We recently connected with Rabbi Noyo (Rabbi Sarah Noyovitz) and have shared our conversation below.

Rabbi, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the most important things we can do as business owners is ensure that our customers feel appreciated. What’s something you’ve done or seen a business owner do to help a customer feel valued?

It’s funny to say that I’ve “done this for myself,” but honestly, planning my own wedding (which is in October 2025) has been so helpful in understanding my clients’ perspectives as they plan theirs! It was always my intention as an officiant to help take stress off my couples’ plates and to make their planning process less chaotic, but now that I’m on the other side of those conversations, it really helps me relate to what it’s like for them. I’m able to tell them how deeply I understand what it’s like to coordinate with multiple vendors, to handle different family members’ input into the planning process, and especially to hold onto all the many, many details that are part of the wedding ceremony and the entire day. My couples really appreciate knowing that I have gone through or am going through a similar experience, and it helps us relate to each other on a deeper level.

Rabbi, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a progressive rabbi in the Boston area, and one of my specialties is working with wedding couples to plan Jewish, interfaith, queer, and even non-religious wedding ceremonies.

I officiated my first wedding in 2015 for a couple of friends (not Jewish), and discovered that I absolutely loved the process of planning with them. A few years later in 2018, I had another couple of friends ask me to officiate their wedding. One of them was Jewish and the other was not – and there are many rabbis in the world who do not officiate interfaith weddings. When a Jewish person is told that their rabbi will not do their wedding because their partner is not Jewish, it can be devastating. It invalidates their love and their household, which may indeed include a lot of Judaism, and it can alienate their whole family from Jewish community. I believe it is so important to affirm that families that have both Jewish and non-Jewish members are beautiful and valid, and I want to be someone who makes sure they feel that from their wedding officiant.

Similarly, while most Jewish communities are welcoming of queer folks, and just about all progressive rabbis will perform queer weddings, there is still a lot of invalidation and queerphobia coming from within Judaism, especially in more politically conservative communities. I am a queer individual myself, and I use a baseline of language that does not assume cis-heteronormativity. For example, I use the word “partner” or “beloved” rather than “bride” or “groom.”

But probably the most critical part of my work is validating that there is more than one correct way to engage with Judaism. I do not speak in a way that indicates a hierarchy of Jewish beliefs or practices – I don’t ever call a practice “normal” or “traditional.” Instead, I will use terms like “popular” or “historically traditional” (because there are new traditions being created all the time, and just because something is ancient does not mean it is better or more correct). I have only one requirement for any wedding I officiate, and that is that if there is a ring exchange, there must be two rings. The historically traditional Jewish wedding ceremony used one ring for a groom to acquire a bride, and I like to say, “I do not do acquisitions; I do partnerships.” I don’t have any requirements that a couple follow Jewish law or use specific prayers or even mention God at all. A wedding ceremony should feel authentic to every couple, and if Jewish rituals can help make that happen, that is a wonderful thing, but they should not be the driving force.

I’m very proud to be a wedding officiant available to every kind of couple, Jewish or not, to help make their wedding day as traditional, non-traditional, or new-traditional as they want!

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

As a wedding vendor, my best source of new couples has been my personal website. I built it about seven months ago and have been getting regular inquiries through it. I also occasionally get referrals from my colleagues – a rabbi who was asked to do a wedding but is not available on that day, for example. And I’ve gotten a few couples from WeddingPro – the vendor side of Wedding Wire/The Knot. I will probably be canceling my WeddingPro subscription though and putting that money elsewhere, since I have not gotten enough clients from that platform to justify the cost. I get plenty of leads, but almost none of them result in a booking. Having a clear, informative, and aesthetically pleasing website is absolutely the way to go!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I am an ordained rabbi, and I live in Massachusetts with my partner. There are many different kinds of rabbi jobs, and in many different kinds of Jewish communities, but not all of them are going to be a great fit. For example, I would be a great fit in a Reform, Reconstructionist, or Renewal kind of community, but not so much in most Conservative communities, and not in any Orthodox communities. Plus, my partner is going on ten years at his dream job, and all of our family and roots are here in the Boston area, so we really didn’t want to move if I found a rabbi job in another state. With my options so limited, at the end of my last one-year interim contract in summer 2024, I didn’t have a new job starting. But I still had bills! So that was when I decided it was time to take my love of officiating life cycle events and turn it into a part-time job. I built a website, worked on my personal brand, collaborated with a digital artist to create a logo, and joined a bunch of wedding groups on facebook. It didn’t take long to get a whole wave of couples to work with, as well as a few independent bar/bat mitzvah students, and even a pet ritual! Thanks to my social media presence, I even ended up being solicited by a local synagogue who offered me a part-time job running and teaching in their Hebrew school program. I’m so happy with the way things turned out!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://TheRabbiNoyo.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rabbi.noyo
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/rabbinoyo
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rabbi-noyo/
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/bluesongstress
• Other: https://www.weddingwire.com/biz/rabbi-noyo-officiant/c0278233fbce3151.html
  https://www.theknot.com/marketplace/rabbi-noyo-officiant-newton-ma-2084661

Image Credits

Lexi Wilson, Jenna Kay, Madelene Ba