Wedding Veils: Charedi vs Hassidic vs … 👰

Chasidim tend to wear thicker veils, that cannot be seen thru at all. Don’t know about any difference in length.

WIP, I’m not sure LB is talking about the front covering during the chuppah (known as a deck-tuch) or the veil that goes down her back.

Chareidim cover the face of the kallah during the chuppah with something that cannot be seen through. It is usually a beautiful piece of lace with a backing so that no one can see her face during the chuppah. It is only necessary to be as big as her face and to cover as far back as is necessary to pin it to her hair to keep it from falling off.

The veil going down the back can be as long as one likes, for all walks of life. I have seen some that have a very long train, but usually something to the bottom of the lower back area is usual. My daughter had an extra one that was very long just to add to the pictures. She did not wear it during the rest of the chassanah. The back veil is usually made of more than one layer and non-chareidim will take one of those layers and cover the face of the kallah with that.

The front veil is supposed to be non-see through. That’s the whole point of the veil.

It doesn’t seem to last all night. Apparently last night, it went until at least 2:00 am, but I think that’s unusual. And I don’t know if I’ve ever seen posts go up after 2:00 am (it’s certainly rare).

Thanks WTP, I don’t sleep well so I am often up at odd nighttime hours. I do a lot of 3 am posts, if there are any, since that is my worst sleeplessness but the rest of it varies.

Would it help if I write up some really long, boring posts to induce the ZZZZs?

It is not true that everyone has the custom of whatever length you want for a back veil.
In the Ultra Chasidic Rabbinical families they do not wear a back veil at all.

All veils hook on the back. in the hair. I think I’ve seen even chassidish kallahs from rabbinish families wearing regular veils on the back. There is sometimes a style of not wearing a veil, but I’m not think it’s very common. This is worn during the whole chassanah.

The covering on the front is only from the badeken (covering the kallah – if you look carefully you can see the work “dek” in the middle, which is where the work “dek-tuch” that I mentioned earlier comes from) during the chuppah. There are opinions that once the chosson has identified her as the correct kallah and has covered her face, it is not appropriate for other men to look upon the face of the kallah during the chuppah. Nobody needs that piece of material to go down much past the chin. That’s why, LB, you saw the kind only to the chin. That’s not the “veil” that everybody thinks of. It is just supposed to cover her face. If it’s the really thick kind (like I had at my chuppah and my daughter had) you really cannot see out, but it is good to at least be able to look down underneath it and see the ground where you are going to step.

Unfortunately, amongst the more modern, they simply take the veil piece from the back and cover the face. It is very transparent and everybody can see her. I can actually tell you that it is nice to have that bit of privacy to be daavening during the chuppah. Less chance of looking around at who made it to the chuppah, etc. That would be very distracting, IMHO.

The length of the veil depends on the length of the kalla ‘s face. The longer the face, the longer veil she needs.

I don’t think that’s true because I have never seen a veil that precisely covers the face and nothing else.

Also, that would mean measuring the kallah’s face.

Also rings

Joseph, did you attend a goyish wedding?

I read about them. Never been to any.

The practice of wearing a veil only to the wedding is also fairly new. They used to be worn all the time.

FYI the white gown comes from the goyim and that is why some Hasidic sects do not wear totally white gowns.
They line it with a color.

Why wear white gowns at all then? So impractical, so unflattering.

That’s interesting CTL.
I understand there’s no mention of religion; however, if you yourself happen to be aware that one party is Jewish and one is not, are there Halachic ramifications? Obviously you are not validating Kiddushin, (and the whole concept of Kiddushin cannot apply) but are you allowed to knowingly perform a civil service to unite a Jew and a non-Jew in a legal marriage?

a mamin, why don’t they wear an all blue bridal dress? Or all of mostly non-white. Why do they wear a mostly white dress?

A mamin, I thought the minhag of wearing white was because the day of the chassanah is like Yom Kippur for the chosson and kallah, and just like a man wears a white kittel on Yom Kippur as a symbol of purity, since all of their aveiros are being forgiven that day, the kallah wears a white dress. I do not know what the chassidim do. I do know that a lot of kallahs are not wearing pure white but rather cream these days.

As far as luxury of a kallah dress, most people I know take one from a gemach, pay a minimal fee for upkeep and return it in the days after the chassanah for the next girl to use it. At least 3 or 4 girls can wear a single dress (obviously not all at one time) depending on how many alterations are needed for each girl.

I was told that the dresses are fancy so that a poor kallah can have “jewelry” on her dress like a “rich” kallah. Of course we all know that girls still wear their jewelry to the chassanah, so somewhere this idea got diluted or forgotten. I’m just relaying what I heard many years ago.

Yitzchok, Leah, Yaakov and Rochel define Judaism.

Non-Jewish women used to wear the same type of veil they wore to their wedding every time they went outside.

The first historically recorded concept of a woman veiling herself is in Bereishus, with Rivka.

A white gown is a way of showing off that you can afford a dress that you will wear only once. Dresses made to be worn more than once can’t be white because they’d get ruined on the third day.