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Real Jewish Brides – Mel: Our Ceremony, Our Way

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Mel  will be marrying Mitch on Sunday 18 March 2018, in a Jewish wedding at Warren Weir at Luton Hoo, UK.

THREE FACTS: (1) Mel and Mitch met online on JDate (2) Their Jewish wedding will be classy and traditional with plenty of modern touches  (3) Mel is a member of Smashing The Glass’s private Jewish & Jew-ish Brides Facebook Group. Not yet a member? Come join us here!


As I eluded to in my previous post, it’s so easy to get lost in the ‘luxuries’ of a wedding and forget about the actual marriage part!

Like most brides I got extremely excited to start planning our wedding as soon as we got engaged. The first task for us was finding a venue. We were really clear about what we wanted, and what we didn’t want. Which meant our search for a venue was proving difficult — it wasn’t as easy as I expected to find a venue outside of London that was big enough to accommodate our guests and have enough indoor space to avoid ‘changing over’ rooms between the ceremony and meal. Having a March wedding, we couldn’t rely on the weather being good enough to have an outdoor ceremony. After hours of research and many trips visiting venues all over Essex and Hertfordshire, we found our dream venue –Warren Weir… in Bedfordshire.

Our next task was finding a band. Followed by a photographer, videographer and florist.

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Jodie & Joel’s Jewish wedding at Warren Weir by Claudine Hartzel Photography

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A Reform Jewish Wedding – a guide to an egalitarian ceremony under the chuppah

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Whilst sitting in shul with my mum one Friday night some years ago, I was fortunate to witness an Aufruf being led by Rabbi Miriam Berger. Miriam spoke so beautifully and passionately about the couple that even though I had never met them it brought a tear to my eye. I still remember turning to my mum to say, “When I get married I want Rabbi Miriam to marry me”.  I’m so happy that she is.

Having grown up in a Reform community, having a Reform wedding was always the natural choice for me. To me, Judaism is all about equality, particularly between men and women so that theme pretty much runs through everything. Here is my guide to weddings; the Reform way.

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Anna & Jon both smashing the glass at their Jewish wedding

The order of service

The order of service is pretty much the same as a traditional Jewish wedding. It follows the same order of the groom entering followed by the bride. We will be married under a beautiful chuppah and are joined there by both sets of parents, the rabbi and our chazan/singer.

The tisch

The tisch is traditionally a time where the rabbi reads through the ketubah outlining the groom’s responsibilities mixed in with some singing, dancing and of course drinking. Reform marriage is all about equality and about marriage being a partnership. Therefore a tisch is not part of a Reform wedding ceremony as the groom is not given a list of responsibilities. Rabbi Miriam has informed Gideon that if he wants some whisky with friends for some dutch courage of course he can! And so can I!

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Bride, Montana, sharing toasting her bridesmaids before her Jewish wedding to Justin 

The badeken

The Jewish wedding tradition of badeken is something I have always found quite powerful: the groom seeing his bride for the first time. Of course the tradition behind it is about the groom checking he has the right bride but I still like it!

After a traditional badeken the bride’s veil is put back over her face and remains like this until the end of the ceremony. In keeping with Reform’s emphasis on equality, Rabbi Miriam spoke to us about the importance of a woman being uncovered for the wedding ceremony as she is just as equal and should be as present in the room as everyone else. This of course means the traditional badeken doesn’t quite work. I really love this idea and based on this we are doing something a little bit different for our bedeken…(not giving away any secrets though!)

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An alternative-style badeken at Missy & Yoni’s Jewish wedding

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Melisa & Mickey | A chic Tel Aviv wedding with an incredibly moving ceremony

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It’s freezing cold today in London and I think we could all do with  a little injection of sunshine and romance! Well we have just the real wedding to put a smile on everyone’s faces. Beautifully captured by photographer Alon Gruber of Studio AGS, Melisa and Mickey’s effortlessly chic, urban Tel Aviv W Day. is guaranteed to  light up your Wednesday!

First of all, we’re blown away by the totally unique tale of how they met— on a niche Chinese messaging app of all things. Their engagement followed after just one year and the wedding was planned in two and a half months, Melisa and Mickey are a living example of the phrase ‘when you know, you know’.

While we absolutely adore getting carried away with the fun of planning a wedding, it is really telling that bride Melisa spoke with the most passion and in the most detail about her feelings during ceremony. The dress, the dà©cor and all of those little details paled into insignificance in comparison to the intense emotion felt by the couple.

These two brought their happy outlook to the dà©cor scheme, infusing the day and details, like the flowers and invitations, with accents of bright yellow, their favourite colour. And if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, Mickey, the groom, walked down the aisle to Monty Python’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.  We really do love these two…

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How we met

Melisa, the bride: We met against all odds on a Chinese messaging app called WeChat we both used to communicate with colleagues and clients (even stranger when you think about where we come from – Mickey’s family is originally from the States, and I come from Argentina).

We fell in love right away, got engaged after a little over a year, and planned our wedding in two and a half months!

