The Wedded Write: Porcupines Pick Their Person- Ceremony Certified

Our ceremony was a great combination of the story of us and the Jewish traditions important to our families and Mr. P. I've mentioned that even though I was raised Jewish, I don't necessarily consider myself a religious person. But, Mr. P and I wanted to incorporate traditional rituals into our ceremony.

We started with the ritual of sharing a sip of wine from the kiddush cup. Like most brides would be- I was paranoid about spilling the red wine onto my white dress. As the ceremony began we realized the wine was missing! I was secretly really excited that we would have to fake drink the wine (no spills possible!), but at the least moment one of the coordinators at Riverdale seemed to pop-up out of nowhere with the wine. Major agita- but, I didn't spill!

Nervously holding the kiddush cup

A few weeks before our wedding we decided to include the temple's cantor into the ceremony who was going to be available that day. The cantor usually works with a Rabbi to help sing the prayers of a ceremony or service. She has an absolutely beautiful voice, and sang the prayer of the Seven Blessings in Hebrew, which translated is:

You are blessed, Lord our G-d, the sovereign of the world, who created everything for his glory.

You are blessed, Lord our G-d, the sovereign of the world, the creator of man.

You are blessed, Lord our G-d, the sovereign of the world, who created man in His image, in the pattern of His own likeness, and provided for the perpetuation of his kind. You are blessed, Lord, the creator of man.

Let the barren city be jubilantly happy and joyful at her joyous reunion with her children. You are blessed, Lord, who makes Zion rejoice with her children.

Let the loving couple be very happy, just as You made Your creation happy in the garden of Eden, so long ago. You are blessed, Lord, who makes the bridegroom and the bride happy.

You are blessed, Lord our G-d, the sovereign of the world, who created joy and celebration, bridegroom and bride, rejoicing, jubilation, pleasure and delight, love and brotherhood, peace and friendship. May there soon be heard, Lord our G-d, in the cities of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem, the sound of joy and the sound of celebration, the voice of a bridegroom and the voice of a bride, the happy shouting of bridegrooms from their weddings and of young men from their feasts of song. You are blessed, Lord, who makes the bridegroom and the bride rejoice together.

You are blessed, Lord our G-d, the sovereign of the world, creator of the fruit of the vine.

The Rabbi worked in some of the story of how we got together in the ceremony, which got a few laughs from our family & friends. Then, we exchanged rings. We both used rings borrowed from our grandmothers, since both of our actual bands are broken by a diamond (me) or an etched line (Mr. P). Wedding bands are supposed to be a simple, plain gold band, which is what our grandmothers rings are.