Catholic/Jewish Wedding Ceremony With No Clergy - Ideas for Catholic traditions to include?

chloe97

My FI is Jewish and I am Catholic. We are not having a wedding run by clergy or any religious officials, we would like to ask a friend to officiate our ceremony for us. 

We will have a chuppah and  are thinking breaking of the glass and the "Mazel Tov!" exclamation for Jewish traditions and the offering of peace and prayers of the faithful for Catholic traditions. We would want to adapt the Prayers of the Faithful so that they don't end with the "Lord Hear Our Prayer". Anyone have experience with this? Other thoughts I had were lighting the unity candle? Is there anything else that people can suggest based on experience?

Thanks!

jennaandpatrick

Chloe, Mazel Tov and congratulations! My FI is Catholic and I am Jewish, and we are currently trying to find clergy that will help us with an interfaith wedding. I am trying to catch up on all of the discussion board threads regarding this issue on theknot.com, and I came across this website: http://www.interfaithfamily.com//life_cycle/weddings.shtml?rd=2

They seem to have resources that spell out traditions and ideas for what can be included in the ceremony and how to get families involves so everyone feels like they are part of the ceremony. I hope this helps!

Jenna

chloe97

This is fantastic. Thank you!

deec13

Any luck on this? We are also having a Jewish/Catholic interfaith ceremony but it will be officiated by a Rabbi (it was made clear by the groom's mother that a rabbi had to be a part of it, whether it was just a rabbi or a combo of a rabbi and priest, which Catholic priests won't do, hence only the rabbi).

Anyways, since it is being done by a rabbi and the Jewish ceremony has very distinct traditions, I am finding it difficult to balance out the Catholic side of the ceremony, since most Catholic ceremony traditions are based on a Catholic mass. Any thoughts beyond the unity candle (not a huge fan of it and it isn't even a Catholic tradition anyways) would be welcome! I would love to hear what you both did!

chloe97

We actually ended up hiring an officiant who does interfaith weddings. We have not met with him about the wedding, but will relatvely soon. I will post what we end up going with!