The one annoying thing about planning a wedding that will take place 3 hours away is figuring out when to meet up with vendors. Since we’ve had a long engagement we were able to space out a few trips to get this done. We also made really good choices from our research, so we didn’t have to go back and forth a bunch of times to find people we wanted to work with. One trip per vendor worked for us to find the right people to work with.
The one thing that has proved more difficult is scheduling a meeting with our Rabbi. Since we don’t belong to a temple in New York, we easily decided on using the Rabbi at Mr. Porcupine’s parent’s temple in Pennsylvania. He marked our date off, we met with him briefly early on into our planning, and he told us we wouldn’t need to meet again until much closer to the big day. But, after two more short trips down to Pennsylvania without being able to coordinate schedules, our Rabbi suggested we have a meeting via Skype.
So, we downloaded Skype and used it for the first time to talk with our Rabbi. For some reason I find this hilarious. Granted our Rabbi is Reform. He's not the traditional Rabbi you might be picturing with a long beard and conservative dress. He's definitely a modern dude, but come on, having a Skype meeting with a Rabbi? There has to be a joke in there somewhere.
The meeting mostly consisted of sharing basic information about ourselves and discussing the different aspects of the ceremony. We spent an hour going over Ketubah options, parents’ names, what we’ll need to bring for the ceremony, etc. There were a few questions and tasks that left us with some work to do. For instance, my parents tracked down my Hebrew name that I had long forgotten. And, we both located some stand-in ring options, since in the Jewish tradition wedding bands have to be a single band not broken by anything (like the diamonds in my wedding ring and the lines etched into Mr. P’s). For the ceremony I will most likely use my mom’s ring, and Mr. P will use his grandma’s (unless they can find his grandfather’s). I just hope he can get the ring to even make it over his nailbed!
We were also given a homework assignment of questions that Mr. P and I have to fill out so that the Rabbi can put together a ceremony with a personal touch. It asks the basic questions such as how did we met and how did the proposal go. The catch is that we're not allowed to show each other our answers.
One of the questions asks for any personal stories about our relationship that we care to share. We have about 900 ridiculous stories we could mention. Or, we could go the traditional sweet approach with how much we have impacted each other’s lives. I haven’t decided what to share yet and I don’t know what I expect Mr. P to write. We're not a serious couple and I really enjoy funny, personalized ceremonies. I just can't think of the perfect story to share, but I do have a few months to dig into the recesses of my brain.
Did you meet with any of your vendors via Skype? Did your officiant personalize your wedding ceremony with a story? Should I stay true to us and go the funny route or serious it up for our wedding day?
I think it's sweet he's asking those things to make your ceremony personal. Our officiant was my grandfather, so he told the story about taking me to IHOP for the first time and he referred to it as a date and then said something to the effect of "and then you started dating Kyle" or something like that. It makes a lot of difference to have some sweet/silly moments. Kyle used a Pride and Prejudice quote in his vows. I needed to laugh to keep from crying, so it's always nice to have a few laughs to keep it feeling like it's personal. I'll always remember the laughs.
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