Interfaith wedding Archives - Smashing the Glass

Everything You Need to Know about Planning an Interfaith Jewish Wedding {Facebook Live Recap with 18Doors}

10/06/2021 by Karen Cinnamon

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Planning a Jewish wedding can be tricky. Planning an interfaith Jewish wedding? Even trickier. That’s why I’m so happy to share my latest Facebook Live all about how to plan your perfect celebration, one that combines your two backgrounds in a unique way that’s totally, 100% you.

On this Live, I spoke with Rabbi Robyn Frisch and Nicole Wasilus of 18Doors, a wonderful organization dedicated to empowering interfaith couples and families to engage in Jewish life. No one knows more about interfaith Jewish weddings than these two, and I learned so much from speaking with them.

If you’re in the midst of planning your own interfaith celebration, or suspect you might be soon, you can’t do any better than to watch the recording of this fantastic session – and for easy browsing, I’ve recapped the highlights for you below.

There’s so much information to be gleaned from this Live, but if you’ve got a particular question that isn’t answered, please don’t hesitate to reach out to the wonderful 18Doors team – they’ve got 26 rabbinic fellow spread throughout US and Canada, and they’d love to help you out however they can, wherever you are in the world. 18 Doors’ sole mission is to help interfaith Jewish couples and families, so this is really what they’re here for!

Read on for some of Rabbi Robyn and Nicole’s interfaith wedding wisdom…

Getting Started

Rabbi Robyn and Nicole emphasized that, at the very beginning of wedding planning, it’s important to start by talking to your partner and hearing what they have to say. You should do this before you reach out to officiants, and before you start involving your families.

What exactly might you want to discuss? Consider talking through the following:

Which traditions from your background are important to you, and are there any that aren’t?
Is there anything about your partner’s tradition that you’d especially like to include, or that would make you uncomfortable to include?
Is there anything you especially liked or didn’t like from other weddings you’ve attended?
Are there any important people you’d like to honor in your wedding? What are some ways you might like to do that?

Rabbi Robyn and Nicole also recommend checking out Anita Diamant’s The Jewish Wedding Now for reference and ideas.

Above all, it’s important to start having these conversations early, and to keep communication open throughout the planning process.

Everything You Need to Know about Planning an Interfaith Jewish Wedding {with 18Doors}

16/05/2021 by Karen Cinnamon

Here at Smashing The Glass, we get so many questions from couples looking for guidance on planning their interfaith Jewish weddings. Wedding planning can be a daunting process for anyone, but interfaith couples can face all kinds of extra challenges, from navigating tricky family situations to simply not having a clear roadmap for what your ceremony might look like.

That’s why I’m so excited to tell you that this Wednesday, May 19, at 9:00 am PDT / 12:00 pm EDT / 5:00 pm GST, I’ll be chatting on Facebook with Rabbi Robyn Frisch and Nicole Wasilus of 18 Doors, a wonderful organization dedicated to empowering interfaith couples and families to engage in Jewish life, all about how to plan your perfect interfaith Jewish wedding.

Some of the topics we’ll cover include:

Starting the conversation about what’s important to each of you in planning out your ceremony
Choosing an officiant
Special considerations for interfaith couples planning a wedding (for example, ketubot)
Examples of creative touches interfaith couples have used to incorporate background of partner or put a spin on Jewish tradition
Advice for navigating family conflict
Discussion of the traditional elements of a Jewish ceremony and what considerations interfaith couples may want to make when deciding whether or not to include each one
Understanding elements of the Jewish ceremony in an interfaith way

An Eddy K. Bride for a Jewish Interfaith Backyard Micro Wedding in Connecticut, USA

27/11/2020 by Karen Cinnamon

We’re so delighted to be sharing the gorgeous interfaith Jewish micro wedding of our Brides Club member Julia, a social worker for the Department of Veteran’s affairs working to hose homeless veterans, and Josh, an EMT and US Army veteran!

Julia and Josh had originally planned for a 200-person wedding at a local park, but when COVID hit they downsized their guest list and shifted the festivities to Julia’s mom’s property – which, luckily for the couple, just happens to be a beautiful farm filled with green fields of wildflowers.

Regardless of the location, Julia’s top priority was always to create a relaxed and inclusive celebration that embraced both her Jewish faith and Josh’s Puerto Rican heritage. In her words,

My husband is Puerto Rican and most of my friends are not Jewish. While I am rooted deeply in my faith, sometimes I feel isolated by my Jew-ishness. Brides Club felt like this beautiful validating hug. I was able to get so much out of the articles and vendor tips. I wish I had found Smashing the Glass earlier!

The pair opted for a mostly Jewish ceremony under a chuppah (covered by a Puerto Rican flag with a Star of David at is center – designed by the groom!), officiated by Julia’s mom’s best friend, who is the rabbi of an interfaith Jewish congregation. And we love that they incorporated their daughter (who also gave a beautiful speech and sang a song for the couple!) into the ceremony, too.

