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Secular Jewish Irish & Interfaith Weddings
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About This Vendor
Share Your Love Story with Unique, Custom Wedding
** The Knot does not text about an inquiry. For faster response, please write me here and let me know about yourselves (Jewish, interfaith, secular) -- but also send a text. TY! 267-902-7752. "How is this officiant different from all other officiants?" I can offer an answer in one sentence. In the words of Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan: "I believe the past has a vote, but not a veto." (i.e. While the traditions of any religion or culture are a great place to BEGIN the process of (anything), they do not dictate it -- esp. when they don’t reflect YOUR beliefs.) It completely applies to weddings. I NEVER officiate the same ceremony twice (as s0 many "budget" officiants do.) I don't hand you a few pre-scripted ceremonies and ask you to pick. Worse, I don't do a ceremony written in the Middle Ages and which has been done for every couple, the exact same way, ever since! [As if every couple is the same; as if human values have not evolved; as if the scientific method has not affected our theological beliefs from the men who wrote the texts that form the foundation of our traditions!?!] I take great care to learn about you, YOUR values, and create a ceremony that celebrates YOUR unique love story. Probably 80% of the couples I marry are Catholic-Jewish partners, but I've married Quakers, Hindus, Baptists -- you name it! My non-Jewish couples usually self-define as "spiritual but not religious"; I can create a ceremony with SO much more heart and soul than a "justice of the peace" would because I've seen them! I'm officially ordained as a rabbi and have I've studied or worked in all non-Orthodox Jewish groups for 30 years: Reconstructionist, Secular Humanist, Reform, Conservative, Renewal. My first career was journalism, and I've written a wealth of resources to help you weigh your ceremony options. I'm also a certified facilitator with Prepare&Enrich, an optional (free) program that measures how you compare in 9 key areas scientifically shown to affect marital happiness . Here is how the process works: FIRST, we have a phone call to "meet" (no obligation!) SECOND, I invite you to my home to brainstorm the MANY options you have for your ceremony; it takes ,2 hours (still no obligation!) THIRD, I write a ceremony based on your decisions for readings, rituals, etc. You make a 50% deposit to reserve your date whenever you're ready. The most popular (and unique) element of my ceremonies is "The Love Story.” Here, I ask you each to answer questions about how you met, your first date, what qualities you fell in love with, etc. You email me the answers privately – the surprise is half the fun! I hope you can find time to read reviews other couples have left, as they really are the best testimony to my work. Also, don't miss the 5-minute video posted here showing highlights of a co-officiated ceremony I conducted with an Episcopalian. I am HONORED to work with LGBTQ couples. Congratulations on this exciting leap in your life! -- Rabbi Joysa
Details
Ceremony Types
Civil Union, Commitment Ceremony, Interfaith Ceremony, Non-Religious Ceremony, Religious Ceremony, Second Wedding , Vow Renewal Ceremony
Religious Affiliations
Buddhist, Christian, Quaker, Interfaith, Jewish, Conservative, Reform, Pagan, Secular, Spiritual, Unitarian, Wiccan
Wedding Activities
Wedding, Ceremony
Awards and Affiliations
Secular Jewish Irish & Interfaith Weddings Reviews
Share your thoughts with other couples
To say we are pleased with Rabbi Joysa’s wedding ceremony for our son and his now wife, is an understatement. The ketuba signing and the ceremony were filled with heartfelt sincerity, beauty, helpful guidance to those that are of varied faith...
s and just the right amount of religiosity, given the fact that there were two faiths involved. It was a lovely day which began with a memorable ceremony and thanks to Rabbi Joysa will live forever within our hearts.
Joysa was an absolute DREAM to work with, from the first time we contacted her through the end of our wedding day.
My husband was raised Christian and I was raised Jewish/Irish Catholic and we knew we wanted a Jewish ceremony but with a very hu...
manistic feel to it that honored both of our backgrounds.
