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From here to eternity By Neri Livneh Tags: Weddings We spotted a perfect sunset five minutes' walk from the supermarket. At first we wanted to sit in the cafe with the white lounge chairs, but the hostess said it was closed for a private event. So we sat at the bar of the cafe next door. Blue water, orange sun, the occasional silhouette of a sailboat on the horizon. In the fading light, a girl in a red bikini stepped out of the waves, and a father and a toddler wearing yellow arm floats built a sandcastle. Five or six swimmers filled the expanse of the ocean between us and the turrets of the Jaffa mosques. Runners and entwined couples passed in front of us. And then, her head bedecked with a floral crown, wearing a long, white, shoulder-strap dress as stunning as it was simple, a bride exited the cafe with the white lounge chairs. The groom followed, in casual pants and a black dress shirt. They looked like they were in love and hugged and kissed without being prompted by a videographer. As the disk of the sun turned a deeper hue of orange and sank ever lower, the sunset became positively kitsch in its beauty, the type of sunset that can easily serve as a backdrop for wedding photos that are later bound into a "deluxe" album. But there was no wedding photographer in sight. Occasionally guests emerged from the cafe holding their digital cameras or cell phones, and then everyone went back inside. No loud music blared from the cafe. Against the sound of the waves we heard applause once, probably at the conclusion of the ceremony. Then children came out and began to play and the guests took their leave of the bride and groom, who appeared utterly inseparable. Advertisement In my neighborhood, one out every four display windows belongs to a bridal salon or a dress shop that creates evening gowns out of mountains of lace, transparent fabrics, gilded thread and shiny beads. I always ask myself which brides are willing not only to put on these whipped-cream confections - always described as "regal" - but also to pay thousands of shekels for the privilege of wearing them for just one night. Sometimes my answer comes when I spot one of these brides - heavily made up, her hair in Medusa-like contortions, arms swathed in long gloves even on the muggiest summer days - emerging from a salon and into a car decorated with ribbons and balloons. I have yet to see any of the mothers of the brides and grooms, to whom the displays beckon with shiny, congealed concoctions in elegant gold, shrieking green or screaming blue, featuring a corset bodice and in general intended for the new species of mothers with a flagrantly non-Mediterranean figure. These mothers belong to a type that rapturously adopt banquet halls with names bearing a distinctly foreign flavor, gray menus, seventh-rate orchestras and flower girls dressed in miniature versions of the bridal gown, the better to begin practicing - it's never too early, you know - for "the happiest day of my life." Even if it turns out to be a day that is all fuss and bother: the zenith of an arduous process of looking for a gown in one of those salons, killer diets, fittings, tweezings, pluckings, hairstyle experiments, tastings and quarrels between the families who are coming together on the joyous day for what is supposed to be the start of eternity. Prestige, in contrast to "what only looks expensive," has to do with something truly precious that looks like a cheap imitation of something far more precious and totally unattainable, a fantasy of the lives of the rich and famous as seen in telenovelas, soap operas and foreign gossip columns. Because prestige is exactly what cannot be bought with money. It is the difference between old money and the new money of an oligarch, between family lineage and status acquired through hard work, between the singular original and its multifarious imitations. It seems to me that the young couples who get married in this sort of event (I think that the name wedding has now been definitively changed to "event") of the glittering type that is expensive, exhausting and insubstantial - whether they chose it for themselves or gave in to the steamroller pressure of their families - are not among the country's rich. Maybe it is precisely because those who lead harder lives have fewer opportunities to be "queen for a day," that experience for which we were trained by generations of unhappily married mothers, battalions of women's magazine writers and brigades of copywriters. This prestigious celebration is the fulfillment of the belief that one day alone is enough to generate a sea-change in life, to fashion a life in the image of the glittering event, a life of happiness and riches and untold prestige. Yet here before us, instead of studio shots against a sunset backdrop was a couple in love, with a real sunset behind them, dressed in comfortable-looking clothes and with relaxed guests. Is it any wonder that their love too suddenly looks more genuine? "What a pity that they have less than a two out of three chance of staying together," says the man sitting next to me, and I give him a piece of my mind, because I know he is right. Upon reflection I realize that I have never been to a wedding that was as lovely, modest and pleasant as my own. But that does not stop me from fantasizing. Contrary to my experience, I still believe that every wedding, whether in the Champs-Elysees Banquet Hall, in a private garden or in the town hall of a Tuscan village, is bound to usher in a life of conjugal happiness and a hand-in-hand walk into the sunset. Certainly one that starts with a beautiful couple who hold hands and kiss while illuminated by the last rays of the sun. Seconds before the ball of fire dropped into the water, I turned my back on the scene and walked alone into Tel Aviv. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Terror in the capital A Palestinian rammed his bulldozer into a bus in Jerusalem, killing three. Poetic injustice Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish blends sarcasm and hope in his latest work.

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