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