Joysa provided us with a very in depth 1:1 session where she helped us explore the many ways to do our wedding ceremony. She is so creative and really wants couples to have ceremonies that feel true to them. She also provides couples with lots of written information/articles on the meaning behind different ceremony aspects, and articles with advice for engaged people/newlyweds. We also chose to participate in the PrepareEnrich program with Joysa for pre-marital counseling (optional!) and we felt that working through that information with Joysa helped us learn how to navigate our new marriage together.
Even many weeks later, we still get compliments on how personal and moving our ceremony was! The guests and my husband and I really enjoyed having the LoveStory portion of the ceremony and we felt it was one of our favorite parts of the day. She also led a beautiful ketubah signing where we played "Jew-pardy" with our families, which was a really fun twist on the traditional signing.
We would recommend Joysa 1,000% to any potential clients. She is a beautiful person inside and out and really goes above and beyond to make couple's wedding days meaningful.
Rabbi Joysa was an absolutely wonderful wedding officiant. She offered the perfect amount of guidance while also encouraging us to make choices about the ceremony that felt authentic to our partnership. A few months before the day, she sent us ...
several comprehensive packets explaining various wedding traditions and options for the ceremony (both Jewish and interfaith), which we had so much fun sifting through to identify the components we thought would best suit us. She was incredibly organized (some of the packets even included information on logistics we never would have thought of--like flattening our ketubah before the wedding day!), and her ceremony beautifully blended our respective backgrounds and heritages and really felt like it captured the essence of our love story. Even though we had only met her a couple of months before our wedding, the ceremony could not have been more personalized—she even brought in an inside joke! Aside from crafting a beautiful ceremony, she is also an exceptionally engaging speaker--eloquent, accessible, and interactive. We're so grateful we had the opportunity to work with her. We can't recommend her highly enough!
My husband and I had originally planned on having a Catholic Priest and a Rabbi for our interfaith wedding. We ended up rethinking our plan and emailed the priest and rabbis we had originally contacted to notify them thanks but no thanks, we w...
ill be having a non-denominational wedding. Joysa wrote back with such a thoughtful response we decided to meet with her. Joysa helped us craft a beautiful wedding ceremony that gave respectful nods to both of our faith traditions. We chose Joysa because we wanted a personal feel to our wedding - a ceremony that would share a bit about who we were as a couple and as individuals. It was important to us because given our quick courtship and engagement many guests hadn't had a chance to meet one side of the couple. The "love story" that Joysa shared, based on our survey responses, was really special and provided great insights into our relationship and personalities.
We got many compliments on how personalized our service was and the way Rabbi Joysa explained the Jewish traditions to those in the audience who were not familiar with Jewish traditions.
Joysa was phenomenal and wonderful to work with! She started by letting us chose which ceremony to have and what traditions to include. Our story is that we're mixed faith, I'm 1/2 Jewish and my now Husband is fully Catholic. We also loved that...
she incorporated an Irish ring warming since my Husband is Irish. I would recommend her over and over again for any ceremony, faith based or not. She is a wonderful human being.
We were originally going to do a self-uniting marriage but decided last minute to go with an officiant. Joysa was very accommodating and pleasant to work with. We had a beautiful Irish handfasting cermeony. Thank you, Joysa. :)
I am Jewish but my husband is not. We wanted a ceremony that included a lot of Jewish traditions but wasn't hugely religious and Joysa certainly delivered. We loved creating our customized ceremony and found all of Joysa's resources incredibl...
y helpful. We ended up with a personal and moving ceremony that truly showcased our love story!
