Meeting Officiant!

lacqueredlover

OK I asked about this on the ceremony board but no one is answering!

We are meeting a possible officiant tonight which I am super excited about.  She sounds awesome (performed my moms friends kids weddings.)  I've never met with an officiant before so I have no clue what to expect.  Any tips?  What should we ask?  (We already know our timing issue isn't a problem for her)

holyguacamole79

Do you know what you & FI want in a ceremony? Or are you looking for the officiant to tell you what he / she proposes?

sarawifenow

I would be prepared to talk about you and your FI, the type of relationship you have, where you met, the type of ceremony you are looking for, etc. Our officiant basically had us tell him our story and then we went through what we were looking for in a ceremony. It was wonderful.

blabla89

I would start by asking how she normally prepares for weddings. Does she offer a customized ceremony? Can she provide samples? How many times will she meet with you before the wedding? Is she available for the rehearsal?

I think the biggest thing is just to get a feel for her and whether you're comfortable with her, so try to get to know a little bit about her personally.

lacqueredlover

holyguacamole79 said:

Do you know what you & FI want in a ceremony? Or are you looking for the officiant to tell you what he / she proposes?

Kind of both?  We want it to be very "jewish light" as we are both super reform jews.  We want the bits of tradition but it to be mostly in English and we definitely want us and our relationship to come through, not just a cookie cutter ceremony.  However we are definitely looking for guidance too as we've never really been to a ceremony like what we want, usually they are just completely secular or much more religious.

JennyColada

Our first meeting with our officiant was a lot of getting to know you stuff. Since she'd obviously officiated weddings before we kind of just followed her lead. She was very helpful in guiding us in terms of questions and figuring out what we want and stuff.

holyguacamole79

lacqueredlover said:

holyguacamole79 said:

Do you know what you & FI want in a ceremony? Or are you looking for the officiant to tell you what he / she proposes?

Kind of both?  We want it to be very "jewish light" as we are both super reform jews.  We want the bits of tradition but it to be mostly in English and we definitely want us and our relationship to come through, not just a cookie cutter ceremony.  However we are definitely looking for guidance too as we've never really been to a ceremony like what we want, usually they are just completely secular or much more religious.


I bet he / she will appreciate that you already have ideas and a vision and will hopefully have suggestions of ideas.

lilacck28

lacqueredlover said:

holyguacamole79 said:

Do you know what you & FI want in a ceremony? Or are you looking for the officiant to tell you what he / she proposes?

Kind of both?  We want it to be very "jewish light" as we are both super reform jews.  We want the bits of tradition but it to be mostly in English and we definitely want us and our relationship to come through, not just a cookie cutter ceremony.  However we are definitely looking for guidance too as we've never really been to a ceremony like what we want, usually they are just completely secular or much more religious.

This was what FI and I wanted. We only ended up meeting with one Rabbi. We talked on the phone to another, but he seemed weird. Tried to sell us on an apartment. (wtf??)

The one we went with was the Rabbi from when I went to temple for that one year when I was 8 haha. He was nice. He gave us pie. We told him about our relationship, he took down notes. He showed us programs that other couples he had performed the ceremony for had made, he showed us the Ketubah he would give us, talked about things we should ask each other before getting married (like, will we have a tv in the bedroom. He said he couldn't be married to his wife without at tv. It was funny.) He also ran through the things we would need for a ceremony (chuppah, small table, wine cup)

Then he basically ran through most of the ceremony with FI and I . FI was very serious and almost choked up, I felt super giggly. I wasn't expecting to say the vows and everything (simple vows in hebrew and then in English). But doing so made for  a nice moment,made getting married feel more real. There were more references to God then I would have necessarily liked (agnostic, cultural Jew here), and the Rabbi said he was going to chant in Hebrew for 4 minutes, but I figured... that's why we're getting a Rabbi. It's going to have God and Jewish stuff in it. But there were no statements that actively bugged me, and based on what he described it didn't seem like too much to me.


