You can get married anywhere. All you need is a bride and a groom and a geezer with a hat. Could be a priest’s hat, a rabbi’s hat, a mere ‘kippa’, a ship’s captain’s hat, or a registrar’s special head-thing. Ok, they don’t have really have special head-things, but normally you’d need a hat or the wedding might fail. So its all a matter of where you choose. You can get married in your own garden. You can get married in a church, synagogue, temple, hotel foyer, garden, on top of a mountain, the bottom of the ocean (aqualung required; hats may float away), on parachutes (helmets required), there’s virtually nowhere that hasn’t been chosen for that special day.

And thus yesterday we entered what is officially termed ‘the middle of fucking nowhere; and then some’ for the nuptials of Flo and Dan. Two Londoners who elected to forgo the chance of a wedding at The Landmark, to shun the banqueting suite at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, to ignore the thousands of options that London has to offer to any happy couple. And instead have a wedding in the middle of the Judean desert.

There’s destination weddings and there’s destination weddings. And everyone feels happier if there’s some kind of ‘connection’ rather than just some random location selected from the ‘weddings of the Stars’ handbook, or I want to get married in Benidorm cos it was the best’olidee I ever’ad.

We went to a wedding Sydney last Christmas. Almost the ‘ultimate’ destination for Londoners, but as both bride and groom and all their families live there, quite selfishly, there’s only so much complaining you can do. Even though I’m a great complainer and can always find something.

The groom’s parents are Israeli. They live in London but they’re Israeli. And if any destination is acceptable for Jewish people of any origins, it is Israel. Because its a has a special place in all our lives and all our hearts.

And the weather’s great so that improves the whole ‘destination wedding’ scenario. No-one wants to be dragged half way across Scandinavia for a wedding in the dark whilst its pissing down. And just because the groom loves herring.

This wedding was in possibly the most beautiful setting ever. Spectacular. In a place just kind of put there in the middle of the desert for such purposes. And it was quite brilliant and quite wonderful. Magical even. And a lot of fun.

Mazzletov to Flo and Dan

A xxxx