Karen and I can't say enough good things about Joysa. She did a wonderful job helping us shape our ceremony into a very memorable and personal moment. Honestly, going into the planning, we didn't know what we were doing, and without her our cer...
emony would have been over in 10 minutes. Not to mention we were also planning our wedding from across the country over the phone. Joysa had so many amazing suggestions for us, and we were so appreciative that she was able to make everything so personalized even though we weren't able to meet her in person until the day of! We also appreciated her flexibility, as we were looking for a mostly secular wedding.. With Joysa's help, we ended up with a perfect combination of Jewish and Irish traditions without making our ceremony explicitly about religion. She truly captured both of our personalities in the ceremony, to the delight of our family and friends. Joysa got a ton of laughs out of our small wedding, and had us laughing during our own ceremony to cut the nerves, but also gracefully handled the more serious aspects of our ceremony. Joysa wasn't just our day-of officiant, but she really was the mastermind and author of our wedding. Our family and friends gave us tons of compliments, but the praise should be directed back to Joysa. Thank you again for helping us throw our dream wedding!
- J&K McMullen
I'll start with what is most important; I have been told by friends, family, staff on-site and our photographer that our ceremony was one of the most heartfelt, romantic, beautiful, and intimate ceremonies that they had ever experienced. And so...
much of that is due to Joysa.
While we planned our wedding from across the country, I had a feeling we'd connect well. When my (now) wife and I first met with Joysa, on her couch while her kids ran in and out with their friends, it felt like she was opening herself up to us and it made it that much easier on us to clearly outline what we wanted from our ceremony, who we were as a couple, and for Joysa to help guide us towards getting to that "perfect" ceremony.
She had the ceremony organized and broken up into sections, providing options from Jewish, Irish, and varying degrees of secularism - resonating deeply with our mixed and not-especially-religious selves. Joysa had cut to the primary message of traditional ceremonies and provided it with modern sentiments, which was incredible.
Our favorite part was our "Love Story", where we (separately) went through about a dozen questions detailing from our perspectives how we met, what we loved about one another, funny anecdotes, etc. During the ceremony, there was laughing (between my wife and I), crying (for all of our guests), and a wonderful memory.
I'm so happy we chose Joysa - our wedding would not have been nearly as good with another person. We had certainly looked for and considered a lot of options, but at the end of the day the wedding is all about, you know, actually getting married. It's worth it to make sure you have the best ceremony possible - and that's what Joysa gave us.
I found Joysa Winter researching on line. We needed a wedding offiante. I’m Jewish but my fiancé was not. When we met her I knew we had made the right choice. She was warm & caring. She listened to us and took the time to get to know us. She ...
presented us with many unique options to add to our ceremony. She was easy to communicate with during the planning process. And the planning of the service was detailed. Which lent to a meaningful service...Many people complimented me on our service....
We loved working with Joysa! She truly did a wonderful job and telling of our love story was so sweet. She really connected with my MIL, who may start attending services at Joysa's synagogue. She also created a ceremony that was accessible to m...
y non-jewish family and worked with us to incorporate Quaker traditions as well
We loved working with Joysa! From the very first phone meeting, she put us at ease. She provided a packet of information on navigating interfaith weddings that we turned to again and again while we were planning. The ceremony was so personalize...
d, and we got tons of compliments on the various components, length, humor, etc. On the day of the wedding, she was efficient, on time and friendly to all of our guests. Worth every penny!
We really enjoyed having Joysa as our rabbi for our wedding. With Joysa, we were able to truly customize our wedding and make it ours. A ton of people have commented on how beautiful the service was and how they felt like it was really "ours" a...
nd special. We also met with Joysa to discuss our future and how to incorporate religion into our lives in a way that was meaningful and comfortable to both of us since we came from different backgrounds. We appreciated that a lot!
The moment I met Joysa I knew she would be our officiant. She is kind, attentive, and very experienced with marriage ceremonies. Her expertise is Jewish ceremonies but she loves to add nontraditional pieces to every ceremony. She was very respo...
nsive via email before the ceremony and incorporated all of our requests. The ceremony felt so genuine and intimate and I wouldn't have changed a thing!
