Wedding Blog

I write this post not to talk about religion itself, which I acknowledge to be a very personal thing and not open to criticism, in my opinion, but simply to share my experience planning an interfaith wedding, in case there are any other readers in my same boat.

I’m lucky enough to have an incredibly supporting family, even aside from all other issues with my father, and one that is a bit all over the map when it comes to religion.

My three older siblings and I were raised Catholic (my two younger siblings were not brought up under any religious situation); we lived in Spain, a predominantly Catholic country and all went to Catholic schools.

As adults, we’ve all taken the different paths that have “spoken” to us. My oldest brother, who lives in Spain, still identifies as a Catholic, my older sister and her family are Christian fundamentalists, my other brother is an atheist, as is my father, though slash agnostic and my mother is what I would just call “spiritual.” And me? I converted to Judaism about 4 to 5 years back.

I have heard/read that many converts experience difficulties with their families: my own experience could not have been more different. Everyone in my family was incredibly supportive. The first year after my conversion, my mother, not really knowing the customs, gave me a gift for Rosh Hashanah. My father at another point gave me a flag of Israel. My sister’s children send me, for the holidays, their drawings of dreidels and menorahs. Because I know this is not the typical experience, I know that I am lucky.

That luck is doubled by the fact that Mr. Petunia’s family is incredibly welcoming as well. His mother was raised Catholic and would still label herself that way, but Mr. Petunia’s stepfather is also Jewish, and it’s nice to have that in common, because the one thing that IS difficult about being a convert is that I am often “alone” in a religion that is all about community.

Also, Mr. Petunia is not Jewish. He is not at all religious. In some ways, that makes it easier, because we don’t disagree about fundamental issues like how we are going to raise our children, if and when we have them. Because he knows he’s not religious, but I am, he is fine with honoring my beliefs and the way I hope to raise a family with him.

Our religious differences do have an impact on our wedding though and we are juggling with what we can and can’t (or will or won’t) incorporate.

We first decided to have only a civil ceremony and not a religious one. Although I would have wanted one, 1. I would have had to be able to find a rabbi comfortable with officiating an interfaith marriage (it is possible, I know) and 2. I would have been putting Mr. Petunia in a position to say things that he did not entirely himself believe — I was not comfortable with this.

We did choose to have a Sunday wedding, rather than a Friday night or Saturday one, so that we wouldn’t get married on Shabbat. We could have had a very late Saturday reception, but we preferred having a morning/midday party anyway, so that worked out.

I am working with my florist to see about using a chuppah, and we’re looking into interfaith ketubahs (or marriage contracts).

I guess I also imagined someone saying Hamotzi, the blessing over bread, before our guests and we sit down to eat, but I am unsure about who to ask to do this. As silly as this may seem, I would also love to dance the horah, but I am not sure that our guests would know what to do, since most are from my side of the family and not Jewish, and being relatively new to things as well, I’m not sure I could lead anyone in doing it myself! Even with the ketubah, we’d have to work out how the entire ritual of it goes, since there may not be very many of us who know what to really do.

All in all, I know that what really matters is that I am marrying a man who loves me and accepts me as I am, that our friends and families will share that marriage with us by being guests at our wedding and that I firmly believe we will have support all around us for whatever our future holds, too.

The planning of an interfaith wedding is tricky and being novices at it, I’m sure we’ll make some technical mistakes, but I hope not to think of them as mistakes per se, and to do our best to enjoy and have fun at our wedding, which is the best way I can think of to celebrate our love.

I wish only the best for other interfaith brides out there and hope that their experiences were/will be as positive as mine seems to be, at least thus far, and for anyone struggling, hang in there!