A traditional Jewish wedding is a tapestry woven from many threads: biblical, historical, mystical, cultural and legal. Threads carried from one generation to the next, forming a chain of Jewish continuity which goes back more than 3,800 years. On the cosmic level, our sages teach that each marriage ceremony is a reenactment of the marriage between G‑d and the Jewish people that took place at Mount Sinai, and that the wedding day is a personal Yom Kippur—the holiest and most auspicious day of one's life.
But a marriage is also an intricate legal transaction, by which bride and groom enter a mutually binding commitment. The rituals and customs of the Jewish wedding derive from both its legalistic particulars and its underlying spiritual themes—the body and soul of the Jewish wedding.