As Blue Bouquet designers we get to tackle a lot of fun projects. A recent wedding at the Reform Temple here in Kansas City brought us an especially interesting design challenge: design and build a contemporary Chuppah.

This was our first wedding at the Reform Temple, but not our first with Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn. Rabbi Cukierkorn was entertaining as always and he seemed to really like our work, which was quite a relief. We know a lot about design and we always pay attention to the details, but we try to leave the finer points of Jewish tradition to the experts, so it was good to have the Rabbi’s approval.

A little chuppah history

No doubt you are familiar with the nature of a chuppah (sometimes called huppah or khuppah) and it’s importance in a Jewish wedding. A Chuppah is a canopy held aloft by four posts. It represents God’s covering of the marriage, the new home the couple are entering into and the openness of that home to friends and family. Traditionally the portion of the ceremony involving the chuppah is hed outside, with the chuppah poles being transported and held in place by four close friends and siblings. Often a talit (a prayershawl) was used as a canopy, adding further significance. These days though, chuppah design is usually a more flexible. The important thing is to have four secure poles and a canopy overhead. In our case, we wanted something clean, attractive, versatile and easy to set up. It was a fun project, so we thought we would pass along some instructions for making your own chuppah.

Step 1: Gathering the materials.

The raw materials for our chuppah were simple enough (Figure #1). For the poles we used 1” conduit, which is very strong and can be found at any home improvement store. To connect the pipe, we used structural pipe fittings, which must be ordered online. Ours came from EasyFit (Figure #3). The canopy was made of white silk and drapery lining. The lining prevents light from shining through and the silk gives a clean finished look. For the bases we used 15” cake pans and concrete. Large cake pans can be difficult to find locally, but can easily be found online.

Step 2: Preparing the structure

Before filling our cake pans with concrete, we glued short pieces of pvc pipe to the bottom of the pans. We used 1.25” PVC, making a nice snug fit for our conduit. We then filled each of the pans with 30lbs of concrete, being careful to leave a lip inside the pan so that it could double as a floral container in future events (See Figure #1 for details). For this event, though, we covered the bases in silk to conceal them.

We then cut each of the lengths of pipe to about 7.5 feet. This is smaller than many pre-fabricated chuppahs, though it’s actually larger than most traditional chuppahs. We wanted something small enough to look at home in the Reform Temple, and 7.5 feet square was a good size for that. After cutting the pipe we painted it with flat white rustoleum, being careful to get a nice even finish.

Step 3: Sewing the canopy.

This was certainly the most demanding part of the Chuppah construction. The canopy is actually two layers. The inner layer provides a nice clean surface for the bride and groom to see during the ceremony. We even included inner flaps to conceal the horizontal poles and the wires we would add for the lighting (See Figure #5). The outer layer provides a finished look for the folks in the audience. We attached adhesive backed Velcro to our horizontal poles and sewed a corresponding strip of Velcro to the underside of the bottom layer for easy assembly. True, it would have been even easier to sew pockets for the poles into the canopy, but this would never give us the tight finished look we wanted.

Step 4: Putting Up the structure

The poles stood in their stands and connected very quickly and simply, just as planned (Figures #2 and #3). After we put the skeleton together we attached the lighting, being certain to keep the wires out of sight (Figures #4 and #5) . We always keep a few high-quality halogen display lights around the shop for projects like this. They put off a lot of light with a pleasant warm glow. As a warning though, they tend to burn very hot, so never place them too close to flowers. Next we put up the canopy. The Velcro strips made for an easy installation (Figure #6). As a final touch, we hung dendrobium blooms from the four corners (Figure #7).

All finished!

We were quite pleased with the final structure, and hope to get good use out of it in the future. Its bases that can double as floral containers and the inner structure and it’s structure is strong enough to hold any number of fabric or floral treatments, giving us great versatility. In fact, our only regret is that we didn’t get better pictures of it for you. No worries, though. Paul Versluis was the photographer for the wedding, and we’re sure he got some great photos for us to show you later on.