Welcome. Shalom. My name is Ryan Mount and I am a great story teller, but as far as writing goes, this is new ground. Ring-bear with me while I try to introduce myself. (Please excuse the How I Met Your Mother jokes and references; it has been a favorite of Lisa, my fiancé, and became a favorite of mine. I also tend to think I have a great How I Met Your Mother story, but that post is for another time.)

My name is Ryan and as you can see I am a terrible at telling jokes, a self-proclaimed great story teller, and I am getting married in November to my fiancé Lisa. This blog is hopefully going to be an adventure of how a Jewish kid born and raised on the east coast got mixed up with, fell in love with and is now planning an interfaith wedding with an Ohio native and soul mate, Lisa.

Lisa was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio (right outside of Detroit, which I mention because I never heard of Toledo, before I met Lisa). She has been a Cincinnati area native for 12-13 years and lived here her entire adult life. Lisa was raised in a tight knit Polish neighborhood by mainly her father and her extended family. She has an older sister who is seven years older than her who also happens to be getting re-married one month after our upcoming wedding. Overall, her family dynamic is much different than my own and it certainly brings up a lot of conversation during our wedding planning. Lisa went through 12 years of Catholic School and church was a strong part of her young life.

I was born and raised in a small suburb of New Jersey called Westampton, but if you ask me where I am from the answer is always, “Philly.” I come from an interfaith home where Dad was raised Catholic and Mom was raised Jewish, but neither practice. Christmas was always about Santa and Easter was always about the giant bunny. Jewish holidays stood as a staple of tradition, like Pesach/Passover, but no one kept kosher during it. We celebrated Hanukkah, which would end up growing to be one of the most important parts of my spiritual development as a Jew, but I would not come to realize that until much later. I have two sisters, one nine years younger, and one two-and-a-half years older. Somehow in the middle of all this non-practice growing up, I endured some personal hardships and continue to grow spiritually in the Jewish religion. I do not know if I classify myself as devout, but am a Friday night attendee of Temple and pray/meditate every day.

Who are we? (That is actually a sports chant Lisa and I both say every Tues/Thurs/Sun.) You see now we both live in Cincinnati, and initially met through the sport of Roller Derby. We are both skaters and each other’s coaches for our teams. I am a Jewish professional working for the Federation system and she works for a custom box making company in Northern Kentucky.

Our wedding date is November 8, 2014. This blog will explore more about our relationship, our upcoming wedding plans and the challenges it takes to make a true interfaith wedding. We are striving for something more than just a Jewish wedding in a chapel (which right now is actually the plan). It is not just about a merging of two faiths, but also two very different cultures meshing together and hoping for a lot of laughs and only tears of happiness. So again, welcome and shalom.