Creating your interfaith wedding ceremony can feel like a huge challenge. Unlike couples from the same religion, you cannot just use a standard ceremony and be done with it. You need to create a new ceremony that is relevant to both of your traditions. While it can feel overwhelming, this challenge is really an opportunity to create something that truly symbolizes the unique personality of your love and marriage.

The simplest way to create an interfaith ceremony is to start with a basic wedding structure and embellish it with traditions you both hold most important. Both partners should write down everything they think should be in the wedding — every tradition that feels necessary. They should then go through their individual lists and explain the meaning of each item to each other. This is especially important for religious traditions that your partner may know little or nothing about. Try to explain why each tradition feels personally important to you, avoiding generalities like “it’s always been done this way”, or “I just like it”. The more you can explain, the better you will both understand each other, and the better your ceremony will become.

As you describe your ideal wedding to each other, you will begin to combine ideas, finding areas of agreement and disagreement. You will begin to learn what traditions are important to you as individuals, and as a couple. When my wife and I did this, we discovered that some traditions we originally considered essential really had no meaning to us once we tried to explain them, while other little-known traditions suddenly felt very important. So be ready to talk, compromise, and learn how to balance each others needs, concerns and ideas.

Eventually, you’ll begin to whittle down your long list of ideas into a workable ceremony. When my wife and I planned our wedding, we ended up combined different aspects of the Jewish and Catholic wedding traditions. We had two friends sing a modern version of the Seven Blessings. Another friend read a translation I wrote of the popular “Love is patient, love is kind” passage from Corinthians. We stood under a huppah as my cousin the priest and our rabbi both gave their blessings. I fell in love with the Jewish tradition of the ketubah, and being an artist, decided to make one for us, which the rabbi then read to our families. We lit a unity candle, then stomped a glass. Some might find this kind of ceremony a little crazy or inauthentic, but we loved it and it fit us perfectly. It wasn’t a Jewish wedding or a Catholic wedding — it was our wedding.

Our crazy combined ceremony worked to bring our two families together in a beautiful and special way. Each side could relate to part of the ceremony, and also share the experience of something new. We explained the traditions throughout the ceremony, in simple terms, so that everyone could appreciate the parts they weren’t familiar with. And in the end, our families loved it as much as we did. It let us honor our religions and families while defining our own newly combined values, and began to establish what it would mean to live together as an interfaith couple.

Daniel Sroka is a fine art nature photographer and the owner of Modern Ketubah. He creates modern fine art wedding ketubahs from his abstract photographs of flowers and leaves for interfaith, Jewish, and multi-cultural couples.  He also writes a blog about his experiences as a full-time artist.

The Beauty of Creating your own Interfaith Wedding Ceremony

Interfaith weddings can be the most beautiful of wedding ceremonies. Of course, being in an interfaith marriage myself, I may be biased! But when interfaith weddings combine the traditions and practices of both the bride and groom, I find that they become something special, transcending rote ceremony and becoming a uniquely personal celebration.

The way an interfaith ceremony gets created is the key to its beauty. Couples who are from the same religion can pretty much take their ceremony for granted. They can visit their priest or rabbi, get the template, make a few tweaks, and know they’ll have a 100% legit ceremony. Interfaith couples, on the other hand, don’t have this luxury. They have to creatively blend together the different parts of their traditions to craft a working ceremony.

The challenge of creating a ceremony often makes interfaith couples nervous and full of questions. How do you do it? How do you make it feel “real” enough? Will any of the relatives feel left out? But even though these questions can be nerve-wracking, they are the foundation of what makes an interfaith ceremony so special. Because interfaith couples can’t just take an off-the-shelf ceremony and call it a day, they need to think through every aspect of their wedding, considering every detail. This, I believe, results in a very meaningful and powerful ceremony.

In order to combine two different wedding ceremonies, interfaith couples have to review all of the practices within their religions’ ceremonies, and decide what to keep, what to change, and what to leave out. To do this, they first need to help each other learn, teaching each other about their religion’s traditions, symbols, and ideas about marriage. As my wife and I planned our own ceremony, we didn’t just learn about each other’s religion – we rediscovered our own, often surprising ourselves with what really mattered to us and what didn’t. We then went through each wedding tradition, discussed it, and decided if we wanted to include it in our ceremony, and how. Each part of our wedding was therefore a conscious choice. Each part of our wedding was born out of a deep discussion, and reflected a shared value.

The creation of the ceremony helped teach us how to discuss our differences, and find our similarities. Explaining the ceremony to our families helped us better understand our decisions and values. Even the experience of being a part of this blended, shared ceremony helped bring our families closer together. So while creating an interfaith wedding ceremony can take a lot of thought and planning, I believe it is worth it, because your wedding becomes a celebration that truly represents who you are.

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Daniel Sroka is a fine art nature photographer and the owner of Modern Ketubah. He creates modern fine art wedding ketubahs from his abstract photographs of flowers and leaves for interfaith, Jewish, and multi-cultural couples. He also writes the blog Open Studio about his experiences as a full-time artist/entrepreneur.

