Ideas for Non-Religious Ceremony-Jewish/Episcopalian?

golfrgal

Neither FI nor I are particularly religious, so we aren't planning on having a rabbi or minister, but a non-denominational officiant and ceremony. 

Would like to possibly incorporate certain traditions (breaking glass, ketubah, chuppah).  Don't know what goes on at Episcopalian weddings...

Any ideas for ceremony content that isn't religious, but may have nice meaning?

 

Magdala9

Initially, I thought of a non religious ceremony but there were ceremony elements that I wanted to include that were definitely religious.  

Anita Diamant wrote a great book called the New Jewish Wedding.  My copy has been passed on to the next bride blending traditions.  This book explained the thought behind the traditions.  Many of the traditions in Jewish and Christian ceremonies blend nicely because the religions share many commonalities.    I was pulling from the Martha Stewart book and the Emily Post New wedding Handbook for some of the Christian pieces of our blended service. 

As a bride who went through this, I recommend a long program explaining the traditions and wordings used.  This helped to show our families the thought that we put into our ceremony. 

Juliet212

As the PP said, I went to the literature. I got a book called Celebrating Interfaith Marriages Creating your Jewish/Christian Ceremony by Rabbi Devon A. Lerner.
I am Catholic and my FI is Jewish... we did want religious overtones in our reception but equally important to both faiths, but not too religious.

This book is giving us many options and perfect explanations. We are having both a Priest and a Rabbi perform our ceremony and we expressed how important it was to explain everything that was happening for both religious for our guests. I think it makes a more meaningful ceremony that way.

Good Luck!

RoMy215

I was raised Jewish (although now consider myself more Jew...ish) and hubby is Panamanian / raised Christian. We did not want religion in our ceremony but there were parts of some Jewish weddings we'd been to together we really liked. We asked my brother-in-law to perform the ceremony (in California you can get ordained online and perform a wedding ceremony). So that was the first step to insure our ceremony would be exactly what WE wanted and not what someone else said it had to be; in addition to being something really special and meaningful for us.
Then I did a bunch of research and talked to MIL to see if there were any Panamanian wedding traditions/customs....turned out there weren't any. Sooo we had a friend read Apache Wedding Blessing, dh stepped on a glass with this explanation: "The breaking of the glass reminds us that even in moments of ultimate joy, we recall the losses suffered by our families and friends. The glass, a symbol of the frailty of life, is broken with an implied prayer, as this iglass shatters, so may our marriage never break.". We thought about doing a huppah, and though we ran out of money, we were also trying to be careful about how many things we did. After you start incorporating too many elements of one faith, it takes on a certain tone. So just keep that in mind if you're trying to avoid making it a Jewish ceremony.
Anolther idea - one of my sister's friends (who is not Jewish) liked the idea of having a really pretty keepsake marriage certificate to display in their home. So she had something like a ketubah done that they signed and made part of the ceremony.

heinz11msw

Instead of doing bible readings we are having some nice readings by "good people". One is with Mother Theresa and it is about loving one another. You could do stuff like that,

golfrgal

We ended up hiring an ordained Civil Celebrant, so no particular religion will be heavily focused upon, nor any scripture read.  He has written a beautiful personalized ceremony (I started crying just reading a copy of it at my desk!) consisting of various readings (one is the second, less-known verse of Apache prayer), poems, sprinkled with a few Jewish traditions (stepping on glass, a secular "ketubah" marriage contract, and a non-religious sipping of the wine), and even an orchid blossom ceremony so I can call up my best friends since they are not part of the BP.  I'm really looking forward to it!  Nobody I know has had a ceremony like this.