Modern or Traditional?
Traditionally, the bride and her mother, with limited input from the groom's side, planned the wedding. Today, many couples get married later in life and the couple themselves may find that they are doing much of the wedding planning as a team.
Wedding planning can be a very stressful process. Bride and groom meet each other and want to get married and be together forever, a seemingly simple and beautiful proposition. However, even though you love each other and get along, you may be coming from very different families that sometimes have very different ideas about how a wedding should look and feel.
If your wedding is to be large, consider hiring a wedding planner to help deal with many of the details and relieve some of the pressure on you and your families. The presence of a professional third party can also help you avoid some of the potential conflicts that can erupt between family members with regard to wedding details, preferences, and traditions.
There are many style and detail decisions to be made in planning your wedding. How formal or informal it will be, how large or small, where and when it will be, who will perform it and how — the decisions can go on and on. You will have to decide to what extent you want your wedding to reflect the more traditional aspects of a Jewish wedding. So many of the Jewish traditions associated with weddings hold great religious and mystical depth and will serve to make your wedding day — and the relationship it symbolizes — powerful, meaningful, and sacred. At the same time, there are many traditions that are less essential and more flexible.
For instance, traditionally many of the ceremonial parts of a Jewish wedding were performed by men. However, even within traditional Jewish law, many of these blessings, readings, and rights may be facilitated by women. Indeed, many aspects of a Jewish wedding may be easily altered to retain their traditional Jewish flavor and allegiance to Jewish law, while including modern ideas and ritual aspects such as gender inclusivity and friends or relatives who may not be Jewish.
Toward the beginning of the wedding planning process, after reading about and becoming familiar with the various aspects of a Jewish wedding, it is wise for the couple and their families to think through and discuss the various aspects and stages of the wedding. This should then be discussed with the rabbi since different rabbis, synagogues, and temples may have varied requirements with regard to Jewish law and tradition.
