Finding a hindu priest to officiate our wedding in Cambridge MA

September 30, 2012 2:15 PM

Indian wedding in Boston/Cambridge area

Hi all-

My fiance and I just moved to Cambridge and we're going to get married here in June of next year. We're looking for someone to officiate our Hindu wedding ceremony. A few family friends have recommended someone named Jayant Sane, but he's booked for our date (June 15th, 2013). Anyone have any recommendations?

Ideally it would be someone who knows all the Hindu shlokas but who can also translate to English (we're a mixed couple). Also, it would be ideal if that person would be okay with a nontraditional, shorter-than-usual ceremony.

Thanks!

posted by fdhidalgo to grab bag (4 answers total)

I would maybe start by asking Swami Tyagananda, who is currently Hindu chaplain at Harvard and MIT, for recommendations? Or Boston University's Hindu chaplain, Pandit Ramadheen Ramsamooj?
posted by Sidhedevil at 2:40 PM on September 30, 2012

If you can't find anyone local, perhaps your (or your fiancé's, if he is the Indian one) parents can fly in their local priest for the ceremony? I had a mixed wedding, too, and while we had a local Hindu priest, our Christian minister came in from out of town.

Also consider asking this question on the South Asian board on TheKnot.com - I found those ladies to be very helpful when looking for resources for my DC wedding.
posted by echo0720 at 4:17 PM on September 30, 2012

There's a relatively new Indian wedding dress store on Mass ave in north Cambridge, they may have local contacts.
posted by sammyo at 4:56 PM on September 30, 2012

We met Pandit Navin Trivedi through a mutual friend, and he officiated our wedding. He lives in Connecticut and works at Yale, but made the trip down to DC for us. He was thoughtful, enthusiastic, and very supportive of our (mixed) marriage -- and explained everything to the audience as we went on. He told us that he tries to keep the ceremony to an hour so that the audience stays focused -- and ours was roughly an hour. We were happy to meet him, and we've kept in touch. MeMail me if you'd like to talk more.
posted by rdn at 7:41 PM on September 30, 2012