The OurWeddingDay Blog

If you’re worried about religious roadblocks that might make your interfaith wedding less than perfect, worry no longer, there are a number of ways to help this journey go smoothly. With interfaith weddings on the rise, many other couples have had to deal with the trials of planning this type of wedding, so fortunately you can learn from their mistakes. The following tips will help to ensure you have the wedding of your dreams, regardless of how many religions are involved.

Engagement
The first step in making sure your interfaith wedding and marriage is planned properly is to have a long engagement. Take your time to discuss how you and your fiancé want to approach every step of the wedding planning process. Take this time to explore how each of you wants to approach religion in your lives as a married couple, as well as your future children’s lives.

Be Informed
Before you say your “I do’s,” make sure you are both well versed in each other’s religion. This way you both have a good idea of how you want to integrate both religions in your ceremony, as well as your every day lives post wedding.

Counseling
Reach out to your clergy from each place of worship for guidance and counseling. This won’t be the first, and most certainly not the last time anyone has or will ask for guidance from your place of worship. You could also explore couples' counseling outside of your religions, for a more objective point of view, with help on issues that may or may not be related to your religion.

Family
Be patient with your family if they do not approve, or are having a difficult time fully accepting the interfaith marriage. Try your best to be calm and loving toward their opinions on the matter, rather than defensive or frustrated. If need be, you could offer counseling for your family members as well. Prior to the engagement, make sure to spend time with both families, so as to give them time to warm up to you and the idea of combining their faith with yours.

Officiant
Finding the right interfaith wedding officiants is such an important part of this process. Find an officiant who approves and fully believes in your union and makes you and your fiancé feel more than comfortable. If you have friends or family in an interfaith marriage, they probably know of an officiant who could be just the person you’re looking for.

Combine Both Faiths
For your wedding ceremony, make sure to include both religions equally. If one religion is significantly more prominent in the ceremony than the other, then that could cause problems. The last thing you’ll want on your wedding day is for any or all of your family members to be offended in any way. Interfaith wedding ceremonies can be a delicate dance, in which both religions are represented equally yet fully. If you get stuck on how to pull this off then ask your family members, as well as clergy members for advice and guidance.

Read more:

• More on Interfaith Wedding Planning
• Premarital Counseling 101
• Balancing What You Want with What Your Family Wants

If you’re worried about your wedding processional order, relax.  Your clergyman will most likely guide you through it during the rehearsal. If you have a planner, he or she will also help you with the drill. However, we’ve listed a few tips to get you started on the road to wedded bliss.

Christian Ceremonies.
For a Christian ceremony, the Best Man, Groom, and Minister enter from the side, then stand at the altar. The Groomsmen enter the house of worship next, either alone or accompanying the Bridesmaids.  Should you have an uneven amount of Bridesmaids and Groomsmen, two guys can escort one woman. In some cases, the Groomsmen walk down first, followed by the Bridesmaids, in pairs.

Once the Groomsmen and Bridesmaids are at the altar, any other attendants, such as ring bearer or flower child, walk down the aisle. After they take their place at the altar, the bride is escorted down the aisle by her father, or another escort of choice. The bride should be on the left. Once at the altar, the father leaves his bride and takes a seat.

In many Protestant wedding ceremonies, the bride’s escort waits at the front of the altar until the minister says “Who gives this woman in marriage?” Many people do not use this tradition anymore, finding it out of date or even sexist. Once everyone is together, tradition calls for the bride to be on the left side of the groom. The custom dates back to medieval times, when the groom had to keep his sword hand free in case he needed to defend his betrothed’s honor.

Jewish Ceremonies.
In a Jewish wedding ceremony, the Groomsmen walk down the aisle first, in pairs. They are followed by the Best Man. The Groom and his parents are next, and then the Bridesmaids. The bride is escorted by both sets of parents.

If you are having a secular wedding, you can change the order as much as you’d like, but clear it with the minister. Many couples like to have both sets of parents walk them down the aisle, no matter their faith, and some brides like to walk down by themselves. It’s your big day, so live out your dream.

Looking for more culturally-specific wedding planning help?

• Catholic Wedding Planning
• Baptist Wedding Planning
• Muslim Wedding Planning
• Buddhist Wedding Planning
• Jewish Wedding Traditions
• Protestant Wedding Traditions
• Chinese Wedding Traditions
• Thai Wedding Traditions
• Italian Wedding Traditions
• Mexican Wedding Planning
• Irish Wedding Traditions
• Japanese Wedding Traditions
• Global Wedding Traditions

We just posted a new guide to hiring Houston ministers of all faiths!

Houston might be a vast and sprawling city, but finding the perfect officiant for your ceremony should be a short and efficient journey. Weddings are big news here, the only major difference between less-conservative parts of the country being that non-traditional clergymen are not as plentiful. (You can, however, find them locally.) Most Houston weddings lean toward the formal side, so check out the full article here and you’ll be on the right path.

Check out all of our Local Wedding Guides: New York, Miami, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Houston, Indianapolis, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex... and new Local Wedding Guides are coming soon!

We just posted a new article about finding your wedding officiant in Chicago!  It's the latest update to our Chicago Wedding Guide!

Check it out!

And check out our other regularly-updated local wedding guides as well: New York, Philadelphia, Miami, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.  We're adding new articles to them all this week!