START PLANNING YOUR INTERFAITH WEDDING CEREMONY
Arranging your wedding ceremony when there are two or more religious and/or cultural traditions can be the perfect opporutunity for you to share your different beliefs and customs with family and friends. It takes a little more careful planning, but the rewards can be very memorable. It is a great way to welcome everyone into the new community your marriage is creating. Here are a couple of tips to start the process.
1. Start your ceremony planning early before you pick your wedding site. Sit down with your fiance and discuss your goals, beliefs and values with one another. Find out what is most important and meaningful for you as individuals and as a couple. Discuss wedding customs that are most important for you to be included in your wedding ceremony. Identify areas that you do want to include and what you don’t want. Discuss ways that you can compromise. The major ingredient to a successful marriage is compromise. This is a great place to start.
2. Incorporate your ceremony discussion with the big picture of your wedding. Brainstorm on the types of locations that would best suit your ceremony atmosphere; garden wedding, vineyard, neutral indoor setting, a house of worship, etc.
3. Research options for different types of ceremonies; Jewish, Interfaith, Spiritual not Religious, Inter-Cultural, Non-Religious, Contemporary. Discuss with your parents and family elders to get their input. Be patient and open to hearing their ideas.
4. Secure your rabbi and/or priest. If you are having a wedding and you want a special type of clergy to provide your ceremony, you want to start this process early on. There are many reasons why this is very important, especially with an interfaith or bicultural ceremony. There are some religious traditions that have very specific rules to their wedding ceremonies. Clergy that are open to traveling to your wedding site or on the Sabbath, require careful planning so that you are not disappointed with the most important part of your day, the reason everyone is gathered. Sometimes couples tend to loose perspective as they get into the reception planning.
5. If you still have questions on which is the best way to proceed for your personal situation, we can help and guide you. We offer hourly consultations, officiant referrals and custom ceremony planning. Whether you are choosing to have an officiant lead your service or a friend or family member that is very special to you, we can guide you through the process. Contact Us
6. Check Rabbi Gershon’s Availability and to provide us details of your ceremony for our initial complimentary video Skype or phone conference call, please complete our INTRODUCTORY FORM.
We’ll send you an email within 36 hours to arrange a time for our initial conference call.
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More information on our consulting services,
see our services page or send us an email with your questions
