his really big, foreign-residing family? The truth was, we couldn’t. There was no real way. So we got married in secret at City Hall about 3 months later and ended up conceiving our first child together later that night. The honeymoon was a roadtrip through New England to get me to TV appearances in Hartford and Boston. Our families and friends were a little shocked, but not too insulted when they realized we didn’t really invite anyone… we just sort of did it because we were in love and over all the hoopla.

Fast forward a few weeks: vomit, fatigue, and generally crappy pregnancy symptoms that prevented us from doing it the “right” way with a rabbi, too. So we put it on the back burner and didn’t think much about it as we moved to a new apartment to make room for baby #2.

Fast forward several months (to August 21, specifically): I’m huge, in my 3rd trimester, and not all that mobile anymore. We had been speaking about getting married under the “chuppah”(the traditional Jewish way of getting married spiritually) before the baby was born, or maybe even after the baby, but had no real plans. We asked our rabbi a few times, and he sort of said “when the time is right.” We said OK. We didn’t feel super pressured- we were tied to each other by the State of New York, love, a child, a life together, and sort of knew the spiritual part would fall into place sooner rather than later… so we let go of the chuppah dream temporarily and focused on prenatal vitamins, swimming, and generally being happy. Then, bam, Yossef was contacted by the rabbi that they had an opening for a small, chuppah-inclusive wedding at the synagogue later that night… and would we be interested? Yossef automatically said yes, knowing I would agree.

He came home from work later that day (last week) and said, “Bryce <insert thick accent here>, you want to get merried tonight under the chuppah? Tonight they can do it.” (Also, he thinks the words “merried” and “married” are one in the same.)

I responded, “Wait, what? Tonight? Um, OK… I think that works. I need a dress, and I’m huge, and we literally have only a few hours to get all this done.”

And so I was off to A Pea in the Pod for a last minute, clearance rack white maxi dress, a makeshift veil, DIY makeup, a super quick blowout at Patrick Melville Salon, and a text message to Benjamin’s nanny to “please do a load of laundry so Ben has an outfit to wear by 7 PM tonight!”

…Out of Yossef’s family and mine only a couple cousins came (they happened to live around the corner from the synagogue), my mother, some of his closest friends in the US, and a few surprised congregants (who were already in the building for another event). Naturally the first Facebook mobile upload (thanks, Yossef) sparked about 100 instant middle-of-the-night text messages from friends and family saying things like “wait, did you get married AGAIN and still not invite me?” and “I thought we’ve been best friends since 2nd grade, Bryce?”

So, friends and family, I love you dearly… and I’ll give you fair notice for Ben’s bar mitzvah. I’m genuinely hoping to book T.I. and Ciara for this event, so stay tuned.