Weddingbee Blog

wow! how gorgeous are you! how happy you two are!

i just love the pictures of you giggling

I hope this is not too personal - but I was wondering if you and Mr. Firefly are both Jewish (I noticed when you were talking about the ketubah that there were many non-traditional aspects of your wedding). I only ask because my FI is not Jewish and I am, and I am. He doesn’t care much about the officiant, but is not at all religious and doesn’t want it to be “too religious” and I want some Jewish aspects. Anyway, was just interested in the cantor you used and how flexible he was, the traditions you kept, and how you made these decisions.

Also, I still loooooooooooove you in your dress

Hi Jib — Yes, both mr. firefly and I are jewish, but neither of us is very religious.

We wanted to have the wedding on a saturday *evening* (i.e. pre-sunset), so we looked at rabbis/cantors that were very liberal. Cantor Abelson was great; he read from the bible, we drank from the kiddush cup, broke the glass (no good pics;-( ), etc. but the ceremony wasn’t very religous otherwise. He suggested the poem from pablo neruda and didn’t mind at all that my cousin read from dr. seuss (as apposed to a biblical reading). My guess is that Cantor Abelson would be open to doing interfaith weddings, but it never hurts to ask.

Are you in NYC? There are plenty of jewish officiants who specialize in interfaith ceremonies. My sister’s husband is catholic and they had the best ceremony ever. They had both a rabbi and priest. The rabbi — marcia rappaport, was totally kooky (she used to be a lounge singer) and the priest had the cutest irish accent. The ceremony had religous aspects, but obviously wasn’t overly religous. They also used an interfaith kettubah (which is pretty easy to find these days, but was more difficult when she was getting married 6 years ago). I think Rabbi Burt Seigal is the big interfaith rabbi…

Let me know if you need more info!

Mrs. Firefly

awwww!!! you look SOOO happy. *tear* its just all so picture perfect. i love how everything came together! the planning paid off big time!

Awwww. So cute! The giggling photos are great.

Hi Josie —

Last year (2005) there was construction in Battery Park, just to the north of Battery Gardens. I was really nervous about it, but BG assured me that it would be done by Sprin 2006. I haven’t been down to Battery Park since the wedding, but back in June, the construction was on Battery Place — the street just outside of Battery Park.

Although the construction made getting to BG a bit of a pain (I was going down there often in the week or two before the wedding), you couldn’t see or hear the construction from the restaurant or its vicinity. I’ll be posting photos in the park in a day or so; the park looked beautiful.

Our invite time was 5:30 and the ceremony was scheduled to start shortly before 6:00pm. All of our guests were there well before the ceremony started, but you might want to build in a little bit of time just in case some guests get lost.

mrs. firefly

The Western custom of a bride wearing a white wedding dress came to symbolize purity in the Victorian era, not virginity. Within the “white wedding” tradition, a white dress and veil is not considered appropriate in the second or subsequent wedding of a widow or divorcee. The specific conventions of Western weddings, largely from a Protestant and Catholic viewpoint, are discussed at “white wedding”.

Thanks for this article,

andamios