I don't know if that helps?

lacqueredlover

lilacck28 said:

lacqueredlover said:

holyguacamole79 said:

Do you know what you & FI want in a ceremony? Or are you looking for the officiant to tell you what he / she proposes?

Kind of both?  We want it to be very "jewish light" as we are both super reform jews.  We want the bits of tradition but it to be mostly in English and we definitely want us and our relationship to come through, not just a cookie cutter ceremony.  However we are definitely looking for guidance too as we've never really been to a ceremony like what we want, usually they are just completely secular or much more religious.

This was what FI and I wanted. We only ended up meeting with one Rabbi. We talked on the phone to another, but he seemed weird. Tried to sell us on an apartment. (wtf??)

The one we went with was the Rabbi from when I went to temple for that one year when I was 8 haha. He was nice. He gave us pie. We told him about our relationship, he took down notes. He showed us programs that other couples he had performed the ceremony for had made, he showed us the Ketubah he would give us, talked about things we should ask each other before getting married (like, will we have a tv in the bedroom. He said he couldn't be married to his wife without at tv. It was funny.) He also ran through the things we would need for a ceremony (chuppah, small table, wine cup)

Then he basically ran through most of the ceremony with FI and I . FI was very serious and almost choked up, I felt super giggly. I wasn't expecting to say the vows and everything (simple vows in hebrew and then in English). But doing so made for  a nice moment,made getting married feel more real. There were more references to God then I would have necessarily liked (agnostic, cultural Jew here), and the Rabbi said he was going to chant in Hebrew for 4 minutes, but I figured... that's why we're getting a Rabbi. It's going to have God and Jewish stuff in it. But there were no statements that actively bugged me, and based on what he described it didn't seem like too much to me.


I don't know if that helps?

The rabbi that bat mitzvah'd me wouldnt' perform our ceremony because it's too early.  We are very much culturally Jewish, not religious, and I grew up super reform, plus he performs interfaith marriages so it surprised me.  Our wedding it an hour and 45 mins before sundown due to us wanting his kids to be at our entire wedding and our venue plus having an outdoor ceremony if possible so I"m happy this Cantor is like us and doesn't care.

this was super helpful, thank you!  

lilacck28

Yeah, we had a hard time finding a Rabbi because, oops!, we picked a Jewish Holiday I had never heard of to get married on. The ones that would do it are all pricey ($900!) but also obvioulsy not so religious or stuffy that they would refuse to marry us, so that made me feel better. My parents' wedding got "hijacked" by an overly religious rabbi. They still complain about it. I definitely wanted to avoid that.

lacqueredlover

lilacck28 said:

Yeah, we had a hard time finding a Rabbi because, oops!, we picked a Jewish Holiday I had never heard of to get married on. The ones that would do it are all pricey ($900!) but also obvioulsy not so religious or stuffy that they would refuse to marry us, so that made me feel better. My parents' wedding got "hijacked" by an overly religious rabbi. They still complain about it. I definitely wanted to avoid that.

Yeah this lady sounds awesome, she was a holocaust survivor that was taken in by a French Catholic family, she plays the guitar, just seems like a cool lady!

lilacck28

lacqueredlover said:

lilacck28 said:

Yeah, we had a hard time finding a Rabbi because, oops!, we picked a Jewish Holiday I had never heard of to get married on. The ones that would do it are all pricey ($900!) but also obvioulsy not so religious or stuffy that they would refuse to marry us, so that made me feel better. My parents' wedding got "hijacked" by an overly religious rabbi. They still complain about it. I definitely wanted to avoid that.

Yeah this lady sounds awesome, she was a holocaust survivor that was taken in by a French Catholic family, she plays the guitar, just seems like a cool lady!

yay! That sounds great! Good luck!

lilacck28

Our Rabbi kind of makes me think that he would be a good character on Rugrats. Haha.