Before my now-husband, Brandon, and I were engaged, I always assumed we would have a Jewish wedding. Brandon was raised in a Jewish home, attended Sunday School, studied the Torah for his bar mitzvah and journeyed to Israel with Birthright. Our apartment has had mezuzahs on its doors for years and we take turns saying prayers in Hebrew for Hanukkah, Rosh Hashanah and Passover.

But I wasn’t raised with Judaism. I was raised in a Christian household with a family with strong Christian faiths. Both of my parents are very active in our Presbyterian church, my father recently completed a certificate in Christian Studies and my younger sister, initially planning a career in the ministry herself, married a man in the ministry in 2013. While I always aligned myself with the Christian faith, I didn’t have the same zeal for the church that any of them did. One night on our apartment building’s rooftop, I think I surprised Brandon and myself when I casually asked him if he would consider an interfaith wedding. His response? “Of course.” If I wasn’t already completely confident in marrying him before that moment, that sealed it. We got engaged shortly thereafter and began wedding planning.

It’s amazing what happens to people while planning a wedding. We all have our normal levels of emotion, and wedding planning takes these emotions, turns them on their heads, and dials them up to 11. Make that 12 if you’re planning an interfaith wedding. With emotions running high, two things are very important to remember. First, remember you’re getting married because you love your partner and you’re ready to start a life together. Remember that through every moment that something causes you stress and every moment you become frustrated with planning. Second, keep a clear head. Don’t let emotions get the better of you or in the way of open communication with your fiancé and families.

There are a lot of aspects of wedding planning that are important to people in different ways. I’ll share some of those that were important to us and with which we had experiences.

Finding Clergy

In our initial conversation about planning an interfaith wedding, Brandon and I talked about who would marry us. It was very important to us that both a pastor and a rabbi be involved. Our wedding was in Chicago, where we met and I am from, and we were wedding planning from Washington, DC, where we live. I sought out a pastor from the church where I grew up and reached out to Reverend Roberta Dodds Ingersoll. Reverend Dodds Ingersoll is one of the warmest people I have ever met and she has a gift for making everyone she greets feel truly welcome when we visit the church. I was very upfront with her about how we envisioned the wedding working and she agreed to be one of our officiants. We were candid with each other from the beginning and explained what each of us was comfortable with and what we expected.

For our rabbi, we were fortunate to be referred to Rabbi Evan Moffic who is local to the Chicago area and married to Rabbi Ari Moffic [Director of InterfaithFamily/Chicago at the time of this essay]. Rabbi Moffic made us feel comfortable with planning an interfaith wedding and put us at ease about the entire process.

Premarital Workshop

One of the best decisions Brandon and I made during wedding planning was to sign up for an interfaith couple’s workshop through the Interfaith Families Project (IFFP) in Kensington, Maryland. While the class was not written solely for engaged couples, all but one of the couples in the class were planning a wedding in the upcoming year. Co-taught by IFFP’s rabbi and pastor, the class took us through the realities of interfaith relationships. Working directly with clergy living and breathing an interfaith practice—along with meeting and hearing the stories of other couples—taught us that an interfaith marriage was possible. It also showed us that we are not alone, we are one of many couples asking the same questions and grappling with the same answers every day. 18Doors also offers meet-ups and events.

Honoring Family

Family is such a special aspect of our lives and we wanted to be sure they were an important part of the wedding planning process and day. Of course, it is easy to say this now, nine months after we walked down the aisle. The reality is that weddings are stressful and emotional and we each have a different definition of a perfect day. To make sure both sets of our parents were comfortable going into the wedding day, we kept an open line of communication about our plans. We went through each piece of the ceremony with them and talked about what it meant and why it was important to us. We learned that they did have questions and we were able to address their concerns. These conversations led us both to grow stronger in our respective faiths and to understand each other more deeply.

Our ceremony was a joy to plan and one of our favorite parts of our wedding day—and it’s difficult to pick just one when all of your favorite people are in the same room. Look out for a post in the future for more about the ceremony.