TV
Continued from Page 27
enough. I’m 30 years old.’ And sure enough, three weeks after
that, I met Jason.”
Rabbi Julie Greenberg of Leyv Ha-Ir married them, and Blair
has attended High Holiday services there every year since.
And after the love story comes the reality: Where are we going
to live?
Which is where TLC’s new soon-to-be fan favorite comes in.
The couple worked with realtor Reid Rosenthal through Say Yes
to the Address, who helped them narrow their choices down to
a house in the ’burbs and a place in Point Breeze before they
made their ultimate decision to move into the Belgravia on
Chestnut Street.
“That whole scenario was just about if we were ready to move
into the suburbs and start a family,” Blair said, “or do we want to
enjoy being married now and live in the city still, and that’s ultimately
what we chose.”
Although Jason wasn’t as big a part of the dress shopping — the
most he contributed was the 30-second application video clip, with
help from the maid of honor, Gianna — he at least had a say in their
new condo.
“They followed us through our search to buy our condo,” he said.
“The whole show was equally with the two of us looking at three
different places and picking one.”
TLC filmed for three full days. After both experiences, Jason said
he misses having the cameras around. Fortunately, some of the cam-
era crew joined them at their viewing party of the episodes on March
25 at the Center City nightclub Coda.
On their Say Yes to the Dress episode, viewers will also get a
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glimpse of their wedding day.
Blair also admired — nay, obsessed about — the love shared be-
tween the big screen’s favorite vampires oozing with affection, Bella
and Edward from the Twilight series.
In that regard, the theme of their wedding focused on the im-
mense love she and Jason had for each other, and she even walked
down the aisle to the fourth movie’s hit soundtrack song, “A Thou-
sand Years” by local musician Christina Perri.
The rest of the wedding followed that “sexy and sophisticated”
atmosphere, with pink lighting, white and pale pink roses, and dozens
of candles and crystals — nothing too gaudy, but it still sparkled.
“I literally couldn’t stop crying from the moment I saw Jason
until the end of the night because I was just so overwhelmed with
emotion,” Blair remembered.
Their chupah was made of Plexiglas, with pink uplighting and
orchids draping down, again paralleling the Twilight idea.
They really took the movie theme to heart and wanted to surprise
their guests with a choreographed number, and nothing says ro-
mance like re-enacting Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey’s Dirty
Dancing finale.
They took lessons, of course, but Jason backed out at the last
minute. But after a few wedding cocktails, he gained the confidence to
shake it like Swayze — and they nailed it.
Of all the celebrations this past year, Blair said they are just for-
tunate that they will be able to relive it whenever they want.
“To have our wedding and our love and our story documented
on TLC,” she continued, “and being able to watch that over and over
again — having my mom and grandmom be a part of it, to be able
to watch her look at me in my dress for the first time, and having
her be so much a part of that with me — knowing that I’ll have that
forever is pretty amazing and special.” l
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SIMCHAS JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
For These
Couples, Second Time’s
the Charm
Alison Haimes married Walter Cook in January.
BY HILARY DANAILOVA
lison Haimes wore white to her first wedding — and
black to her second. Marrying again at age 60, the Man-
hattan neuroradiologist tried on a white gown “and felt
kind of ridiculous, frankly,” she recalled. “Also, I didn’t
feel like I’d be able to wear it again.” So the chic divorcée,
who is originally from Philadelphia, wore a black party dress when
she married Walter Cook in January.
If Haimes’ second wedding gown hardly resembled her first, the
rest of the affair looked pretty different, too. The couple’s adult chil-
dren held up a family tallis as a chupah; their beaming ex-spouses
made toasts to a party of just 70. “And our parents didn’t pay this
time around,” added Haimes.
Fashion to family to finance, the Haimes-Cook affair typified
the myriad ways in which second (or third, or seventh) weddings
tend to diverge from those of first-time spouses. Remarrying Jews
may opt for a big white wedding — and doing so would hardly scan-
dalize in an era of relaxed mores — but they are more likely, ob-
servers say, to have an intimate ceremony on the lawn than a grand
event in the sanctuary.
“Second weddings tend to be more personal,” noted Lisa Marie
Chimento, a principal planner at Wayne-based Kaleidoscope Wed-
ding Planners. “They’re for the bride and groom, not the parents or
the parents’ friends. And the parties are more of an honest good
time, not a show you’re putting on to compete.” Contrast that with
the typical 20-something wedding, Chimento said, which often fea-
tures bachelor and bachelorette parties, bridal showers, and legions
of identically dressed attendants — planned largely by Mom, then
judged by Facebook.
Seasoned brides and grooms have “been there, done that already,”
confirmed Rabbi Robert Leib of Old York Road Temple-Beth Am
in Abington, who has performed his share of second wed-
dings over the decades. “Time and time again, what
I’ve come across is the desire to reject formalities — to
make it as sweet but simple and inclusive as possible.”
A Sweet and simple is how widower Ralph Bloch, 89, describes his
wedding to Anita, an 86-year-old widow he met in 2008 through
JDate. With a collective 109 years of first-time marriage behind
them, the pair was wed last year at Rydal Park, the senior living
community in Jenkintown where they now reside.
Rabbi Leib performed the Reform ceremony for just 30 guests
— the couple’s children, grandchildren and a handful of friends.
“We didn’t have videotapes! Of course, we didn’t have videotapes
when I got married the first time either,” noted Bloch with a chuckle.
But for his initial foray into matrimony, “there were 150 people in
a hotel, the whole schmear, cameras and all that nonsense.”
Dispensing with all that nonsense, as more than one second-
timer put it, is one of the oft-acknowledged pleasures of a second
wedding. As Phyllis Jablonowski, the longtime owner of Queen of
Hearts Wedding Consultants in Glenside, explained: “The first time
around, if the bride’s shade of nail polish doesn’t exactly match the
colors on the program, there’s a national meltdown. The second
time, you want to walk down the aisle naked? Great. Nobody cares.”
Perhaps that’s because there is less pressure to get married to
begin with. While 20- and 30-somethings are frequently nudged
toward the altar, either by one partner or by parents impatient for
grandchildren, society has no particular interest in the formal joining
of divorcés — especially those who, like the Blochs, are well past
the childbearing years.
That dynamic explains the lengthy courtship of couples like
Haimes and Cook, who met 15 years ago and lived on separate coasts
for much of that time, all the while raising children with friendly
ex-spouses. “We didn’t feel that we needed to be married,” reflected
Haimes. “And then we turned 60, and there was something about
that milestone. We really do feel like a family now, and it just
seemed like the right time.”
Family often takes on a new emphasis in remarriage
— with children, in-laws, grandchildren and remarried
ex-spouses all common presences under the chupah.
See Second Time, Page 30
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM SIMCHAS
MARCH 31, 2016
29