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Planning an Inter-Faith Wedding  |
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In the past, people of different faith just didn’t marry. I remember my grandmother telling me of her father’s disapproval of my grandfather as a choice of boyfriends. His objections were that he was Polish and a Catholic. Luckily for me, he was wrong on both counts. It turns out my grandfather was German and a Lutheran, and that made the difference back in the 1930s.
But unlike the days of our recent past, people just aren’t holding on to the old prejudices and inter-faith marriages have become very common. But that doesn’t mean that there will be any less stress when planning a wedding that makes everyone feel included. If you are planning an inter-faith wedding, consider the following tips to make everyone feel like a part of the same family.
Involve everyone in the planning. Normally the bride’s family does the bulk of the planning, but in the case of inter-faith weddings it’s a really good idea to invite the groom’s family to help with the planning.
Give and take. Different faiths have different traditions and it’s really important to be open to how a different faith celebrates the marriage of two people. Be inclusive and honor how other faiths perform a marriage ceremony.
Stay away from dogma. Some wedding ceremonies can be very heavy with the religious dogma. With inner-faith marriages, it’s a good idea to stay away from the denomination specific dogma and to stay with religious generalities.
Start with areas in common first. Even different faiths that celebrates weddings very differently will still have a lot of in common. Start with the stuff that everybody can agree on and then work from there. When you do this, you’ll probably find that there are very few point on which you disagree, or on which someone needs to compromise.
The interesting thing about an inter-faith wedding is that it really is a good indicator of how the inter-faith marriage is going to go. If you can’t solve the problems that arise over the wedding, it’s a good bet that the couple won’t be able to work out faith problems when they are married.
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