After obtaining a single-day officiant license through
Massachusetts — a “very surprisingly easy procedure,” according
to Lynda Simons — the date was set: Feb. 20, 2021. As the day
approached, she consulted officiant websites, rabbis and whoever
and whatever material she could get her hands on. Three days
before the wedding, she’d finally figured out what to say.

“I no longer had trepidation for it,” Lynda Simons said.

But what does one say when, in the midst of the pandemic,
as you wed your daughter to her new husband on a snowy trail
in the forests of northwestern Massachusetts, the ceremony is
interrupted by a group of snowmobile enthusiasts roaring by?
“We waved them away,” Lynda Simons laughed.

In the winter of 2019, Jordan Bravato’s best friend gave him a
ring. The friend planned to give his fiancee a different sort of ring
in November 2020, and he wanted Bravato to officiate. Bravato, the
director of Camp Kef at the Kaiserman JCC, was happy to oblige.

“I was like, ‘I feel like this is this is a more important job than
the best man,’” Bravato said.

Soon after, he began preparing for the big day, researching
Pennsylvania’s “wacky” rules around officiants. What Bravato
found was complicated, varied county to county, and seemed
to be some sort of relic of the commonwealth’s Quaker roots.

Bravato suggested to his friend that he and his fiancee get legally
married elsewhere, and let Bravato’s role be purely ceremonial.

“He did not like that,” Bravato recalled. The friend insisted
that Bravato be the one to marry them.

As soon as he and his now-wife started
cracking jokes at me, I pretty much forgot
everything I had prepared.”
Jordan Bravato (center) joins his two friends together.
Courtesy of Jordan Bravato
JORDAN BRAVATO
After heroic levels of bureaucratic wrangling, Bravato became
an ordained minister online. So, just as he was finishing up, his
friend pushed the wedding until August 2021. It seemed that the
ordination process for Bravato might be further complicated.

But Bravato’s friends decided it was time to stop shmying
around and do the thing. At the beginning of December 2020, they
told Bravato they’d like him to officiate a New Year’s Eve wedding.

“And I was like, ‘Excuse me?’” Bravato said.

Getting the license was an adventure; writing the ceremony
itself was another can of worms. Fusing together what could only
be described as Matrimony Mad Libs, stories about the husband
and stories about the couple, Bravato prepared for New Year’s Eve.

It was a rainy night on Bravato’s friend’s parents’ back porch,
with the couple, the couple’s parents and Bravato shielded from
the storm by white satin curtains.

“And I botched all of it,” Bravato said. “As soon as he and
his now-wife started cracking jokes at me, I pretty much forgot
everything I had prepared and just kept looking down at my
script every minute or so to try to catch my place.”
Still, at the end of the ceremony, he had joined a couple
together in the eyes of the law. All’s well that ends well.

Brett Goldman, a consultant and lobbyist in Center City,
might want to ask Bravato for some advice. He’s preparing to
wed one his best friends this summer, and he’s making the same
rounds as Bravato and Simons: reading ceremonies online and
calling up rabbi friends.

He’s excited just to be doing something in person, away from
Zoom. “It’s really cool, I’m happy to do it,” Goldman said. ❤
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MARCH 25, 2021
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