Rabbi Gloria

Destination Wedding Rabbi for Jewish, Interfaith, and Same-Sex Weddings

Ceremonies

A Rabbi and a Priest Co-officiate in Basking Ridge, N.J.

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      It was such a pleasure to co-officiate a wonderful interfaith wedding at the Dolce Hotel, in Basking Ridge N.J.   The couple, the bride a Russian Jewish and the groom a Catholic with some Russian blood, came to me many months ago and asked if I would co- officiate with the groom’s father’s priest.  The father of the groom had attended this church for many years, and it was important to have Father Joe present at the ceremony.  I agreed, and right there in my apartment, the four of us set out to create the service. We were able to weave together the unity candle and the Baal Shem Tov’s (father of Hasidism) concept of light.  And when it came time for the Sign of Peace, I spoke about the concept of Shalom, which, of course, means peace in Hebrew, but also involves a spiritual wholeness and peace of mind.

      We combined  “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine” from the Song of Songs, King Solomon, from the Jewish tradition, with the standard vows, “Do you take…..”.  Even the Lord’s Prayer was said in the context of all people’s prayers for peace and well-being.  Father Joe spoke of this sacred prayer to Christianity in the context of the Jewish religion.  Indeed, he was a lively and warm person who was so easy to work with.  The audience and couple responded to our camaraderie and respect for one another.   We were relaxed, comfortable with one another, and respected each other’s part of the service

     The result was a comprehensive and beautiful service that presented the best of both faiths in a loving way.  So many guests stopped us both after the ceremony to say how moved and delighted they were to have woven it together.  It takes work, enthusiasm, and care, but it will be the prototype for more that I will do.

 

Check outDolceBaskingRidgeCatering.com for wonderful service and attention that day that makes it look easy

A Plaza Hotel Wedding: co-officiating a beautiful interfaith wedding!

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       I was on the ferry from Montauk, New York to Block Island, Rhode Island two months ago when a call came into my cell.  A pleasant male voice asked if I was Rabbi Gloria, then told me his interfaith wedding ceremony, planned for just a few short weeks away, was “rabbi-less.”  There was a problem with the rabbi they had formally chosen, and they needed a substitute to co-officiate. Being free on the date of their marriage, I asked the venue. “The Plaza Hotel in New York City,” he replied, “With about 275 people coming in attendance.”
 
Fast forward a week: I met with the couple and their friend Wesley, a Universalist minister who was to co-officiate. The four of us created a beautiful service, and both the bride and Wesley, who were from Taiwan, expressed interest in learning more about Judaism.
 
 
    plaza pic redone
 
I was unprepared for just how intimidating the Plaza Hotel ballroom, where I was to officiate, can be.  It was a product of the early 1900s, with soaring ceilings, beautiful woodwork, intricate detailing, and amazing balconies.  The wedding decorations were incredible.  Candles everywhere, flowers overflowing, and lights illuminating the gold fixtures.  The chupah was located on the stage, and we rehearsed as if it were a Broadway production.  Lights, audio, video; I truly felt like I was beginning my theatrical career.
 
     But then the moment came: the bride and groom were in front of me – a drop-dead gorgeous woman and her handsome groom.  Their warmth and love for one another were so apparent.  I focused on the spiritual service at hand and felt grateful to have been selected to lead it in such a historic, elegant, and magnificent setting.
 
 

A Jewish Interfaith Wedding with a South American Feel

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peru_map
 
A New Jersey couple from different corners of the world met in a restaurant five years ago, and it completely changed their lives.  He was originally from Jersey, on track for a legal career, following in his father’s footsteps.  While living in Washington, D.C., to gain experience before law school, he started working in a restaurant to earn extra money.  He found he loved it and returned to Jersey to begin a career in hospitality.
 
The woman was born and raised in Lima, Peru, where, as long as she can remember, she felt a burning desire to come to America.  She struck out on her own, made it to the States, and ended up working at the restaurant where the groom worked.  The rest is history, as they say.
 
 
 
 
highlawn nj front
 
The venue they chose, pictured above, was in Montclair, called “The High lawn,“ and was set high in the hills with a view of NYC.  General George Washington actually used it as a lookout point during the Revolutionary War.  I created an interfaith service for them, and it was truly magical to witness the participation of her friends and family, who came from Peru for the event.  The ceremony had a wonderful South American feel. Her grandfather was from a remote town in the mountains of Peru, where they still ride donkeys and horses, while here, she is on track to a teaching career in our 21st-century world of technology.
 
nyc skyline
 
 
It was truly a privilege to officiate at this Jewish interfaith wedding. It was a union of two very diverse cultures. What a great moment it was! After he broke the glass, Mazel Tov and Te Feliciato’s was shouted out by all!
 