Don’t miss the beautiful images from Abigail Renee Photography – or the rest of the story of this very special day, as narrated by the bride…

How we met

Julia, the bride: Josh and I met working at a group home for teen girls. We both worked third shift at the time. When he started, he requested to have Fridays off and I lost my Shabbats off, so I decided I was not going to like him. (Boy did that backfire!) Turns out the reason he couldn’t work Fridays was because of his daughter. He used his weird sense of humour and a few honeydew melons to get me to talk to him.

When the group home closed, he asked me out (I was his supervisor). I said no. Josh was deployed a few weeks later and when he got to his post, he asked me if he could take me on a date. I agreed when he got home to go on a date with him. When he got home, he drove four hours from the airport home, showered and came right to pick me up.

About four years later he proposed in front of Boston Harbour.

A Helena Kolan Bride for a Colorful, Multicultural Jewish-Hindu Wedding at Hummingbird Nest Ranch, California, USA

19/06/2020 by Karen Cinnamon

Get ready to be BLOWN AWAY by the incredible Jewish-Hindu wedding of our beloved Brides Club member Jaime, who has an online fitness business, and Varun, who is CEO of a tech company. These two wanted a one-of-a-kind day that felt larger than life, and did they ever achieve that goal – thanks in no small part to the expertise of their wedding planner, Leora of Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Best Bride, who Jaime describes as “the best wedding planner on the planet. Period.”

Blending two different faiths and cultures is no small feat, but Leora made it a breeze, working with Jaime and Varun to craft a jam-packed day – and we do mean a full day; this wedding went from noon until midnight! – including two ceremonies (one Hindu, one Jewish), a positively mouthwatering bicultural food experience featuring Israeli and Indian street food, and, of course, a rocking party to end things off.

The results were thoroughly, breathtakingly beautiful – we’re equally obsessed with the color and energy of the Hindu ceremony and the romance and drama of the sunset Jewish ceremony. And how beautiful is the couple’s floral ketubah, created by Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor The Delicate Brush?! Jaime can’t stop raving about her experience working with founder Rachelle to create the perfect design to match the color and décor scheme for her Jewish ceremony.

You really, really don’t want to miss the fantastic photos from Clane Gessel and Sanaz Photography. Because their day had so much going on, planner Leora encouraged Jaime and Varun to hire two photography teams to make sure none of the good stuff went undocumented, and Jaime is SO glad she followed that advice. And the trailer by AndHer Visuals is equally unmissable.

Now over to the bride, who had not one, not two, but THREE dresses for the big day – her gorgrous, vibrant dress for the Hindu ceremony was made by Vama Designs, and her gown for the Jewish ceremony was custom made by Israeli designer Helena Kolan (who also created Jaime’s reception dress)…

How we met

Jaime, the bride: We met on OKCupid in San Francisco when we were both working in the start up scene.

A Pronovias Bride for an Interfaith Jewish Jamaican Wedding at Tewin Bury Barn, UK

10/04/2020 by Karen Cinnamon

We’re always curious to see what Jewish wedding vendors at the top of their game choose to do for their own weddings. So naturally we were pretty excited for today’s wedding. You see, beautiful bride Sarah-Louise is the rockstar bridal hair stylist behind Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Hair by SLO! She’s long been a favorite among our UK brides – you can see all her gorgeous weddings hair styles we’ve featured here – and her incredible interfaith Jewish-Jamaican (or Jew-maican!) wedding to groom Nathan is everything we could’ve hoped for and more.

Right off the bat, these two knew merging their backgrounds would be priority #1. Sarah-Louise is Jewish, while Nathan is a Christian pastor’s son – and every single detail of their ceremony reflected that.

The ceremony was under a chuppah, with the groom’s father officiating – along with a group of gospel singers all made up of Nathan’s relatives! Sarah-Louise circled Nathan 7 times, smashed the glass, and walked in to Hebrew singing.

Needless to say, the vendor lineup these two put together was pretty stellar. With simple, beautiful invitations from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Papier, exquisite hair styling handled by three amazing hairdressers who were all the bride’s former assistants, emotion-filled photography by Harry Michael, the most moving videography by mega-talented videographer Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Denee Motion – seriously, don’t miss their wedding trailer – and music by Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor XS Showband, who worked with the couple to choose the perfect lineup of garage, Motown, and beyond to keep their guests on the dancefloor all night long.

Now over to the bride, who totally rocked her gown by Pronovias…

A Countryside Venue

Sarah-Louise, the bride: We got married at Tewin Bury Farm in the Meadow Barn. We chose this venue because it was really important to us to have a venue where our guests could stay and a suite large enough where I could get ready in – I’m a bridal hair dresser so the morning and getting ready part was very important to me. We didn’t want a venue I had worked in before so that it felt special and different for me.

Getting Started

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How we met

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A Countryside Venue

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