For most Israelis in the Jewish state, there is one legal way to get married - God's way.
Israeli law empowers only Orthodox rabbis to officiate at Jewish weddings, but popular opposition is growing to this restriction and to what some Israelis see as an Orthodox stranglehold on the most precious moments of their lives.
Some of Israel's most popular TV stars and models have come out this week in an advertisement supporting a new bill allowing civil marriage. A political storm is likely when it eventually comes up for a vote in parliament.
The Rabbinate, the Orthodox religious authority that issues marriage licenses in Israel, says it is charged with a task vital for the survival of the Jewish people, and a recent poll showed more Israelis oppose civil unions than support them.
Nevertheless, many Israelis want either a secular wedding or a religious marriage conducted by a non-Orthodox rabbi. Facebook pages have been popping up, with defiant couples calling on others to boycott the Rabbinate.
In September, Stav Sharon, a 30-year-old Pilates instructor, married her husband in an alternative ceremony performed in Israel by a non-Orthodox rabbi.
“We wanted a Jewish wedding despite being secular. We feel connected to our Judaism, even if we are not religious," she said. "It is our people, our tradition.”
Weddings such as Sharon's fall into a legal no man's land. They are not against the law, but neither are they recognized as valid by the Interior Ministry, which is responsible for registering marital status on the national identity card every Israeli is required to carry.
In a twist in the law, the ministry will register as married any Israeli couple that weds abroad - even in a non-religious ceremony - outside the purview of the Israeli rabbinate.
Some couples hop on the short flight to Cyprus to marry. The Czech Republic is another popular destination for Israelis wanting a civil wedding.
Sharon and her husband decided against that option. “Marrying abroad means giving in. We wanted to marry in our own country,” she said.
No formal records are kept on the officially invalid alternative ceremonies held in Israel. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, nearly 39,000 Jewish couples married via the Rabbinate in 2011. About 9,000 couples registered that year as having married overseas.
Muslims, Druze and Christians in Israel are also required to marry through their own state-recognized religious authorities, making interfaith weddings possible only overseas.
Secular-religious tensions have simmered in Israel, which defines itself as a Jewish and democratic state, since its establishment in 1948.
About 20 percent of Israeli Jews describe themselves as Orthodox while the majority of citizens are only occasional synagogue-goers. There are also non-Orthodox communities such as Reform and Conservative, but these are proportionately smaller than in Jewish populations abroad.
Ultra-Orthodox zealots have drawn anger in recent years for separating men and women on some public buses and harassing women and girls for what they see as immodest dress. Orthodox rabbis insist that brides take ritual baths to purify themselves before marriage, a practice to which some Israeli women object.
Immigrants to Israel, which since its inception has appealed to Jews around the world to live in the Jewish state, can find marriage through its Rabbinate a grueling process.
Anyone wed by the Rabbinate is required to provide evidence of being Jewish, usually a simple and quick process.
But when it comes to new immigrants, the Rabbinate requires an affidavit, usually from an Orthodox rabbi in their home country, attesting they were born to a Jewish mother - the Orthodox criterion for determining if someone is a Jew.
And, Orthodox authorities in Israel can pile on more problems by digging even deeper into Jewish roots by requiring additional documentation proving that a bride or bridegroom's grandmother was Jewish.
“It took a year,” said a 34-year-old Argentinian immigrant to Israel, who asked not to be identified.
“They said the papers I had were not sufficient. They kept asking for more and more crazy documents," he said. "At one point they wanted me to provide a witness, from Argentina, who knew my grandparents and who had seen them, inside their home, celebrating a Jewish holiday.”
His case was ultimately brought before the Chief Rabbi who ruled the man was Jewish and could marry his bride-to-be.