Old becomes new as couples personalize wedding ceremonies by Debra Rubin
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36 | Jewish News | October 8, 2012 | Mazel Tov | jewishnewsva.org
WASHINGTON (JTA)—In the months before his wedding, Jon Cetel cringed at the notion of having his friends dance him to his bride at a traditional bedeken ceremony, where he would place the veil over her face. The concept “was completely foreign to me,” he says. It “felt too traditional.” But his bride, Ashley Novack, 26, was entranced by the tradition. “I love dancing, and this sounded like an amazing opportunity definitely not to be missed,” she says. Rabbi Shira Stutman, director of community engagement at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington and the officiant at their wedding, had a suggestion: Reverse it. “Subverting thousands of years of tradition, I would dance over to Jon,” says Novack, who called it one of her favorite moments of their 2010 wedding. “I was filled with love and joy as the remarkable women in my life encircled me and danced me over to Jon.” Cetel, 27, ended up loving it, too. “The sound of Ashley’s entourage approaching was thunderous and powerful,” he says. “I probably ended up liking it even more than Ashley.” The Conservative-raised Philadelphia couple’s twist was by no means traditional, but it was an example of a growing practice of couples putting new spins on ancient wedding traditions. From adapting non-egalitarian parts of the ceremony to having friends officiate, it’s all part of a trend toward personalizing the wedding ceremony. “It’s very important for people to incor-
porate their voices,” says Rabbi Sharon Brous, founding rabbi of the progressive Ikar community in Los Angeles. “That’s the way the old becomes new.” Sara Cohen of Somerville, Mass., and her bridegroom decided to forego a rabbi, instead asking close friends to officiate at their 2009 wedding. “We didn’t have a rabbi in our life that felt like ours,” says Cohen, 41. “The bigger reason was we really liked the idea of having people who know us really well do the wedding.” They asked a lifelong friend of hers, a Jewish studies professor with Universal Life Minister credentials, and a close friend of his to perform the ceremony. But the couple also consulted with a rabbi about the ceremony, which included the traditional hallmarks. There is no Jewish legal requirement that a rabbi or cantor officiate at a wedding; according to halachah, two witnesses are required to make the ceremony official. Some rabbis are nonplussed by the idea of clergy-free nuptials. “It may make for a lovely ceremony, but it does not serve in any way to connect the couple in an official way to the Jewish community by someone who’s been ordained by the community,” says Rabbi Rex Perlmeter, the Union for Reform Judaism’s worship and spirituality specialist. “I think it’s sad and it’s a diminishment of connection to community and tradition.” He also warned of the loss of premarital counseling by clergy. But Perlmeter praises the notion of having friends participate in the wedding service in other ways. Couples long have