It is not every day you get invited to a Sephardic wedding, in Queens, where Russian is the language of choice, men and women view the ceremony from different sides of the room, a highly charged DJ welcomes family members as though they were celebrities, and there are pyrotechnics on the dance floor. Not to mention money being showered over the bride and groom, and an absolute banquet of food. Two banquets in fact. I was convinced there was more than one wedding at the sparkling new wedding hall on Queens Boulevard when we arrived on Thursday evening. Ushered upstairs to the terrace for a snack before the marriage ceremony began, the platters of smoked fish, sushi, whole atlantic salmon, roasted meats and Middle Eastern dishes, with endless salads, vegetables and summer fruits were just a savored sampling of the ‘formal’ dining that would follow in the main hall after the nuptials.

Tradition was foremost in proceedings, much of which was mysterious to me, but clearly this was not a solemn affair. A video production team with the assistance of an overhead crane and lighting packs recorded every moment, from the smashing of glass to the breaking of bread to rocket fire launching through the fog of the dance floor. It was a staged ceremony, an unforgettable parade of glamorous corset gowns and gossamer. Uzbekistan may have been where the party began, but in anyone’s language, mazel tov was the order of the day…