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How to successfully mix two religions into one beautiful interfaith wedding ceremony

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This is a guest post by  Lisa Johnson  :: Above image taken from Jess & Alex’s Jewish-Catholic  wedding

So, here we are in 2016 and mixed faith ceremonies are far from unusual or controversial, yet there still seems to be a lack of knowledge around the processes and variety of options that are possible.

As a wedding planner, as well as a celebrant, Karen asked me to put a guest post together with lots of  ideas on how to blend  two different religions  into one beautiful ceremony for those of you fusing  two different faiths into your wedding day. I’ve covered lots of ground, but if you have anything to add, or you have any burning questions, feel free to pop them in the comments box at the end of the post, and either me or Karen will do our  best to answer them

Many couples decide to use two separate officiants — one for each religion; this could mean having a Rabbi and an independent celebrant conduct the ceremony. There are many Rabbis out there who are happy to conduct an interfaith ceremony and they will also have suggestions on how to incorporate your religion  into a mixed faith ceremony.

Some religious ceremony traditions are much easier to incorporate  into an interfaith ceremony and traditions unique to just one faith can be blended perfectly to make a balanced, beautiful ceremony.

For instance, if one of you is Catholic and one is Jewish, there are large parts of a Catholic mass that would work really well including certain readings and even the ‘peace be with you handshake’. This is when you engage in the sign of peace by shaking the hands of the people around you and saying, “Peace be with you.” Each handshake preferably includes a smile and at least one full second of eye contact.

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Francesca & Andrew’s Jewish-Irish Catholic wedding. Click here to read their wedding story

In addition, many Catholic-Jewish couples choose to celebrate the beloved Christian tradition of the  lighting of the unity candle  with the celebrant reciting this exquisite saying from the Ba’al Shem Tov :

“From every human being, there rises a light, that reaches straight to heaven, and when two souls, destined to be together, find each other, their streams of light flow together and a single brighter light goes forth from their united being.”

Jewish –  Muslim weddings are more complicated to arrange, but by no means impossible. The important thing is to remember to consult with your families along the way. This gives you and your family members time to process and address any concerns and prevents any surprise reactions on your big day and don’t forget to take family halal or kosher dietary needs into account for the reception.

So what about using a Rabbi and an Imam in your ceremony?  It can be done — assess what prayers and traditions are typical for a Jewish wedding and Muslim wedding.  Then, meet together with both to figure out the best options. The ultimate would be to have a beautiful ceremony, intertwining blessings from both religions and incorporating Hebrew, Arabic, and English.

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Sarah  & Ben’s  Jewish-Muslim wedding. Click here to read their wedding story

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Jewish wedding program 101: How to create a ceremony program that’s perfect for your special day

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Image by Hales Studio taken from Sarah & Mike’s Jewish DIY Wedding

How to produce the perfect Jewish (or Jew-ish) Wedding Program

When it comes to Jewish weddings there are a few highly recognisable traditions that many of us look forward to seeing, like, as this blog’s name suggests, the smashing of the glass. However, as any bride well knows, there are a myriad of other customs that a couple may or may not include depending on their preference and level of observance. Most choose to spend their big day with their closest family and friends and in today’s modern world, this typically includes individuals from a diverse set of backgrounds with varying understanding of a Jewish wedding ceremony.

Consequently, the wedding program has become an increasingly important tool as it both enables wedding guests to navigate the marriage ceremony and allows them to feel included by providing the appropriate context. Despite the wedding program’s growing importance, we were surprised to learn firsthand how difficult it can be to write one. For those facing a similar predicament, please read on to hear our tips for putting together a ceremony program perfect for your special day!

Pre-planning

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Image by W2 Photography taken from Sydney & William’s handmade Jewish DIY Barn Wedding

Know your guests

Without having a sense for your guest’s familiarity with relevant Jewish traditions it can be difficult to approach the program writing process. For a guest list that includes people who may be attending their first Jewish wedding, we suggest keeping your program more high level and focused on sharing the appropriate context, without being overwhelming. For one that has a largely Jewish audience, you may include less information on the ceremony basics and more time on specific custom details or interpretations. It’s also important to ask yourself how familiar your guests may be with the traditions you choose to incorporate into your ceremony. After all, the non-observant Jewish guest may not be familiar with a highly orthodox ceremony. Similarly, the highly observant may not follow egalitarian interpretations of tradition.

Determine your ceremony details

This may go without saying, but before writing your wedding program it’s best to have a clear understanding of what your ceremony will look like. Are you doing a badeken and tisch? Are you inviting all of your guests to your ketubah signing? Will your ceremony be more modern or traditional? A more formal or casual affair? Are you including a flower girl? These are just a handful of examples of things that need to be finalised prior to beginning your program.

Think about tone

As you want to the voice of the program to reiterate the tone of the event overall, it’s important to think about what this is prior to beginning the writing process. A black tie wedding will call for a more formal and restrained voice. In contrast, a more casual ceremony will be amenable to a lighter and playful narrative.

Writing your program

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Image by Corey Torpie taken from Sarit & Ari’s Jewish DIY Wedding

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