Planning a Wedding: Where to Start

Newly engaged? Congratulations! You’re sporting a gorgeous new ring and a huge smile.  Now what?

The Road to a Wedding

If you’re a little confused about where to start with your wedding planning, it’s no wonder. This could be your first wedding (or at least your first in a long time) and you don’t do this every day. Planning is a major investment in terms of time and money, and can be intimidating.  Consider wedding planning a process, and take it in little steps.

The First Steps

Get organized. Buy yourself a great wedding notebook. Some come with the tabs pre-labeled and pockets for things like receipts and business cards. Also, if you are going to consider a wedding planner, the most valuable time to get one involved is before you’ve done anything irreversible. They can save you time and mistakes.

Prioritize. This step sounds so simple but is incredibly valuable to the planning process and should not be skipped. Make a list of every possible category of services you could use at a wedding, from baker to transportation. Give the list to each person whose opinion truly matters (that’s you, your fiancé, and any parent or family member who is contributing a significant amount of cash).

Each of you should rank, from highest to lowest, how important each category is to you. Then compare lists. If they are vastly different, have a frank discussion about why they mean so much (or so little) to you and try to come up with one family wedding priority list that accurately reflects the combined values.  You will use this list throughout your wedding planning to help make tough decisions. It’s like a mini business plan for your big day.

Set a budget. You don’t necessarily have to break down every single expense just yet, but choose an overall budget. Unless you have limitless cash, you’re going to need to know this before you can legitimately start selecting venues and vendors, so have the talk now and pick a number.

Choose a date. Think carefully about selecting a holiday. It may sound convenient to you, but people like to spend holidays with their families and travel expenses are often higher on holiday weekends.  Also, pay attention to how weather will ultimately impact your plans. Outdoor weddings in the south in August can be pretty painful for guests; same with January weddings in the north.

Choose a location. Factors that determine your venue and even the city or state where you get married could include budget, proximity to family or close friends, features that appeal to your guests and of course, how the site reflects your dream wedding.

Choose your caterer, photographer, videographer and reception entertainer. Why these four next (after your planner and your venues)? Of all of the categories of wedding professionals, these are the four who can only possibly do one wedding per day (except some caterers, but many set limits). There may be others like a high-end wedding designer, or a ceremony musician, but as a general rule, these four are your highest risk for competition. Evaluate them carefully and make your commitments as soon as you are sure.

After you’ve done all of the above, you’re ready to start handling the rest of the details with a little more leisure. Your notebook should have a timeline in it (if it doesn’t come with one, there are plenty online and in wedding magazines) and you should check that timeline weekly to make sure you haven’t missed any big deadlines. With the above complete, you’re in great shape to plan a fantastic wedding day! Congratulations and good luck!

Shayna Walker is a professional wedding planner and owner of Williamsburg Wedding Design. She writes the World According to Weddlady, The Williamsburg Wedding Blog and Life in Weddings.

]]> http://strawberryrd.com/blog/engagement/shayna-walker-on-strawberry-road/feed/ 0 http://strawberryrd.com/blog/news/introducing-guest-blogger-makeup-artist-jennifer-opeka/ http://strawberryrd.com/blog/news/introducing-guest-blogger-makeup-artist-jennifer-opeka/#comments Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:41:51 +0000 Jennie http://strawberryrd.com/blog/?p=507

We are so excited to have Jennifer Opeka as one of our guest bloggers!  Jennifer is going to write a series of articles for us based on eyebrow grooming, make-up for weddings/boudoir and skin care.  Come back next week and check out her first article on brow shaping 101!  Without further ado – here is a little bit about Jennifer’s background.

Jennifer Opeka is a make-up artist and brow specialist with nearly 10 years experience in the fashion, entertainment, and wedding industry. Her skill set includes everything from clean and classic beauty, to edgy and dramatic with an emphasis on weightless yet perfect-looking skin.

Since 2000, she has been perfecting her craft while working with the top industry professionals including Laura Mercier, Trish McEvoy, Jillian Dempsey and Jeannine Lobell. Her years of experience on the celebrity circuit in Los Angeles have landed her backstage at Fashion Week, on-set for TV shows and photo shoots, and in many wedding photo albums across the country.

Based in Boston, Jennifer’s home away from home is Sarra Beauty Studio (840 Summer Street, Boston, 617.269.8999) where she offers make-up lessons, make-up applications and precision brow shaping by appointment. For on-location jobs such as weddings and photo shoots, she may be booked in advance depending on availability (for inquiries please email: jennopeka@gmail.com).

When it comes to applying make-up, Jennifer’s philosophy is simple: create a look that enhances “you” and fits within your own personal style and comfort level. So whether you’re walking down the aisle, the red carpet or going on a very special date, Jen will get you there looking and feeling your absolute best.