 
 
 
 

You’re engaged! What now? Here’s Rabbi Gloria’s interfaith wedding guide.

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Congratulations! You have made the big decision; you are getting married! You come from different backgrounds or perhaps different countries. Your family has accepted/made peace with the decision/ empowered you both/ or is very troubled. Pick the option that fits you or add your own. 

Cake, Tasty, Wedding

Interfaith Wedding Guide

Now the search begins. You need an interfaith wedding guide! How do you find an interfaith wedding officiant? As you may or may not know, most synagogue rabbis will not marry an interfaith couple in the synagogue itself. As an independent rabbi in New York City, I know that reform rabbis can, at their discretion, perform the ceremony in an outside venue. Ministers generally have an easier time than Catholic priests, who often need permission to preside outside the church. These are generalizations, and, of course, many New York City officiants don’t fit into these categories.

If you know friends or family who have enjoyed a successful interfaith wedding, you should, of course, ask for recommendations. This is the single best way of knowing who you will work with since the couple is happy with him or her. But if you don’t know anyone from a personal referral, head to the internet.

Armed with your iPhone, iPad, laptop, etc., you start searching the net for interfaith officiants.  It is important to check out their sites carefully, finding out how long they have been officiating, where they were ordained, and of course, what their philosophy on marriage and ceremonies is. Hopefully, you can see pictures of them in action and testimonials. If any of this resonates with you, both of you should email or call the person to have a conversation. That will tell you a lot about the person and also whether you are comfortable with what they say. Are they willing to do a service that is creative and personal to you? Are they comfortable to work with a co-officiant if your fiancé wants the other religion represented as well.

Here are additional questions to keep in mind:

  • Availability? Spring and summer weddings can be a busy time!
  • Do you sense warmth, kindness, connection, spirituality?
  • Experience: how many years has the person performed weddings, and are there good testimonials or references on their site?
  • Does the officiant accurately reflect and support your spiritual ideals and that of your fiancé? Does he or she have experience working with officiants of other faiths?
  • Will he or she meet with you and your fiancé before the wedding day?
  • Will the officiant be flexible with regard to the actual ceremony and focus on creating the ceremony that suits you both perfectly?
  • Is the wedding officiant warm and helpful during your interaction, whether on the phone or by email?
  • Is he or she willing to travel to your wedding location?
  • Is the price in your budget?  Remember you get what you pay for, and this is one of the most important days of your life. You want to be sure you select someone who is a leader; he or she must be warm, kind, helpful, and able to soothe your nerves and support you.

Next step is meeting the person. You should have an emotional connection with the officiant. After all it is your wedding and you want someone who relates to both of you and listens to you. Listen to your heart. There are many people out there so you can interview a few but go with your gut feeling. Make sure you have a contract that itemizes date, time, fee and is signed by both parties. That way your date is reserved during a busy summer wedding season. You should try and meet together a few times to fashion the service and be comfortable that it is respectful to both faiths.

Maldives, Sunset, Wedding, Bride, Tropical, Island

The right interfaith wedding officiant realizes that couples choose interfaith ceremonies for their spiritually inclusive approach. It is a way of rejoicing in our differences and celebrating our communality in an atmosphere of love and respect.  All should come away feeling honored and respected, with his or her uniqueness celebrated.

Try and give yourself as much time before the wedding to do this search. The interfaith ceremony should be the core of your special day and you want to employ the best person for you. All this takes time and some effort on your part but is well worth the time. I have officiated at interfaith weddings the last three years and have helped to make the day magical to many couples.

Happy hunting! And many blessings and great joy to you in your wedded life!

 

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A Snowy Interfaith New York October Wedding

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A wonderful couple came to see me about their fall wedding this past year.  She was of Russian descent, and he was from a Midwestern family with roots in the States.  I learned that at the time, the bride’s parents were married in Russia; they had to do so in secret in a basement.  The government banished religion, and they wanted a Jewish ceremony. They came to this country, and her father is now a violinist with a symphony orchestra.  Her mother is a cultured and very stylish French teacher.

The venue selected was the Metropolitan Building in Long Island City.  It is a turn-of-the-century factory that was renovated, but all original flooring, moldings, and grand ballroom-like spaces were kept intact.  It overlooks the East River.  I especially liked the antique furniture that the owner, a former antique dealer, had placed there.  The bathroom held a claw-footed bathtub, more like a boudoir than a public restroom.

