I know someone who just broke off an engagement. I think the wedding was to have been next weekend.
That someone is very young -- she was introduced to the boy in February, I believe, and after a few dates they knew they were getting married. When I was eighteen, I surely still didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, much less with whom to do it.
The girl's mother told me before Passover that the hall was already booked for August -- and that her daughter and the young man were going to get engaged sometime after Passover.
They did get engaged...and they had an engagement party...and also a henna, which is the boy's family tradition. All the happiness of these parties, and of the young couple and their respective families was captured on www.onlysimchas.com.
Sometimes it looks to me as if people just can't wait to appear on the pages of this website, whether because of an engagement or a wedding or a henna or making aliyah. Of course, we want to share our happiness with others, and this website is the megaphone for doing so, and allows friends and family to comment on the simcha and accompanying photos, if there are any.
On Friday night, I said to my husband, "I guess ____+_____ are getting married next week....I wonder if this marriage will last." I didn't intend to put an ayin hara (evil eye) on matters, but I'd seen the young couple together over the past few months, and they were just like strangers with one another in terms of how they behaved together. It was all too formal-looking.
Yesterday after shul, my husband says, "Remember what you said last night about ___+____ marrying...? Well, there are no longer any mazel=tovs coming their way. It's kaput...apparently she broke it off."
Did I see something there that didn't ring true? Is that why I wondered why this young bride-to-be, who already had her sheitel, and a condo bought by the fiance, and a first-year free shul membership and whatever accoutrements a new bride has, was really ready for marriage? Her mother was eighteen when she married, and that was 4 kids ago, and several countries ago, so it's not a bad example her daughter has been seeing.
Anyhow, after Shabbat, when I was on the computer, I wandered over to www.onlysimchas.com, and sure enough, everything related to this bride-to-be and groom-to-be had been wiped off the system. Gone were a birthday pic, gone were the engagement pics, gone were the henna pics, gone were the happy smiles, gone was the entree to a marriage.
We can only hope that this breakup was beshert, that happiness will reign once more for these two young people, and that pictures and announcements will be made at some point in the future, showing a happy couple...who were meant to be together!
4 comments:
They are brave to have cancelled it before they tied the knot. Not many are willing to take that step once the announcement has been made and the wedding hall booked.
Good for them.
That is very sad, but they are young and will find happiness again.
Certainly better to break off now than to go through a divorce!
On another note, please enlighten me as to what a "henna" is and which Jewish groups have that minhag?
Better now than later, though it shows the pressure often placed on a couple that's wavering a bit to get engaged... I'm not against people getting engaged quickly; I have seen too many times, however, where they are almost "expected" into getting engaged sooner than they might be comfortable doing, or they rush it a bit when they still have issues bothering them that they haven't solved yet.
We once had an engaged couple over, and were more than a little perturbed by what they were each saying/doing. We spoke to her best friend, who had noticed the same thing and spoken to the girl about it - a couple months later, they broke it off. She couldn't be happier, and he's happier now than he had been.
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