Thursday, March 29, 2012

Not So Fast

Remember a few months ago when I posted about how we found a rabbi to marry us, and I was surprised because I was expecting it to be a lot harder than it was? Well turns out I was, unfortunately right.

About I month after I talked to the rabbi, he left me a voicemail. Once I was able to get back in touch with him he let me know that he now had a personal conflict with our wedding date. He said he tried to change it, but wasn't able to get out of it, which meant he would no longer be able to marry us. But not to worry, because he had the name of another rabbi that we could contact.

We contacted rabbi #2, and had a nice long phone call with him and everything seemed to be working out just fine. But at the end of the phone call he brought up the memoriam, which is basically the money involved. He was very clear and told us exactly what he would expect, except what he asked for was far above what I would have ever expected and didn't really fit into our budget.

We then contacted a third rabbi who led another local temple. He did seem to confirm that the price we were told by rabbi #2 was high, but that he'd had other couples call him with similar stories. We met with him and by the end of our meeting he seemed to have concerns with the fact that the boy was Catholic. He seemed to say at the meeting's end that he would be in contact, except we never heard back from him.

I also wound up contacting an online rabbi out of Texas, but he was already booked for our date.

I have been postponing writing this post in hopes that when I finally did, I would have a solution to share. Except while we still have several leads and ideas, we don't officially have anyone to marry us. It is a little disappointing to think he thought this was taken care of several months ago, and now with less than 6 months till the wedding it still isn't finalized.

Did you have any trouble booking a rabbi or officiant for your wedding? Or when planning, did you have something that you thought had been confirmed, instead wind up falling apart?

4 comments:

  1. Oh that is a bummer. :( I am wishfully hoping that when I do get married, I can get married in a Catholic church... I belong to one here in Minneapolis and would love to get married there, but we shall see!

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  2. We had a little anxiety because we are Southern Baptist and originally wanted to get married at a winery- that was a big no-no in our church. Our pastor also indicated that he would not be staying for our reception because we were serving alcohol, but the day of the wedding he ended up staying through dinner, so I guess it didn't bother him too much after all.

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  3. Let me know if you haven't found someone soon. I have a friend in rabbinical school who knows a lot of the NOLA and BR Rabbi's. She's on excellent terms with almost everyone.

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  4. Wow I'm sorry you're going through such a hard time. I hope you find a rabbi soon!

    We met with our Justice of the Peace this weekend and he seems great! We are having a civil ceremony since neither of us are particularly religious.

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