I co-officiated with a priest who is charming and funny.  We worked seamlessly as a team, and at the end of the service, he took my hand, and we walked down the aisle together.  The guests cheered us.   The bride’s violinist father played as the couple circled each other, as is a Jewish custom.  A friend of the couple’s sang the Sheva Brachot in magnificent voice.   It was so wonderful for me to see the bride’s parents’ faces beam with pride at this grand event.  No small basement room wedding, but 150 guests toasting

What made the wedding more dramatic was that on the day of the event, there was a freak NYC snowstorm.  The weather should have been autumn perfect as the trees were in full splendor of oranges and golds.  Instead, a fierce Nor easter blanketed the city with several inches of snow.  I trudged to the affair in winter boots and a heavy ski jacket to protect me from a gale-like wind.  I changed clothes in the antique bathroom and heard guests telling of their adventures getting to the wedding.  Since most of the bride’s parent’s friends were from the West Coast, they hadn’t brought very warm clothes.

So what do Russian people do to celebrate a joyous occasion and keep warm in the winter?  Drink vodka, eat blini, and toast the night away.  We all did just that.  It will be a memorable wedding in many ways.

Same Sex Wedding in Upper Manhattan

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Glasses, Sparkling Wine, Cheers, Sun Set, Evening

A colleague of mine recommended that two women call me to arrange for a same-sex wedding in NYC.  They had such an interesting story.  They had both been previously married and were living in the mountain area of North Carolina.  Their common field of work was speech pathology.  I spoke to each of them, and we started working on the service.  They were raising two boys, 9 and 7, who were going to be the ring bearers.  The 20-something daughter of one of the women was an actress in the city who they decided would read the English version of the Sheva Brachot.  Her boyfriend, an actor, was the videographer.

     As luck would have it, the brother of the bride owned a restaurant in Inwood where a small group of about 20 friends and family assembled.  With Frank Sinatra’s strains in the background, part of the restaurant’s vibe, I conducted a ceremony and declared them Wife and Wife.  They spoke the vows they had written, then broke two glasses, and many tears and laughter were a part of this special service!  

     Before the meal began, we celebrated Shabbat together with candle lighting, prayer over the bread and wine, and I blessed all present. I stayed for a wonderful dinner, and they presented me with a beautiful handicraft made by a craftsman from the town.  As I rode back downtown on the A-train, their warmth and love pervaded me.  

Mazel Tov and Best Wishes to them!

 

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Lovely review from a lovely bride on WeddingWire!

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I co-officiated a wonderful interfaith wedding this fall at the Dolce Hotel, in Basking Ridge, N.J.  Renata, the beautiful bride, wrote me a very nice review in Wedding Wire, and I do appreciate it!

Her words from  Weddingwire.com:“My ceremony was co-officiated by Rabbi Milner, and she did a fantastic job! Rabbi Milner took the time to listen to my now-husband and me and to create a beautiful ceremony for us. I think, by far, the ceremony was the best part of my wedding, and Rabbi Milner helped make it happen! Thank you, Rabbi Milner. I would recommend Rabbi Milner for a co-officiated Jewish ceremony.”

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 Many thanks, Renata!

Here is the blog: It was such a pleasure to co-officiate a wonderful interfaith wedding this past weekend at the Dolce Hotel, in Basking Ridge, N.J.   The couple, the bride a Russian Jewish and the groom a Catholic with some Russian blood, came to me many months ago and asked if I would co- officiate with the groom’s father’s priest.  The father of the groom had attended this church for many years, and it was important to have Father Joe present at the ceremony.  I agreed, and right there in my apartment, the four of us set out to create the service. We were able to weave together the unity candle and the Baal Shem Tov’s (father of Hasidism) concept of light.  And when it came time for the Sign of Peace, I spoke about the concept of Shalom, which, of course, means peace in Hebrew but also involves a spiritual wholeness and peace of mind. READ MORE

It was such a pleasure to co-officiate a wonderful interfaith wedding this past weekend at the Dolce Hotel, in Basking Ridge, N.J. 

 

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A Jewish Fall Fantasy Wedding

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      Two Cornell law school graduates contacted me almost a year ago to plan their Jewish fall fantasy wedding for October this year.  They met at the law school, and both were enamored of fall, particularly beautiful upstate New York, where there is colorful foliage, apple picking, pumpkins, and crisp, clear air.  They planned to have the wedding near Cornell, near the Finger Lakes. 

     We met at their Hoboken apartment, and I was introduced to their dog-child: an adorable Welsh terrier who was to walk down the aisle.

     Since I enjoy destination weddings, I came up the day before their ceremony and helped with the rehearsal.  The groom, from Tennessee, had many relatives there already.  They had rented a lovely house for the family to stay in and rehearsed in the back.  Afterward, the rehearsal dinner reminded me of my own college days, with large amounts of pizza and beer to go around.

