Lakewood, NJ – Mitt Romney is crashing a New Jersey wedding.
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The Republican presidential contender’s motorcade rolled into a fundraiser Wednesday evening as a bride and groom were posing for pictures in the parking lot outside the hall in Lakewood, N.J.
Several men in yarmulkes who were standing nearby turned their cameras away from the couple, and a few men outside the hall chased the motorcade around the corner. Whether they were members of the wedding or Romney supporters from the heavily Orthodox Jewish community was unclear.
A Romney aide says Romney met the bride and groom and took pictures with them before his fundraiser, which raised $1.5 million.
Guests to Romney’s event were advised they needed to leave promptly. The wedding was set to start at 6 p.m.
How are bride and groom taking pictures before the wedding started?
This unidentified couple is my good friend Eli Ben-Haim and his wonderful fiance Zahava Elkaim
And maybe they had the chuppa and the Seuda was to start at six?!
It seems the media is running with this story – the only problem is the story is absolutely false. How do I know? because I was there and I am on at least one of these pictures. There was a chosson and kallah there outside the hall several hours before their wedding taking pictures for the better part of an hour when the Romney entourage arrived- their wedding is tonight. And so the heading Romney enterouge crashes wedding is baloney… True once inside Governor Romney met with them but to suggest that the wedding was crashed makes for a sensational story but not a true story by any stretch.
many ashkenazim are taking pictures today before the wedding also and many a gadol have matired it
Where is the fundraiser,
As a person who attended today’s events…. The people running after his motorcade were people from the town who wanted to catch a glimpse of him… He arrived at 3pm and the wedding took place on time at 6 pm. As well he (mitt) spent close to five minutes snapping pictures with the bride, groom n family. He was thoughtful, caring and friendly. Press row was looking for a story and got some bored Lakewood folks running after his motorcade, as well this was not geared towards the typical local crowd, rather CEO heads of companies among them woody johnson owner of the ny jets and rich roberts etc… Were among the invited guests who were served food by Greenwald caterers.
Will he get a mitzva tanz?
How much did the Wedding raise? Hopefully more than Romney.
There is no source (Ashkenazi or otherwise) for the bride and groom not to see each other during the week before the wedding. It has become common practice and some poskim read reasons into it (psychological, practical, etc.) after the fact. It is very possible that it derived from “superstition” in the non-Jewish world where it became “bad luck” for the groom to see the bride before the wedding. Rav Moshe was heard (By Rabbi Chaim Wasserman) to have said that the custom should not inconvenience people and certain should not prevent the bride and groom from taking pictures together before the wedding.
I hope that this couple were seeing the man who will be the next President. To the couple…. Mabrouk!! or as most of us say it Mazel Tov!!
You guys have too much time on your hands to even get into long discussions about this stupid story.