Mixed Marriage

My fiance is Jewish and I am not. Any advice?

We have a daughter whose husband is Jewish and she is not. They structured the ceremony (in 1998) to include a bit of both traditions. Married under the canopy, breaking the glass, married by a rabbi (outside) etc. They now have two children and are doing wonderfully well and both families get along great.

It's important to discuss the role religion will play in your lives, now and when you have children. Our grandsons gets both the Jewish holidays and the Christian ones - although young, in a few years they will surely have religious questions that will need answers.

Now to the planning:

Start looking for an officiant who will perform interfaith marriages. Some Rabbi's will, but many will not. The Unitarian church is one place that will perform interfaith weddings for non-members and encourages couples to design a service that reflects both of their traditions. There are also numbers of "freelance" clergy who will perform this type of ceremony anywhere.

You could have an outside wedding somewhere which works well for mixed religions, or a civil ceremony in a public office.

You could choose one religious ceremony over the other, which could work if one of you has strong religious ties and the other doesn't. You could have a secondary cleric of your choice to offer a special prayer or offer a blessing during the service or reception.

If you both have strong religious beliefs (or your families do), you may want to have 2 ceremonies, or 1 main ceremony and then a "blessing of the marriage ceremony (the same day or shortly thereafter), similar to the first, but without the exchange of rings again.

Talk with both families about how they feel about various traditions in weddings that they feel strongly about. This could avoid problems when the time comes.

The Advice section of EZWeddingPlanner has a "Jewish Weddings topic that deals with lots of details of that side. There are also other topics here that may help you.

There are several good books that talk about inter-faith marriages - check them out at your local library - "The New Jewish Wedding" by Anita Diamant and there's one with ceremony details called "The Children of Noah" by Rabbi Rebecca Alpert, Rabbi Linda Holtzman and Arthur Waskow.

Good luck,