Bukharan Jewish Wedding, Kew Gardens, NY, 1991

When Aviva has been beautified, her mother brings a mirror draped with a gauze cloth, which she extends over her daughter's head so that she can view her face in privacy for the first time. The mirror is a gift, in which it is hoped Aviva will see herself always as she is today. Standing on a chair, her father makes a toast. giving Aviva advice to respect her husband and his relatives, keep kosher, and keep traditions.

Katrina Thomas's notes: Bukharan Jews, named for the Uzbek city of Bukhara in Central Asia, emigrated mainly from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, most of them to Queens, NY after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. They speak a dialect of Tajiki and Persian with some Hebrew. At their large receptions, I fail to photograph adequately a distinctive event -- the joma, a dance for which the bride and groom and some close relatives put on a multi-colored silk-woven velvet robe, a joma, modelled upon the biblical Joseph's coat of many colors. The bridegroom wears it for a few minutes, but the bride rarely, one complaining to no one in particular that it is too hot. Before her wedding, because a maiden does not shave or pluck hairs, a bride's shower is held in anticipation of marriage, during which her hairs are plucked. This event made for more successful photography.