Interfaith Wedding

I am Catholic and my FH Jewish. I've been to Jewish weddings before and love the customs and want to go up in the chair, dance the hora, etc.

But I've been to an interfaith wedding before and it was kind of a dud. Only a few people joined the circle, there weren't enough guys that knew what they were doing to raise them in the chairs.

I was thinking about having something on the table that explained the different customs and what they meant and maybe that would help get people unfamiliar with Jewish customs a little more into it.

Any suggestions?
What other traditions can I incorporate?

Re: Interfaith Wedding

At our wedding I was a little nervous about the hora as well. Beside the fact that it took me a year and a half to convince my husband that it was OK and a very big jewish tradition to get up on the chairs. I was wondering the same thing as you........but it all worked very well. We explained the tradition to our wedding party (mostly Irish). They thought it was wonderful and more than wiling to assist us. They knew exactly when to bring the chairs and what to do. It worked out wonderful and all 200 of our guests were involved no matter if they were jewish or not.

Re: Interfaith Wedding

I think what Egreen did sounds like a great idea. If you psych up your bridal party for it ahead of time they will know what to do and everyone will follow their lead!

Re: Interfaith Wedding

My brother is catholic and my sister-in-law is jewish. For their wedding, we did a little bit of everything (my family is greek and italian). We did some tradition jewish dancing along with lifting the whole family up in chairs, not just the bride and groom. Everyone got involved and had a good time. It was great. The bridal party started it off, but everyone picked up on it. You can talk to your bridal party before hand and let them know you would like them to do this. We also did some traditional greek stuff for the other side of the family.