So You're EnGAYged, a LGBT wedding blog

By Lara Swanson

I have to admit I was pretty lost when I first thought about writing our ceremony. The first hurdle was that it would be interfaith in some ways- but what ways? how much? (I was in the process of converting to Judaism, and its still very much a work in progress.) Then there was the bridal party- We want to honor our friends and family but in a non bridal party way. How do you do that? Last where do you go to find out how to write the ceremony, especially if your not planning to actually do any…writing? I needed explanations of traditions, prayers, readings from the Torah, and ways to acknowledge our Queer Marriage and particular legal status issues, but I didn’t really want to start from scratch and write it myself. Googling the indiebride ceremony readings thread was helpful, but I was still pretty lost despite the time put in. One of the nice things about a long engagement is that I can just shelve stuff on the to do list when I want. I had had over a year to go, so I knew I would figure it out eventually…or not, I guess?

Then, I stumbled upon Meg’s post at A Practical Wedding “Writing your Wedding Ceremony- A Modern Jewish Service”. I took her wise advice and bought “Celebrating Interfaith Marriages: Creating Your Jewish/Christian Ceremony” by Rabbi Devon A. Lerner; Preface by Rev. Nicholas C. Ciccone, Jr., PH.D. Two days later I had written a ceremony outline based on things I already liked from “A New Jewish Wedding” by Anita Diamant,  mixed in with tons of stuff from the previously mentioned interfaith book. The beauty of “Celebrating Interfaith Marriages” is that it explains everything you need to know to write a liturgy, whether it’s going to be Christian or Jewish, and especially if it’s going to be anywhere on the spectrum in between. Then it gives you examples! There are actual examples of fully formed wedding ceremonies by real couples. Moreover, it’s a veritable choose your own adventure guide (in the best way possible!) as you pick and choose from selections from each possible category of the ceremony liturgy. I shared what I had put together with Ginger, and she absolutely loved what I had picked. Yey! (Disclaimer- I didn’t mean to put it together by myself, it just kind of turned out that way as I wrote down all of the words I loved and organized them.)

Basic Structure

Our ceremony pretty much follows Meg’s outline exactly with different “fun bits.” (I Love that she calls them that!)

• Procession
• Opening Remarks
• Vows
• Sermon (roughly translated, D’rash, in our case)
• Ring Exchange
• Pronouncement
• Recession

“Fun Bits”

These are remarks and prayers by your minister, readings, songs, and poems that you get to adorn your ceremony with. And this is truly the fun part, once you find resources from which to make choices and selections.

Interfaith- A Modern Jewish Ceremony with a nod to my Episcopalian Roots

More than anything our ceremony is full of Jewish traditions and choices. However, I found during the process that I needed to find a way for the ceremony to also have the feel of a Christian liturgy that I was more used to (in sudtle ways).

• I’m used to a more lengthy service, and we both wanted to pack the ceremony with some extras because a 5-10 minute ceremony just didn’t feel right for us. One of the beautiful things about Jewish weddings is that it doesn’t take much to get married, literally two people wanting to utter the words, “With this ring, be consecrated to me by the laws of Moses and Israel,” to each other is practically all you really need. Adding to the liturgy, beyond the essentials, was an important part of making the ceremony feel right for me. Once I got going with Jewish prayers, and added a beautiful passage from the Song of Songs, the liturgy felt plenty lengthy. So much so, that I am considering moving the Ketubah reading to before dinner instead of during the service. (It’s a pretty big document in and of itself as we chose the, as A. calls it,  “Go big or go home” Ketubah text that I first read about on Accordians and Lace.)
• I added an Affirmation of our Community to the liturgy. This is an Episcopalian tradition that I absolutely love.

“This marriage unites two individuals, but two families and two communities as well. Will all of you witnessing these promises do all in you power to uphold these two persons in their marriage?”

The community answers, “We will.”

• One of the many things I learned in “Celebrating Interfaith Marriages” was that the Priestly Benediction is common to both the Jewish and Christian liturgies. I put this between the pronouncement and the explanations of breaking the glass and Yiccud.

“May God bless you and keep you. May God look upon you with favor and grant you peace. May God’s Countenance shine upon you and be gracious to you”

• We also included traditional, “I do,” vows with a pronouncement. It felt right to to me, like it wouldn’t be my wedding without it. Ginger felt strongly about saying traditional vows instead of writing our own. She likes that it will connect us to all of the couples that have come before and said the same words. Then, we are going to break the glass, which creates a predicament: When is the first kiss? The solution: Two kisses! One after we are pronouced newlywed, and one after the breaking of the glass.
• We included a lot of explanation of traditions and a lot of English translations so that our non Jewish family and guests would be comfortable and able to participate. For example, during the long, Seven Blessings (prayers), we are asking our Rabbi to alternate between Hebrew and English for each blessing so that there aren’t any long blocks of Hebrew in the service. Traditions like the Ketubah (marriage contract), Huppah (wedding canopy), the breaking of the glass, and Yiccud (alone time for us immediatly following the ceremony) will all be explained to our guests.

By Lara Swanson

Queer Wedding Extras

• The Affirmation of our Community (mentioned above) has a two fold purpose. It’s also a moment for our community to say that they will do everything in there power to uphold our marriage and that means being queer allies.
• When we sign our Ketubah, we will also sign other documents like my name change (addition) papers. During this time we will display our D.C. Marriage Certificate.
• We added a special, modern tradition of spilling some wine (just a drop or two) out of the second, ceremonial glass during a Jewish wedding which was adapted from a Passover tradition. Our Rabbi will explain that this signifies the bitterness in the midst of our joy because we have a long way to go in the marriage equality struggle.

Our ceremony is still very much a work in progress. We need to hash everything out with our Rabbi in person first. But, now we know what we want and have an idea of what our ceremony will feel like.

I’ll save the Bridal Party dilemma and solution for another post…

Related Posts:

• Seeing Your Queer Wedding in a Broader Context
• Best Wishes to Michael and David!
• Counting down
• Rejection: RSVPs that break your heart
• DIY Wedding Ceremony