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A friend of mine sent me a video clip from a wedding, showing the chosson and kallah under the chupah and the chosson is wearing his tallis and tefillin.

I know there is a Sefardi and Yekke custom for the chosson to wear a tallit (and many of those have the custom that he puts it over the kallah's head as well), but I have never heard of a custom of wearing tefillin too and I cannot find anything in any of the Sifrei Minhagim that I have.

My initial suspicion is that it is a misunderstanding of the custom that ashes are placed on the chosson's forehead at the place of the tefillin right before the chuppah as a reminder of the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash, but I'm curious if there is a source I have missed.

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    Maybe the groom is one of those people who wears tefillin all day?
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Aug 26, 2021 at 1:56
  • I have never seen it. It would seem to conflict with the custom you mentioned about the ashes. Maybe the chosson was someone who wears tefillin all day every day, so he did the same for his wedding.
    – N.T.
    Commented Aug 26, 2021 at 5:27
  • Maybe he wanted to wear the tefillin until it was time to put on ashes to avoid the Beis Yosef's objection
    – Heshy
    Commented Aug 26, 2021 at 11:13
  • @Heshy if you can explain what this objection is and cite a source for it, that sounds like an answer to me.
    – Moshe Katz
    Commented Aug 26, 2021 at 13:33
  • I've never heard of this custom. But, if it does exist, I'm surmising that the source may come from the verse in Hoshea which is the same verse said when winding the tefillin strap around one's finger. The verse says (loose excerpt): "I shall betroth you forever.." Other than that, perhaps teh chattan hadn't put in tefillin yet that day?
    – DanF
    Commented Sep 1, 2021 at 2:26

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As you mentioned, the Tur (OC 560) brings the custom to put ashes on the groom's forehead.

The Beis Yosef quotes the Kol Bo, who says that some specifically don't put on ashes, because the groom wasn't wearing tefillin anyway and the symbolism of replacing פאר, the splendor of tefillin, with אפר, ashes, is ruined, and people might also think that the אפר won't be replaced with פאר again in the time of Mashiach.

If the groom wears tefillin until he puts the ashes on, that would avoid the Kol Bo's objection. (And, even without the Kol Bo, it makes the symbolism more powerful.)

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  • This doesn't answer the question and is more suited as a comment
    – robev
    Commented Sep 13, 2021 at 11:45

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