Jewish Weddings

Jewish weddings have their own rituals and history. Given that most of you are probably unfamiliar with Jewish weddings, the following pages will attempt to describe the main elements. Most of the information on this page is taken from The New Jewish Wedding by Anita Diamante.

Our officiating rabbi is Micah Citrin, a junior rabbi at Beth Am. He was still a rabbinical student when we took a class with him. As he likes to remind us, he doesn’t have to officiate: The rabbi does not marry the couple, the couple marries each other. A rabbi is not necessary according to Hebrew law. But, we like him, and officiants ARE necessary according to the laws of the state of California.

We will have some readings throughout the ceremony, and the rabbi will speak briefly. Both of these are pretty typical of weddings, so we won't go into detail about them here.

Another note: Modern Jewish weddings are a single ceremony combining the ancient betrothal and wedding ceremonies. In the old days, these ceremonies took place a year or more apart.

Each of the links below leads to a page describing different wedding elements we're incorporating into our ceremony.