     The day of the wedding was unseasonably warm – over 70 degrees – and all the trees glistened in the sun’s rays.  They had picked a venue: TheFountainBleu Inn,, a lovingly restored 1815 country inn with authentic antiques and beautiful grounds.  The wedding was on the grass overlooking a lake.  The chupah and chairs faced the water and a panoply of multicolored trees.  The bride planned every detail of this herself while working at a high-pressure law job in NYC.  How amazing was that?

     When it came time for the bride and groom to do their vows, they prepared speeches about themselves.  The words spoken to each other were so moving and heartfelt that the bride, the groom, and the audience were reduced to tears.  We also did the Hebrew vow from the Song of Solomon.  There were readings, circling in the Jewish tradition, and breaking the glass.  They danced down the aisle after the ceremony and frolicked with their dog on acres of grass.  We were treated to a beautiful sunset  as well.

     I stayed for a wonderful reception.  Lots of dancing and warmth abounded.  The groom danced with his mother to Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” which, for this day in time, it certainly was.  They even treated me to a stay at the Inn on Columbia, , an amazing upscale restored home with an owner who was my personal chef the morning after.  Regretfully, I left to return to NYC.

 

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The pictures above were taken by the wedding’s wonderful photographer, Anna Simonak. Many thanks to her for allowing me to use these shots!

You can see her beautiful work here: Asimonak.smugmug.com

Prospect Park Brooklyn hosts a magical interfaith wedding ceremony

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  A bride contacted me a few months ago about officiating a small interfaith wedding ceremony in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, Labor Day weekend.  The couple had been together for 10 years, engaged for 1 year.  All their family and friends were asking, “So what is taking you so long?”  The time was right, and I met with them in my apartment to plan the service.  The groom was Jamaican, and the bride was Russian Jewish.  The groom was open to an almost entirely Jewish wedding ceremony. 

They lived and played in Brooklyn and loved the park.  I went there a few weeks ago, before the wedding, to look at the site in the park they had picked.  A small clearing overlooking the lake.  Private and quiet.  The park’s rules said you could have no more than 25 people in attendance, so it was an intimate group.

     The hand-held chupah and doing it open air were throwbacks to the traditional Jewish weddings in Europe many centuries ago.  The groom’s sister read the Sheckyanu prayer transliterated, and it was wonderful to see this slight black woman repeating the Hebrew.  All their friends, representing many nations and races,  participated in the Sheva Brachot.  The feeling at that service was one of warmth, inclusiveness, and joy for the couple.  Life in this twenty-first century should only be this wonderful.

     Afterward at the reception in a Williamsburg restaurant overlooking the Manhattan skyline I spent time getting to know their friends and family: a former correction officer at Rikers Island now working as an extra in the movies, a Burmese woman who is a resident in internal medicine at a hospital in Brooklyn, and the photographer, a lively black woman  Michelle Etwaroo was talented and user friendly to the couple and me.  And she was funny!  Instead of saying cheese for the posing, she said Mazel Tov!  Check out her website,  www.MichelleEtwaroo.com when you get a chance.

     I can only say that I returned home filled with gratitude that I could participate in the best New York can be in the vibrancy and wonder of all peoples joining together.

A Poetic, Interfaith Wedding on the Chelsea Pier

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     A couple came to me for their interfaith wedding, who had researched and rejected many rabbis they interviewed.  They had known each other for many years and were living in Manhattan.  She had grown up in Israel, and he was from the States, raised in the Christian faith.  They had definite ideas about the ceremony and service, and we set about crafting the service in my apartment during several meetings. They had decided to marry on the Chelsea Pier in New York.

     It struck me after the second or third meeting that aside from the structure of the Jewish wedding ceremony that had certain prayers and rituals that they were going to teach me some things about poetry and vows that I hadn’t known.  Sure enough they came up with three different English translations of the Seven Wedding Blessings (Sheva Brachot) and went with the most poetic and beautiful one

     They had several friends who were participating in the service and read poems by Denise Levertov, a modern poet, and one by Ann Bradstreet, who went back to the colonial days.  The most creative reading was A.A. Milne’s “Us Two,” which, of course, featured Pooh.  The last few lines of this were beautiful and relevant to the wedding and the two people getting married.  They were: “It isn’t much fun for One, but Two Can stick together,” says Pooh.  That’s how it is,” says Pooh. 

     I admired the ease with which this couple related to one another.  They supported each other and had a kindness and compassion that I rarely find.  It is as if the words of this poem and their joy in being together were one.