I am always amused at stories like these. I am actually always amused when I go to weddings, and I was at three very recently where the same exact thing happened at each wedding, and we cannot seem to figure out a better system, and everyone stumbles in exactly the same spot.

The most glaring example of this that comes to mind, and the one I noticed recently at all 3 weddings I was at in the past couple of weeks, is the clumsiness of the mothers breaking the plate. The two women get there and are handed a plate wrapped in a napkin, that if they would even be successful they would probably slice through their hands, so it is probably better that it rarely works.

So the two mothers are given this plate to break, and of course they are not coordinated enough with each other to be smashing it against the top of the chair with even strength, so they rarely break it on the first try. Then, perhaps the plate is too thick, perhaps it is slippery because of the way it is usually wrapped, perhaps for other reasons, they start smashing it a few times against the chair. Sometimes it breaks after a few tries, usually they then, or often just one of them, just throw it to the ground and it shatters.

After so long of doing the same thing, I am surprised nobody has come up with a better o way of breakign the plate, and then standardizing the method.

Another example is the breaking of the glass under the chuppa. This is not quite as bad, as sometimes it is done very efficiently, on the first try. Sometimes they are smart enough to wrap the glass well, to use a thin glass, and to ensure it has all the chances of breaking on the first try. Other times it is a hard and thick glass, and it might take a few tries by the chosson before he can break it, with the glass even possibly sliding out from under his foot. Other times the glass is not wrapped well, and shards of the glass come out fo the wrapping, endangering people with thin soles. And there are some times that someone actually gets hurt with a shard of glass going through the sole of his or her shoe and right into the foot.

And this is what happened at a recent wedding in Ashdod.

The Story
An older couple, in their 50s, came to the offices of the Rabbanut in Ashdod to get married. They had everything ready for the couple, and at the end of the chuppa, the chosson said "Im Eshkachaich.." and then smashed his foot on the glass.

To his dismay, some shards shot out at the leg of the kallah, and caused a deep gash in her leg. With no paramedic on site, she was taken in an ambulance to the hospital, straight from her chuppa, to have the shard of glass removed. (source: Ashdodnet)

Mazel tov, and refuah shleima. And it is about time we found some sort of new system for the breaking of the plate and the glass.