Kiddushin and nisuin קידושין ונישואין
A Jewish marriage is two acts, not one: first kiddushin, the betrothal, then nisuin, the bringing under the canopy. Once a year passed between them; today they are done in one hour.
"A woman is acquired in three ways," the tractate Kiddushin begins, and the ways are by money, by document and by cohabitation. The first is what is used: the groom gives the bride a ring before two witnesses and says, "Behold, you are consecrated to me by this ring according to the law of Moses and Israel." From that moment she is married in the sense that only a bill of divorce can undo it—but they do not yet begin to live together.
The second part. Nisuin is the bringing into the husband's house, represented among us by the chuppah, a cloth on four poles. Here the seven blessings are said, and the last of them speaks of the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride in the cities of Judah—that is, of what was destroyed. Between kiddushin and nisuin as much as a year once passed: the bride prepared her dowry, the groom a home. The rishonim joined them into a single ceremony, and the chief reason was a sad one—in exile anything could happen between the two days, and the girl was left neither married nor free.
The glass. It is broken in memory of the destruction. This comes from a story in Berachot: at his son's wedding a sage saw the rejoicing pass its measure and smashed a costly cup, to bring them to themselves. Out of an act came a custom, and among us it is an exact picture of the whole order: joy in full, but with a notch cut in it.
On the timeline
Related
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Mishnah Kiddushin 1:1 — the three ways of betrothal
- Ketubot 7b–8a — the seven wedding blessings
- Berachot 30b–31a — the smashed cup at the wedding of a sage's son
Basis: Talmud and midrash.