As Shira Taylor and Boaz Gura stood before their family and friends, making vows to love each other forever, the chuppah hung above them, showing the world how much love was already in their lives.
Instead of a typical bridal shower, Taylor decided to bring together all the important women in her life to help make her a chuppah. It would be a symbol of community and support.
Taylor and Gura met in college at Boston University during a Chanukah celebration. They were married in June in New Jersey at Conservative Beth El by Rabbi Aaron Krupnick and went to Hawaii for their honeymoon.
The couple recently moved to the Berkeley area so that Taylor could intern for her master’s degree in occupational therapy. Since then, she has started her own business, bringing yoga to the corporate workplace. Gura works at Amdocs, an Israeli telecommunications company.
One month before the wedding, about 30 women and one man, Taylor’s father, sat together in the synagogue where the wedding would take place.
They knew that they were each there to create a piece for the couple. But they didn’t know that each piece — a square foot of white cotton — would come together so beautifully.
They were given aprons with their names on them and bags full of materials. There were beads, paint, silk flowers, buttons, lace and ribbons.
They glued, sewed, drew and wrote. Some included blessings for the couple. Some created magical images.
One of Taylor’s favorites was done by Gura’s grandmother in Israel, who could not make it to the shower or wedding. The square depicts two hearts and a stork holding a bundle in its beak.
Taylor also made a square herself. It shows a man and a woman dancing together with a heart between them. This piece was placed in the middle.
Some other pieces show a couple standing under a chuppah, a Kiddush cup, the Ten Commandments and a sun with the Hebrew words for “may the sun always shine.”
The youngest person contributing to the chuppah was 10 and the oldest 75. Taylor says the perspectives of the different generations appear in their squares.
“It was interesting to see how the personalities came out.”
After everyone completed the squares, Taylor’s cousin, Marlene Edelman, who had organized the whole event, brought the pieces to a seamstress. They were sewn together and Edelman added a trim with the fifth of the Sheva Brachot, about the happiness of the couple.
The day of the wedding, the chuppah was exhibited before the ceremony and during the reception, revealing the love of those who created it.
Originally, Taylor was supposed to have a big bridal shower but since she was having a large wedding, she wanted the shower to be a bit more intimate. She included mainly family and a few close friends in the chuppah-making.
Although some participants had to double up and share a square, Taylor says they had the perfect amount of people. There were 25 squares altogether, creating the perfect-sized chuppah.
It seemed only natural to Taylor to have women who were close to her help her make this chuppah for her wedding.
“So many women in my life have been role models for me,” she says. “The have inspired me, and I look up to them. I wanted to dedicate this to them.”
Taylor and Gura plan to hang the chuppah in their bedroom. Taylor says she was so happy with how it turned out that she hopes other women will try making a chuppah with loved ones.
“Be open to the idea,” she advises. “Use as much creativity as you can. Use the resources of other women.”