Interfaith Christian/Jewish Wedding - Need Tradition Ideas

I feel like a lot of the resources I've found are for incorporating Jewish traditions into a Christian wedding, not the other way around. I've seen things like bride is on the opposite side and only the father walks the bride down the aisle in a Christian wedding, but I feel like those are both kind of insignificant compared to the things in a Jewish ceremony.

We're going to do a reading from the old testament, but even that feels like it skews both ways enough to not be that much of a differentiator.

Could you do a unity candle, have a reading from the New Testament, incorporate a hymn?

What about doing a unity candle, doing something like the Prayer of the Faithful with a response in Hebrew or incorporating some Christian music?

Could you incorporate a Christian hymn? We are doing a unity cross ... But I've also seen feet washing, communion, and a unity braid (3 strands = husband, wife, God). Or you could have both sets of parents pray with/over you during the ceremony. I hope this helps!

We're in a pretty similar boat, and FH is very concerned his family will feel alienated if we do anything that is too Christian.

We came up with our general plan for the ceremony this weekend - and we're bringing it to our officiant - who actually was raised in a Jewish/Christian household - so she's bringing insight to our plan to make it better (hopefully). We've looked at it more like we're doing a non-religous ceremony and adding in traditional aspects - as his family is much more culturally Jewish than religiously Jewish.

We're not having a ketubah, or chuppah, or kippahs. I'm not wearing a blusher, or covering my shoulders.

The religious/cultural aspects include:

processional (his parents are walking him in -Jewish, my dad is walking me in - traditionally Christian)

we're doing a wine ceremony - with aspects from both religions

7 blessings (Jewish)

breaking the glass (Jewish)

When you picture a Christian wedding - what aspects stick out to you? That might be a good place to start on what you want to make sure you include.

I don't think you really have to worry about 'balancing' things out; no one is really looking at your wedding like that....it's not a treaty, it's a wedding. And you really hit the nail on the head; a Jewish wedding is as much a cultural event as it is a religious one.

When I do these wedddings, (and I do a lot of them....) I usually do an intro to the Chuppa (I do like the message of the open tent and the welcome to all) and a glass breaking, but I don't go into the destruction of the temple analogy....it's a little more ecumenical.

You could add scripture; anything that does't specifically mention Jesus is probably better (Ruth, Song of Songs, even Paul's letter to the Corinthians).

People think that the unity candle is a Christian tradition, but it really isn't.

This was all helpful, thank you guys so much for the input! I've done research, but it's just hard to find things that are specific to Christianity. I think I'm having a harder time because I haven't been very religious for awhile, so nothing is particularly meaningful to me to include.

I agree Celia, I don't see the unity candle as a particularly Christian tradition either, but we will probably do some form of it (maybe a unity wine ceremony of sorts because wine plays an important part in both religions). And, to be honest, I'm more concerned about "balancing" for the reason that I want to show my family that I've put forth effort to make sure that they are included. I've already told my mom that we're raising our children Jewish, so for me the wedding is the beginning of the path that I'm going to have to continue down, which is to put forth a little bit more effort to ensure that my family and what they believe isn't being left out just because I'm starting my new life and have chosen to embrace Judaism as a primary part of it. My mom is overly sensitive to it, so I'm really wanting to do as much as I can.

I think we'll probably also add a few scriptures in, as that's something that we've already agreed to do.

And Linds, please let me know if your officiant comes up with anything else. We're meeting with ours at the end of next month, but I'd love to have ideas to bring to him. And as for things that stick out to me from Christian weddings, I would probably say lighting candles and all the prayers and hymns, as well as the things that stick out from attending mass - peace be with you and the prayer of the faithful and communion.

Can you incorporate any family traditions? It seems to me that most of what you've mentioned as Jewish traditions are culturally Jewish (and important to your FH's family for that reason) rather than religiously Jewish. There doesn't seem to be as many traditions that are culturally Christian, but if there's anything from your family's ethnic background, or anything that you've done with your family at other family events or a family tradition that you could include that might help.

I'm sorry I don't have more helpful advice--my husband's family is Jewish and mine is Christian, but we're not very much of anything, so our ceremony was focused on the civil aspects with non-religious readings and things like stomping the glass and each of us walking in with both of our parents.