Thank you, Joysa, for our beautiful interfaith ceremony! My husband is an atheist but comes from an Irish Catholic family, and my family is Jewish-- both sides have never been to the other religion's wedding before! Joysa took the time to get t...
o know us and to customize a ceremony that included our family's traditions in a meaningful way. Not to mention the funny stories she shared from our couples' questionnaire. Many of our guests even came up to us throughout the night asking for her contact info and saying that was the best ceremony they've ever been to! Thank you for making our day so special!
We highly recommend Joysa! She helped make our wedding ceremony personalized and exactly what we wanted. She took the time to get know us and learn about our love story and really helped to make our wedding represent us! We are both catholic bu...
t wanted to get married outdoors and incorporate Irish traditional aspects as well as our own ideas related to our own beliefs and joysa helped us to do this perfectly!! Our guests told us our wedding was so unique and personal and so filled with love! We are so thankful and highly recommend joysa!!
We are so thankful for Joysa being our officiant. We were a very indecisive couple about what elements we wanted for our wedding ceremony. Joysa got to know us on a personal level and provided us with a wealth of information and options to cons...
ider. She was knowledgable and very easy going and helped us merge celtic and jewish traditions seamlessly. Her ceremony was beautiful, personalized and reflected us perfectly. We received so many compliments on the service!
Thank you for our beautiful ceremony and making everything come together to ensure a special day with our friends and family.
Joysa was a pleasure to work with. She sent us a ton of information about the ceremony and things we would like to add/remove. We had a Skype call originally with her because of the distance and she made us feel at ease. Due to weather rest...
rictions we had to hurry up our ceremony slightly and she made it seamless for us. Highly recommend!
Joysa was great and very welcoming. She had a wealth of information and options for us to consider to pull together our ceremony. It did not matter that neither of us is Jewish, Joysa happily worked with us to pull it all together and it was ...
lovely! We felt an immediate connection with her within minutes of meeting her, and this helped as we were on a very tight schedule. With Joysa's guidance, we pulled practices adapted from a number of different cultures throughout history including a Celtic handfasting ceremony. We are so happy with how the ceremony turned out and could not have done it without Joysa. Thank you!
Joysa aided us in developing a personal ceremony that fit our wishes and that was unlike any we had seen before. She found novel ways of including the audience in the ceremony, which made for a more inclusive experience. And, she developed enou...
gh knowledge about our relationship to be able to speak about it during the ceremony. We have received numerous independent compliments on the ceremony itself, which makes us happy. Working with Joysa was a pleasure. She was punctual, accessible, and professional, all of which helped to smooth the way towards a wonderful ceremony. We recommend Joysa with full confidence.
Everything was amazing!!! She truly encoperated every aspect possible of both our families, Jewish and Irish.
We wanted to thank you for the amazing job you did with our wedding ketubah signing and ceremony. It was so touching and even more wonderful than we could have ever hoped for. You really captured our relationship together and beautifully inco...
rporated our backgrounds. We really cannot thank you enough. Everyone we spoke to said how wonderful it was. You truly have a gift.
Joysa is great and we really enjoyed working with her to prepare our ceremony. She is extremely knowledeable and was very adaptable to what we wanted and didn’t want in our ceremony as an interfaith couple. We especially loved how Joysa asked...
us to fill out questionnaires about how we met and what we loved about each other before our wedding— and to not share our answers with each other. During the ceremony, Joysa read our responses and it was such a touching addition to an already beautiful ceremony. Thank you again, Joysa!
Tommy and I are now back from our honeymoon and wanted to say THANK YOU for such a beautiful ceremony. We loved the whole ceremony and were very happy it fit us as a couple. We received many compliments from family and friends about how beautif...
ul and personal the ceremony was. Thank you for the time to get to us and use that in our wedding. We are so pleased with everything. :) I am so excited to get our video back and watch it over and over again.
