The Importance of Explanations
If your fiancée or her family is not from a Jewish background or from as Jewishly knowledgeable a background as you or your family, one of the most important things you can do is provide explanations. Consider borrowing a Jewish wedding video that will be similar to your own wedding to show them. Open up for discussion which parts of the wedding were unfamiliar or may make them uncomfortable. If some of your guests have never attended a Jewish wedding before or have not attended a traditional one, do not assume they will know anything about the steps involved in the ceremony and reception or about the traditions and their meanings.
Write a detailed booklet of explanations, but also talk with your rabbi about what parts of the ceremony you would like to make sure are carefully explained. Give the rabbi a good sense of who will be at your wedding and how diverse the crowd will be in their knowledge and background of Jewish practice. Ask the rabbi if he has done Jewish weddings at which many in the audience were not familiar with Jewish practices. Get a sense of how comfortable the rabbi will be explaining all the steps and traditions and their meaning as the ceremony progresses. Your wedding will not only be a meaningful moment for you but an educational and enlightening experience for your family members and guests.
In some ways, planning a big public party for all your friends is a good first thing to do as a couple since it will bring out many issues between you. Though a wedding seems like a very hard event around which to find common ground, peace, and compromise, this skill will be important all through your marriage and especially when raising children.
Take time with your fiancée and her family to read about and discuss the different Jewish traditions involved in a wedding ceremony. If members of the family are worried that your wedding is going to be too Jewish, foreign, and confusing, use explanations as a way to include everyone.
Another way to deal with religious or cultural differences in a Jewish wedding is to read parts of the wedding ceremony in English rather than or in addition to the original Hebrew. If your ketubah has both a Hebrew or Aramaic and English section, you could opt to read only the English section or vows written by you and your fiancé entirely in place of the Hebrew reading.
