Intermarriage Weddings

By Carol Stoner

 How to Maintain MeaningWhen a couple recently asked how to include his Catholic and her Jewish traditions in their wedding ceremony, they were taking an important first step in planning a meaningful interfaith wedding.

Weddings are life-changing events that become important touchstones, and by acknowledging that religion, cultural heritage, and ethnicity were important, they were saying their wedding was worth their best thinking.

Here are my recommendations: First, they should discuss what they already know about each other’s cultural and religious heritage. This, if the marriage is to be a happy one, should be the beginning of an ongoing, respectful dialog. Then, they should articulate what they love about their own background. A Christian may love the sacredness and mystery of religious services. The Jewish partner may love the gatherings of family and friends—often at home around the dining room table—where religious holidays are often celebrated. As for wedding traditions, the Jewish partner may expect to be married under a huppah or wedding canopy, which symbolizes the couple’s first home. Christian weddings, on the other hand, are known for including beautiful classical music and prayer in the ceremony. One suburban Chicago bride, Protestant and marrying a Jewish man, said she found “more richness of tradition in the Jewish ceremony” than in her own. This 30-year old lawyer wanted to combine the two traditions without losing her own.

“When I think of a Presbyterian wedding, I think of hymns, and of Christ blessing the marriage, and a unity candle,” she noted. “And when you compare that to the Jewish pre-marriage festivities, and the ketubah (a symbolic marriage contract signed before the wedding), and the more elaborate processional, and the wine ceremony, and the huppah, and the breaking of the glass, you have to look hard for what feels Christian. We made our wedding work for both of us, but it took planning.” I wrote Commandment Nine in the Eleven Commandments for Grownup Weddings in my first wedding, “Every marriage is a mixed marriage.” Even if you’re from the same neighborhood and belong to the same faith, differences will exist. After talking to each other—and even if you admit that you know little about weddings—listen carefully to your families’ ideas before deciding what matters. Remember this is your wedding, even though you want both families to feel comfortable. Still, you should hear everyone out.

Here’s what you should consider:

• How big and lavish will the wedding be, and who will be invited?
• How much should be spent, on which parts of the wedding, and by whom?
• Who will walk down the aisle, and in what order? (In the typical Jewish processional, both the bride and bridegroom walk down the aisle between their parents.)
• Will you have a huppah or wedding canopy, and if so, who will stand under it? (In Jewish weddings both sets of parents will be under the huppah with the wedding couple.)
• What prayers and music do you want to include?
• Perhaps most important, who will marry you? Be aware that there are only a few rabbis, ministers, and priests who will agree to co-officiate your wedding. More will agree to share the wedding pulpit, although usually one individual will legally marry you. As soon as you set your date begin your search for your wedding officiants or co-officiants. Be open to their ideas.

In an era of changing and blended families, and increased intermarriage, how you arrange your wedding is a shared declaration of private, often unspoken feelings about religious and cultural and ethnic self-definition, as well as financial well-being, even though you may have little experience with such decisions.

Be aware that every wedding today is in some way an exception to the rules. The by-the-book rules of etiquette that once guided all of life, including the wedding planning process, are not as valid as they once were. Women have changed. Very few of us spring, fully formed, out of the ruffled, pink back bedroom of our parents’ homes to march down the aisle at weddings planned entirely by our mothers. We may still want weddings to express our romantic fantasies, but we also want to get what we pay for, and we want weddings that reflect who we are today.

“In the Christian community a wedding is a worship service, and therefore traditionally held in a house of worship,” says Rabbi Mordechai Rosen, of Congregation MISHPAHA. “It includes readings from Scripture, a sermon, prayers, and every aspect of the ceremony is related, in some way, to God. “A Jewish wedding is a religious ceremony, but it is not a worship service. It is a simcha, a celebration.” He emphasizes, “interpreting the ceremony and sharing its contemporary significance so that everyone, including the Jewish guests, understand what we’re doing.” Both Rabbi Rosen and Rev. Jim Rehnberg, a non-denominational minister, say they sit down and talk with couples who want them to officiate or co-officiate at their weddings. Rehnberg recommends that couples take the liturgical symbols of their heritages and find ways to use them in their ceremony and their lives. “If you use a kiddush cup (ceremonial wine glass) in your ceremony, drink from it once a month and then use it on your anniversaries. Let that sharing of the wine bring you back to that moment when you declared your commitment to each other.” He says that some of his favorite weddings are Jewish-Christian. “We all reflect our Judeo-Christian backgrounds, and this gives us a wonderful opportunity to learn more about each other.”