Best Wedding Cake Info

A ketubah is important to have for a jewish wedding. You’ve found one online. That’s the easy part. The next step is to fill in the blanks in the ketubah, and that’s where it can get puzzling! Of course, there’s the basic information that, if you don’t know it already, you’re in deep weeds–such as the bride and groom’s names, the ceremony date, and where it is taking place. But it can get mighty confusing as you go further to hebrew names, etc.

Below find the 5 must-know tricks for personalizing your ketubah.

1) Let your officiant do it! Well, maybe not actually do the ketubah personalization itself (have you SEEN your officiant’s handwriting?) but your rabbi or cantor should provide the information. Seriously, your ketubah is most likely to be correctly personalized if your officiant supplies the information your ketubah artist needs.

2) Hebrew names should not be invented. If any party is not jewish, you don’t want to start making up a hebrew name for that person. Rather, ask your ketubah vendor to transliterate your name–phonetically spell it out in hebrew letters. And if you’re jewish and you have a yiddush name, ask your rabbi or cantor if you can use that or if he or she will require you to use an equivalent Hebrew name instead (e.g. Sarah instead of Sorah).

3) Stick to your parents’ level. In Hebrew, your name is usually something like: “Rachel, daughter of Joshua and Sarah.” Of course, your father, Joshua, is technically “Joshua, son of Samuel and Rivka,” and your mother “Sarah, daughter of Abraham and Talia.” But just stick to your parents. Saying “Rachel, daughter of Joshua, son of Samuel and Rivka, and Sarah, daughter of Abraham and Talia” is just too wordy. So leave your grandparents out. If you prefer, you may also choose to omit your parents’ names. And typically just first (and middle, if you like) names are used – no last names.

4) Before or after sunset. The Hebrew day runs from sundown to sundown. So the exact time of your wedding, and whether that is before or after sunset, will determine the hebrew date on your ketubah.

5) Conservative or Orthodox ceremony? There are more details to provide, including the bride’s “status” (whether this is the bride’s first marriage–or more technically, whether she is a virgin–or if she’s been married before and divorced or widowed, and if she’s converted), if either the bride or groom’s fathers are levite or cohain (if you don’t know, typically it means “no”), and if the ketubah artist or calligrapher should complete the ‘regal’ – the straight line in the hebrew letter ‘koof’ – in the hebrew word ‘v’kaninah’ or not. Let’s make it easy – talk to your rabbi or cantor about these items for personalizing your ketubah text.

It’s always a good idea to consult your rabbi or cantor, but with these suggestions, your ketubah should be personalized correctly.