About Hey Mazel
Hey Mazel exists because finding the person who'll marry you is hard when you don't belong to a synagogue, and harder when only one of you is Jewish. The big wedding sites are built to sell leads. This one is built to answer questions.
A Jewish wedding isn't a checklist
Rabbis officiate Jewish weddings. So do cantors. So do independent officiants, the educators and celebrants who build a ceremony with you and help you decide which pieces you want. Every element is a choice: the chuppah (the canopy the couple stands under), the ketubah (the marriage contract), the seven blessings, the glass someone breaks underfoot. Do all of them, do three of them, do none. Any of them can be reshaped until it fits the two of you. If it matters to you that a particular community recognizes the marriage, we'll say what that community's rules require and let you decide what to do with it. Nobody here will tell you your wedding is less real, and we explain every Hebrew word on every page, because the partner who didn't grow up with any of this is reading too.
Where does the information come from?
Public sources: an officiant's own website, a synagogue staff page, a public directory. Profiles built that way say "Compiled from public sources" and link to where the details came from, so you can check them yourself. When an officiant claims their page and confirms the details, it switches to "Confirmed by" with their name and the month they last updated it.
What if a profile is wrong?
It might be. Public listings go stale, and a fee from three years ago is not a fee. Any officiant can claim their page and correct all of it: policies, fees, bio, photo. We send the claim link to the email address already published at the source we cite, which is the only way to be sure the right person is making the edit.
Does it cost anything?
Not right now, on either side. Couples send inquiries free, and officiants claim and keep up their pages free. If that ever changes, it'll change for officiants, not couples, and it'll be obvious rather than quiet.
Where is this going?
Hey Mazel is for finding the people who make Jewish moments, starting with wedding officiants, because nobody shapes a ceremony more. Ketubah artists, chuppah makers, and the rest can come later.