Thank you so much for helping to make our wedding so wonderful. You made planning so easy, ensuring Ryan and I planned a ceremony that was truly a reflection of us. All of the resources you provided us with made planning go smoothly and you wer...
e always available to answer any questions that we had. As we knew it would be, the ceremony felt so personal, and perfectly captured our relationship. It was an incredible day, one we will remember with love …
Rabbi Joysa was our officiant for our wedding this past September (2016). From the moment we sat down with her we knew she was the right person to marry us. Actually we she was the first and only officiant we met with. We are an interfaith coup...
le and she was the perfect person to help us fuse our different religions and backgrounds.
She was very helpful in deciding what traditions to include. She provides a lot of information, explanations of different traditions and how to put it all together. We also each secretly answered questions about each other and sent them to Joysa which then allowed her to craft this beautiful story during our ceremony.
Our ceremony was one of my favorite parts. It was so well done and had the perfect amount of humor and love weaved in. We got so many compliments after from our guests about how sweet and unique the ceremony was. It really was different from all other weddings I have been to and that's exactly what I wanted. We did not write our own vows but Rabbi Joysa had custom vows she had previously written and they were beautiful and neutral so we chose to read those. It was perfect.
I could not recommend her more. She can custom your ceremony with any tradition you want. She really is a Joy (pun in tended lol) and you should definitely hire her for your wedding!
We got back to NYC a couple of days ago from our honeymoon. We had planned to e-mail you and ask if you could send us a copy of the ceremony. It was so personal and beautiful. Both of our families loved it — and we did, too. How wonderful it wa...
s, then, to return home and find your package with the marriage certificate, The Empty Chair, and the text of our ceremony! Thank you so much for all that you have done for us. You helped make the most important part of our wedding inclusive, special and meaningful.
We had a truly wonderful experience working with Joysa. She was warm, kind, open and worked with us to craft a very personal and meaningful wedding ceremony.
Joysa officiated at my wedding recently and she did a great job. We spoke with her a few times in advance and she provided a lot of information and options for us, which really allowed us to create the ceremony we wanted. She made the ceremony ...
very personal and many of our guests commented on how wonderful it was. She does not always respond to emails right away but I never had trouble reaching her by phone and we were very happy with our wedding ceremony.
Joysa officiated our wedding, which was a secular Jewish ceremony. Joysa did a wonderful job being flexible with me and my husband, who is not religious. We were able to combine a variety of practices and our ceremony was exactly what we were l...
ooking for. It was also nice talking to Joysa throughout the process, she is a great person to talk to in general! I would recommend finalizing details at least a week before because typically there isn't a rehearsal if your not getting married at a church/synagogue. We had many compliments on what a beautiful ceremony it was and I look forward to have Joysa and an inspirational figure in our lives moving forward.
We could not imagine our wedding without Rabbi Joysa. She made our ceremony amazing. It was personal, beautiful, and just the right amount of humor for us. Joysa discussed everything with us ahead of time, and catered the ceremony to exactly...
our liking. We would highly recommend her for anyone!
Rabbi Joysa was by far the best! When we first met her we had an instant connection and talked for almost
3 hours! The ceremony itself was PERFECT! She personalized it from our conversations and questionnaire. It was exactly what we wanted. She...
helped us create a wonderful, memorable ceremony. Everyone always tells us how much they loved it and I recommend her to everyone!!
Rabbi Winter was wonderful! She made us feel at ease and personalized our ceremony beautifully. My husband and I would recommend her to any interfaith couple who is looking for a unique ceremony that suits their levels of religiosity (whether t...
raditional, secular, or anything in between). We are so happy to have found a Rabbi/officiant who made us and both of our families feel comfortable and included in the ceremony. Thank you Rabbi Winter!!
Joysa officiated our wedding this September and put together a beautiful ceremony. Getting to know us ahead of time as a couple helped her prepare the most personalized ceremony incorporating both of our religions and cultures. She had our gu...
ests, and ourselves, cry, laugh, and cheer in happiness. Thank you for an incredible start to the rest of ours lives.
