Plenty of rabbis officiate same-sex Jewish weddings. The question is which ones, and you're allowed to just ask.

You've got three rabbis' websites open and you're trying to work out, from the photos and the bios, whether any of them will marry two women. That's a bad way to spend an evening and an unnecessary one. The answer is usually yes, and finding out takes one sentence in an email.

Will a rabbi officiate a same-sex Jewish wedding?

Many will. Reform, Reconstructionist, Renewal, and Humanistic rabbis widely officiate same-sex weddings, and the Reform movement's rabbinic body formally backed rabbis who do in 2000. The Conservative movement has permitted its rabbis to officiate same-sex weddings since 2012, with each rabbi deciding individually. Orthodox rabbis generally do not.

Those are facts about movements, not assessments of couples, and the practical upshot is that the pool is large in every major metro. The civil side is settled everywhere in the country: same-sex marriage has been available in all fifty states since the Supreme Court decided Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, so the paperwork is the same license, officiant, and witnesses as any other wedding.

How is the ceremony different?

Mostly it isn't. The chuppah (the canopy a couple stands under), the rings, the seven blessings, the breaking of a glass: none of that assumes a bride and a groom. What gets adapted is the small handful of pieces that do, which comes down to the betrothal formula, the ketubah (the Jewish marriage contract), and the choreography of who circles whom.

The betrothal, kiddushin in Hebrew, traditionally runs in one direction: one partner gives a ring and says a formula meaning "you are consecrated to me," and the other accepts. Same-sex ceremonies usually make it mutual, with both partners saying a parallel line as they exchange rings. Some officiants use a differently worded declaration instead, and some use a brit ahuvim, a covenant-of-lovers structure written to work without the one-directional language at all.

Circling is the other visible piece. The traditional version has a bride circling a groom seven times. Couples circle each other, or walk the circles together, or leave it out. The processional is wide open too, and two sets of parents walking two people in tends to sort itself out faster than anyone expects.

What about the ketubah?

Egalitarian and same-sex texts are standard, not special orders. Every established ketubah studio offers wording for two grooms, two brides, and gender-neutral language, in Hebrew and English, at the same prices as anything else they sell. Pick the text before you pick the art, since the artwork gets designed around the block of words.

Ask to read the English of whatever text your officiant prefers. Some are close translations of the traditional document with the roles swapped, and some are written from scratch as a statement of mutual promises. Both get used constantly and neither is a compromise. What a ketubah actually says walks through the versions.

How do you find someone who will?

Filter for it, then ask outright in your first message. One line does it: "We're two women looking for a rabbi who officiates same-sex weddings. Is that you?" You'll get a clear answer within a day, and a good officiant will not be offended by the question. If someone is offended, they've saved you a phone call.

Every officiant listed on Hey Mazel says whether they officiate same-sex weddings, so you can narrow a city down before you write to anyone. In a metro like Los Angeles, that turns a list of every rabbi, cantor, and independent officiant in the county into one you can read in a sitting. Asking plainly is normal here. Nobody will take it as a challenge.

What if one partner isn't Jewish?

Then you're filtering on two things, and the second one narrows the pool more than the first does. As of 2026, Conservative and Orthodox rabbis are not permitted by their movements to officiate interfaith weddings, while Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis decide individually and many say yes. So an interfaith same-sex couple is generally looking at Reform, Reconstructionist, Renewal, Humanistic, and independent officiants, which is still a lot of people.

Whether a rabbi will officiate an interfaith wedding covers that side in detail, including co-officiation with clergy from another tradition. Ask both questions in the same email. There's no reason to discover the second constraint three weeks in.

Does any of this change what it costs?

It shouldn't. Officiant fees run roughly $500 to $2,500 across most US metros depending on experience and how much of the ceremony gets written with you, and travel is often extra. None of that has anything to do with who you're marrying. If somebody quotes you a premium, you've learned what you needed to know about them.

The same goes for scheduling, travel, and how many meetings are included. An officiant who does these weddings routinely will quote you the way they quote everyone, because to them it is the way they quote everyone.

One more thing

The rabbis, cantors, and independent officiants who do these weddings have been doing them for years, and in plenty of cases for decades. You aren't a test case and you don't have to make an argument for yourselves. You're a couple with a date and a venue calling about a wedding, and that's exactly how the conversation will go.