Choosing Your Rabbi
You might have a rabbi that you know well, that you have grown up with or studied from as an adult, or you might not have a strong connection to any rabbi. In either case you will need a rabbi, a misader kiddushin (literally, one who puts the wedding ceremony in order), to perform your wedding. In addition to actually facilitating your wedding ceremony, the rabbi you choose should be available as a resource for you in the planning process. Your rabbi can be a valuable counselor to help you and your fiancé with matters of disagreement and difficulty and will also help you make the ceremony meaningful and personal.
Where to Find a Rabbi
It is best to look for a rabbi to whom you relate well and one with whom you can have an ongoing connection even after your wedding. If your family belongs to a congregation and you have grown up with the rabbi or know the rabbi and feel comfortable with him, you could consider using him for your wedding. Since most rabbis will want to meet with you and your fiancé several times, you may want to weigh using your family's rabbi with your accessibility to him. Many rabbis will meet with a couple as little as two or three times, but some may want as many as ten or more meetings.
My friend says she can become a certified wedding officiate for a day and perform our ceremony. Should we say yes?
Though there are states in which one can become certified for a day to do a wedding, you would miss out on all the Jewish traditions a rabbi can guide you through and the professional help she can offer with any issues of conflict.
Your rabbi should be more than just someone to perform the ceremony. The rabbi should be someone you feel comfortable with as a person, a guide, and a teacher. This is important since usually rabbis will want to discuss fairly personal things with you and your future spouse prior to the wedding. The premarital meetings most rabbis have with couples should cover at least three major topics: the couple's relationship, the couple's Jewish life and the Jewish home they will build together, and the structure of the wedding itself.
If you don't have a rabbi with whom you have established a relationship, look around for one whose personality and style of doing things appeals to you. It is good to have the rabbi for your wedding be someone you can call even after your wedding with questions about the Jewish home and family. If the rabbi is someone who lives near you, so much the better.
In most states any recognized clergy person can perform a wedding that the state will recognize. Some states require the clergy member to register in advance with the state or city. You should check into this well before the wedding and alert the rabbi of the municipality's requirements.
Obviously, you can look for a rabbi at a local congregation, but different congregations may have different policies about whether their rabbis can perform a wedding for people who are not members of the congregation. Sometimes the rabbi's fee may be higher for a nonmember since the cost of marriage fees may be included in a synagogue's membership dues.
If you recently graduated from college and have a relationship with a rabbi from your college campus Hillel, Chabad, or other Jewish campus organization, this may be a good place to look for a rabbi to perform your wedding. Of course, if you are getting married in your hometown and you have a relationship with the rabbi of your parents' congregation, this could be an obvious choice.
Questions for the Rabbi, Questions for You
If you do not have an obvious choice of rabbi and you are “shopping” for one, you should feel free to call rabbis, tell them you are looking for someone to facilitate your wedding, and arrange a meeting. Meeting with a rabbi to get a sense of his personality, whether you click with him, and to find out about his wedding style does not obligate you to use him as your misader kiddushin.
After you have verified that the rabbi will be available on your planned wedding date, find out if the rabbi's denomination and requirements fit you and see if you like her personality and style. If you are planning a nontraditional wedding, ask her what her Jewish wedding requirements are. If you want a more traditional Jewish wedding, see if she has the background and training to facilitate your vision. Discuss with your fiancé whether you would both be comfortable asking this rabbi for advice or assistance in case of bumps in your relationship.
Questions to ask a potential rabbi include:
When are you available to perform our wedding?
What is your fee?
What are your pre-wedding and wedding ceremony religious requirements?
How many pre-wedding meetings would you have with us?
What would the meetings consist of?
What are your limits or requirements for involving friends and relatives in the ceremony?
Would you be available and willing to meet with our families and answer their questions?
The Bible commands that if a woman's husband dies childless and the husband has a brother, the brother, though usually forbidden to her, must either offer to marry her in levirate marriage to keep the deceased brother's name alive, or perform a fairly simple ceremony called chalitza. Today only chalitza is done. Some rabbis will want to know that this ceremony was performed before agreeing to perform a second marriage to a new spouse.
Most rabbis will also ask you several questions at your initial meeting. If the rabbi is Orthodox, Traditional, or Conservative, one of the first questions they will want to know is whether either of you, your parents, or even your grandparents were ever divorced. If you were previously married to a Jewish person and subsequently divorced, he will want to be sure you obtained a religious divorce (a get). In many cases, remarrying without a Jewish divorce would be tantamount to adultery, since you would still be technically married to your previous spouse.
If the rabbi performing your wedding does not perform interfaith marriages she will also ask if you are both Jewish. If you are, she will want to know if either of you or your parents or grandparents has converted to Judaism. If the answer is yes the rabbi will probably want to know who was in charge of the conversion and how it was accomplished.