Joysa was recommended to us by a friend and was a great fit for us. We are both Jewish but looking for a modern way to incorporate Jewish wedding traditions. From our first meeting Joysa gave us unique suggestions and ways to make the ceremon...
y personal to us. My favorite part is that Joysa makes an effort to get to know you and include personal stories into the ceremony. The ceremony blended bits of humor with traditional elements. All our guests commented how the ceremony was very representative of my husband and I and that is thanks to Joysa. She is flexible and willing to adapt the ceremony to make it perfect for you. Highly recommended!
Joysa was very easy to work with and we are so glad we chose her to officiate our wedding! She helped us incorporate Jewish traditions with our modern pro-feminist sensibilities
(and did this both long distance AND with a huge time difference...
)! We appreciated and our guests loved how she drew off our personalities and stories and magically wrapped things up just before a huge thunderstorm!
Joysa was an amazing officiant for our wedding. She made the ceremony very personal to who we are and touched everyone with her words. She is very thorough gathering information prior to the ceremony and gave great packages of information to ...
help us make decisions of what could be done during the ceremony. She brought in aspects of both of our faiths to make the ceremony complete. Thank you for such an amazing day to remember!
Joysa officated our wedding this summer at the Morris Arboretum. She was kind, open, and very helpful. Our ceremony was a mix of interfaith and secular, and Joysa worked hard to make everyone feel included. Although we didn't meet her until abo...
ut 4 months before the wedding, she was able to make the ceremony feel really personal. We can't recommend her enough!
-Sophie & Arthur
I can't say enough wonderful things about Joysa! She officiated our wedding last month and it was perfect. We met with her several months beforehand, and she gave us a ton of information/options for our ceremony. I felt like we had complete own...
ership over the layout of our ceremony, while still being able to utilize her knowledge and experience. In the months leading up to the wedding, she was always available by email to answer our questions about timing, the ketubah, etc. My husband and I each completed a questionnaire about ourselves prior to the wedding, and Joysa used that to speak about us and our relationship during the ceremony, which was heartwarming and so personal. We decided it would be too much to write our own vows, so I really enjoyed still having that personal touch in the ceremony (with someone else reading it, so I wasn't completely hysterical!). For readings, the seven blessings, and vows, she gave us a plethora of options, which helped us personalize our ceremony without feeling overwhelmed, since we weren't starting from scratch.
As soon as the reception began, countless guests told us how much they enjoyed the ceremony and how personalized Joysa had made it. We have heard from so many people how much they enjoyed it, which is really a testament to Joysa. I would hands down recommend her to anyone who wants a personalized ceremony with Jewish traditions.
I was searching for an officiant for my "secular wedding with Jewish flair," as my fiancé called it, and I found Joysa's information online. I cannot stress how happy I am that I found her! We set our wedding date for August 10, 2013, and Joysa...
was always there for us with any questions or concerns that we had.
Unfortunately, due to circumstances out of our control, my fiancé and I had to legally get married a month before our actual wedding date. We could have gone to the courthouse, but we had already spoken with Joysa and felt such a connection, so we really wanted her to be the person marrying us. She was incredibly understanding, compassionate, and willing to come meet us at our convenience. She came with roses and on one of the hottest days of the summer, gave a short, simple, and beautiful ceremony.
A month later, Joysa came to our rescue again! She put together the most touching service, this time for our family members to see. All of our guests absolutely loved the "heart and soul" - the story she told about how Steve and I met and what we loved most about each other. Our service including a ring-warming ceremony, which I had never heard of, but the guests raved about the uniqueness of that as well.
Joysa is such a kind spirit - she was clearly born to unite others in their love and you can tell she takes so much pride in what she does. I cannot recommend her highly enough. She was such a pleasure to work with and made a stressful time much easier to work through. Thank you, Joysa!! - Kim and Steve
Joysa was the officiant for our recent wedding ceremony. We worked with her to create a Jewish-Quaker-secular wedding. Since the wedding, we have not stopped getting compliments on how beautiful, meaningful, and very "us" our ceremony was! Joys...
a struck a perfect balance between having us guide the overall structure of the ceremony, and using her own skill to craft it into something special.
