Jewish wedding with sides "flipped" (bride on left)?

I have never seen the sides flipped, but I completely understand your reasoning for wanting to! If you have already seen videos of a wedding that occurred at your venue where the sides were flipped though, I would imagine this is doable.

I've seen it done both ways. My best friend stood on the left. Go ahead and do it, chances are no one will notice or care.

I’ve seen it maybe twice (in pics) and it stood out to me because I knew the bride should have been on the right side. But, even if it’s been seen before, the Rabbi and your FH would likely be the deciding factors anyway. So, just in case, what’s your plan if you have to stand on the right?

I honestly had no idea that there is a correct side to stand on. I am Jewish but had a non demo-national wedding. I chose what side I look better on lol.

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There's no plan - I'd be extremely unhappy with that. FH doesn't care and is happy to let me stand wherever I want, unless the rabbi insists on tradition and then we'd have a problem. She's a family friend so if she said no, even if we had time to look for a more flexible officiant, we'd be pretty much stuck.

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That definitely makes me feel better, thank you!

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Thank you for understanding - I know it's pretty quirky.

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LOL I would too! I wish we were not doing a religious ceremony (I'm agnostic and would've done a 5-10 minute, no-religion ceremony if it was just up to me), but it was important to FH to have a Jewish ceremony and I wanted to support that. I still do support it, but it's really frustrating sometimes to not have the ability to fully personalize our ceremony and do what feels best for both of us without running into religious restrictions.

Out of the 40 or so Jewish weddings I've attended (all levels of religiosity from Orthodox to Reform to interfaith), I've never seen the sides flipped before. There is a fair amount of religious significance to having the bride stand on the right for Jewish wedding ceremonies. But that doesn't mean it can't necessarily be flipped though! If I were you I would just have your FH ask the rabbi if you could stand on the left. Reform rabbis are usually pretty flexible in being willing to tailor ceremony particularities to what the couple wants, so I imagine this won't be a problem

View Quoted Comment I don’t see why the rabbi would care?! Worth the ask.

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Yikes, that doesn't sound good for me that you've never seen it done but yes, that's what I'm hoping is that because it's Reform, we won't be quite as bound by tradition. When I was researching this (a.k.a. panicked late-night Googling) all I found was something about the bride and groom being a "king" and "queen" which didn't sound religious to me (I'm also not a fan of the whole "princess/queen" thing so I had a negative reaction to that, which may not be fair). Sounds like I need to do more research on the religious significance. I'm not going to be comfortable with standing on the right either way, but I would like to understand where it comes from.

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I hope she won't! She comes across as a bit more traditional than I'd expect for a Reform rabbi sometimes, is the only reason I'm nervous about it. We will definitely ask.

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I honestly wouldn't worry too much because Reform rabbis are usually very willing to change things up! The religious significance comes from a bible verse but at this point I think it's more a tradition than religious thing so I would personally expect a Reform rabbi to let you switch sides. Our officiant was a Conservative rabbi and let us switch up plenty of other ceremony components that were important to us. I didn't mean to scare you by saying I've never seen it done before--because I absolutely 100% believe that it can be done!

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Gotcha, thank you and no worries, I scare pretty easily these days, haha. But this really helps and I appreciate you sharing your experiences!

View Quoted Comment I see! Well, hopefully it all works out. I wonder if there’s an option to have your backs to the crowd. I know that’s not ideal. But I’ve seen some ceremonies set up like that. Best wishes!

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You know, I didn't even think of that as a backup option. You're right, it's not ideal to have our backs to our guests but I'd consider that before I'd agree to have my "bad side" front and center in every photo of our ceremony. I think FH's sister and her husband did that for at least part of their ceremony, actually. So I will keep that in mind as a last resort - thank you for bringing it up!

View Quoted Comment No problem! You’ll still get nice photos because you can inform your photographer to only shoot from your “good side“. Heck! You can even reenact photos after the ceremony and stand on the left just for pics. 😉

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Haha yes, thank you! I think I may have already mentioned my issue to my photographer - she is about my age, feels like someone I'd be friends with and is just really kind and empathetic in general, so I'm sure she'll understand. I also think we might do a first look in our ceremony space because we have access to it very early that day and I want some pictures of it before it gets dark (Jewish ceremony on a Saturday, so everything is happening after sunset and we're both a little sad we won't get to see the gorgeous trees that surround our venue during the actual ceremony). So I'll have total control over where I stand for that, at least! :-)