Messianic Weddings
What is the difference between a Messianic Jewish Wedding and a traditional Jewish wedding? What customs, music, and traditions are acceptable to use in a Messianic ceremony? How difficult is it planning a Messianic Jewish wedding in the US, or anywhere, really? Is it typical to have a Messianic ceremony in a synagogue? What advice would you give to a couple who’s planning on having a Messianic Jewish wedding? Here are the common elements of a tradition Jewish wedding…

The Chuppah
As long at the bride and groom are standing under the Chuppah (canopy), the actual marriage ceremony can take place almost anywhere, in a synagogue, in a home, in a public venue such as a hotel or even on a beach. The chuppah, or canopy, stands on four poles and is a representation of a tallit, the four-cornered prayer shawl. The chuppah is symbolic of the bride and groom’s new dwelling together, as the groom accept the bride into his home.

Couples celebrating a Jewish wedding may be married at any time of the time, although it’s most customary to marry in the afternoon or evening. Typically, Sundays and Tuesdays are the most popular days to marry, while it is usually prohibited to wed during the 49 days between the feasts of Passover and Pentecost and during 3 weeks between July and August. It is also forbidden to marry on the Sabbath before sundown or feast days.

The bride is veiled before the ceremony begins, just as Rebeccah was veiled before coming to Issac to be his wife. Traditionally before the wedding, both the bride and groom fast to prepare themselves, and they do not see each other for the week before the wedding. Once arriving down the aisle, the bride and family circles the groom seven times to show the seven-fold bond they are about to establish with one another. The number seven also represent the number of completion, how long it took God to create the earth. 

Mazel Tov!
A traditional end to a Jewish wedding serves as a reminder of the fragility of life, even during the most joyous of celebrations. Couples break the glass as a symbol of their pasts and reminder of the destruction of the Jewish Temple. As the groom smashes the glass with his right foot and everyone shouts "Mazel Tov!"...Good Fortune, may your lives here on out not be shattered, but full of fortune and joy!

The Seven Blessings
The bride and groom receive the Seven Blessings in the presence of 10 adult Jewish men (called a minyan), and several different people are called upon to give these blessings. These blessings acknowledge that God…
- Has created everything for His glory
- Fashioned the Man
- Fashioned the Man in His image
- Gladdens Zion through her children
- Gladdens groom and bride
- Created joy and gladness
- Gladdens the groom with the bride

Immediately following the ceremony, the bride and groom go together to a private room to symbolize their newly established intimacy and and emphasize their that their absolutely privacy must be respected. This is following by a huge festive reception with an abundance of food, music and dancing!