We met with her once, and it was lovely. We then corresponded about the ceremony many times back and forth. She showed up on our wedding day fully prepared and conducted the best ceremony I could have imagined. I laughed and cried, as did all of our guests.
Joysa will work hard to make your wedding about YOU. Hiring her is absolutely one of the best decisions we made about our wedding.
Joysa met with my (now) husband and I and was available for a myriad of phone calls, emails and meetings! She asked us several questions and was able to extract a wonderful wedding ceremony from our [often] scattered stories. She is a great lis...
tener and is wonderful at working with families of all kinds and religious (or lack of) circumstances.
She was willing to work within the constraints of our limited budget and was amazing at going with the flow of our [most of the time] chaotic family.
Joysa is incredibly unique and articulate and very capable. Her words (and advice) ring true and will forever be recorded on our wedding video and within our hearts.
Our ceremony was beautiful, thanks to Joysa! She took the time to get to know both of us and incorporated everything we wanted into the ceremony. She is so well spoken! Our ceremony was personal, and everything we wanted it to be! We reciev...
ed so many compliments from friends and family on how great the ceremony was. I am so pleased with everything!
Joysa officiated our wedding and was wonderful from our initial meeting to the day itself. The bride was Jewish and I'm non-religious, so we wanted to incorporate Jewish customs in a secular way. Joysa explained different options to us perfectl...
y and was happy to include our own custom ideas into the ceremony.
On the day itself, she performed wonderfully. Joysa does a fantastic job of taking stories, thoughts and impressions from each person and putting them together to form a set of heart warming remarks.
Many of our guests remarked that ours was the most personal ceremony they had ever been to and this was partly thanks to Joysa's flexibility and embracing of what we wanted our ceremony to look like.
We would heartedly recommend Joysa to anyone.
Rabbi Joysa Winter was a pleasure to work with. She really took the time to get to know my husband and I and made the ceremony a really memorable experience. She helped to guide us but gave us the freedom to make the ceremony reflect us and ou...
r families. She was very professional, organized, kind and a wonderful speaker. I highly recommend her!
We wanted a wedding ceremony with a traditional feel to it, but one not tied to a particular religious doctrine. Searching online, we saw dozens of officiants whose credentials lacked gravitas. Then we spotted Joysa. Neither of us is Jewish, an...
d we did not want a Jewish ceremony, but Joysa’s rabbinical training signaled that she is a legitimately qualified wedding officiant. That was immediately confirmed for us when we spoke on the phone.
We told Joysa that we wanted a ceremony that would include a spiritual element. She provided to us a wonderful base ceremony and suggestions for readings. We selected a reading to be included, made the vows a bit more traditional, and Joysa did the rest. Weeks after the event, I’m still hearing about the beauty of the ceremony.
Joysa arrived early, treated all with respect and genuine warmth, and truly helped establish both the joy and the serious meaning of the wedding ceremony. She stayed for a short time during the cocktail reception, and more than one guest told me how much they enjoyed chatting with her; she was smart and thoughtful with a wonderful sense of humor. In a word, she was perfect for us, and we recommend her without reservation.
– Ying and Marty, June 2012
Contact Info for Secular Jewish Irish & Interfaith Weddings
Foxcroft Road, Broomall, PA | Metro Philly, Delaware, south Jersey, but also will travel
Meet the Team
Rabbi Joysa Winter
Owner
I have broad training in Jewish theology and Secular Humanism, with a particular passion for interfaith ceremonies. C. 80% of my couples are Catholic-Jewish, but I'm honored to offer secular ceremonies where neither partner is Jewish, but with more heart and soul than a judge can offer!
My first career was journalism; now I'm an ordained rabbi. I provide many files to guide our ceremony-planning process -- which we do in an entirely collaborative way; this way, it is 100% customized to YOUR beliefs and aesthetics. I believe weddings should be about LOVE, not preaching at a captive audience!
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