Ros and Alex mixed contemporary and vintage styling to perfection, and I adore the sleek modern venue they chose: The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA). It’s an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square, and is one of the capital’s most beautiful contemporary spaces. I am beyond excited to be blogging what I believe is the only Jewish wedding ever to have taken place there, and a totally jaw-dropping one at that.

Ros’s wedding report is one of the loveliest I’ve ever read so if you can get 5 minutes with a cuppa to sit and read Ros’s words as well as ogle over the stunning photography from Especially Amy I promise you will fall in love with this wedding story. Ros also gives some excellent money-saving tips at the end in her ‘advice to other brides’, as well as some super useful planning advice.

There’s lots to love but I am particularly taken with Ros’s beauty and style and the London theme details such as the London Underground map table plan, and miniature black cabs and double-decker buses on the tables.

Here is their story…

HOW WE MET
Ros, the Bride: We met at Bristol University in September 2002, as Fresher’s living in the same student halls. Our first date was breakfast at a greasy spoon cafe down the road! Alex popped the question in February 2011 at the boutique Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City before whisking me off for dinner and cocktails. We have always loved New York, so it was perfect. That night, the lights on the Empire State shone for us in the snow. After a lot of planning and juggling of dates, we married 18 months later.

A CONTEMPORARY LONDON VENUE
Alex and I were looking for a central London venue that was elegant, yet contemporary and a little bit different. We had viewed all sorts of places and found that few venues fitted the number of guests we wanted to invite – they were either too small (for less than 50) or enormous (suitable for 200+). We were looking for just enough space to have our ceremonies (Groom’s tisch, badeken, chuppah, yichud), dinner and evening reception all in the same venue so additional transport wouldn’t be needed.

The ICA’s capacity, its light beautiful rooms, stunning balcony views and private garden clinched it for us. Also, we knew the in-house caterer (Peyton & Byrne) had an excellent reputation and the quality of the food was important to us. We both enjoy London’s art scene, so getting married in the gallery felt fun and our guests still talk about what an original choice of venue it was.

BLUE, CORAL AND CREAM COLOUR SCHEME
We had a colour scheme of blues (sky blue, navy), coral and cream. We wanted it to look smart but fresh. The palette just came to me and suited both our tastes (bright enough for me, classic enough for him). I still haven’t seen a wedding colour scheme quite like it.

VINTAGE STYLING AND LONDON TOUCHES
Although we didn’t have a theme, we wanted nods to the vintage styling of the 50s/60s, which inspired clothes, stationery, cake and colours. We also had London touches here and there (stationery, table and room decorations, our seating plan).

LONDON-THEMED STATIONERY
We were looking for London-themed stationery and came across Hello Lucky’s city designs (illustrations, not too formal). We used their online templates to design and personalise our own ‘save the date’ cards, invitations, RSVP cards and menus. We chose the wording, layout, font and colours. We emailed a Hebrew quote to the company and they added it for us. Sadly Hello Lucky have now closed their personalised stationery service. I have a bit of a stationery fetish and still love what we had printed.

THE PERFECT DRESS FOR ME
My dress was a Justin Alexander design, purchased from wedding shop, Bell’Amoré. I had seen the dress online and just had to try it. I went to the National Wedding Show at Earls Court with my mum and mum-in-law (who were egging me on to try everything!) and made a beeline to the stalls that stocked Justin Alexander designs.

I met the Bell’Amoré ladies (Jo is just fantastic!), described the dress and made an appointment to visit their shop in Bexley Heath. Quite a way from North London, but the service was worth it. I knew I wanted a tea length dress and this design was not only a great length (a lot of tea dresses are quite short), but not too wide or puffy either. The lace and pearly beading is so intricate and beautiful. I was also looking for something I could move and dance in. I hadn’t ever believed there was “one” dress, but all I can say is that I felt fantastic in it (unlike other designs that just weren’t ‘me’) and once I tried it on, I didn’t want to take it off!

VINTAGE-INSPIRED ACCESSORIES
I wore an elbow length two-tier veil with cream satin edging from Angelica Bridal in Islington. I found vintage-inspired pearly earrings, necklace and hair grips online from Lovett & Co. I also found a delicate pair of short lace gloves from Vivien of Holloway.

1950s-INSPIRED SHOES
My shoes were by Harriet Wilde, an independent British shoe designer. I chose Ruth’s 1950s-inspired design, ‘Ella’ (without the embellishment that they would usually come with) a satin peep toe, ivory colour, with a platform and 4 inch heel. I loved visiting Ruth’s studio (Harriet Wilde is the name of her grandmother) and spending time trying her different styles. Thankfully, her designs come in half sizes for the perfect fit; not all wedding shoe brands offer this. They are the most comfortable heeled shoes I have ever bought and I danced all night! I intend to dye them and wear them again with an evening dress.

HAIR + MAKE-UP
I knew the hair and make-up look that I was after, 1950/60s-inspired…classic eyeliner and beehive a la Audrey Hepburn. Natasha Hall, aka Pretty Me Vintage, was the only stylist I had a hair and make-up trial with and I booked her straight away, after having a fun trial at Natasha’s vintage-styled home. On the day, Natasha and her assistant styled me, mum and four bridesmaids. We all looked gorgeous and it was so much fun to see everyone in rollers! I did my own nails with Chanel’s limited edition peachy polish, ‘June’.

THE GORGEOUS GROOM
My handsome groom wore a navy suit and waistcoat tailored by Reiss, sky blue tie (which the other groomsmen wore too) and white dress shirt. His kippah was suede in a royal blue, and his buttonhole reflected my bouquet. He also had a pair of Paul Smith ‘pin-up girl’ cufflinks.

He has always looked fantastic in a suit, but looked every inch ‘Mad Men’. Our badeken was the first time we saw each other after a week apart, all dressed up – it was a special moment.

BRIDESMAIDS STYLE
I chose four bridesmaids (my sister and 3 close friends). They wore lace ¾ length sleeved dresses in navy blue from Whistles, pearly earrings, and nude patent platform courts from good-old Marks & Spencer (again, half sizes!). My gifts to them where name necklaces from Tatty Devine.

THE CEREMONY
We asked friends to each read one of the Sheva Brachot out in English, after our Cantor had sung it all. Our Ketubah was designed and printed by Ketubah Kraft: it has the traditional Aramaic text on one half and a contemporary, alternative wording in English on the other. My sister read out the English wording as part of our chuppah ceremony. My bridesmaid read out an extract from Eric Fromm’s ‘The Art of Loving’. I wrote a short handout for our friends and family who aren’t familiar with Jewish tradition or Hebrew, so they could follow and find their own meaning in our wedding ceremony. I will never forget our ceremony, it was so moving, spiritual and intimate.

CHUPPAH DESIGN
We hired a simple white chuppah, with ribbon ties; the corners and front were decorated with silk flowers similar to those in my bouquet. No one could tell the difference!

MUSIC FOR THE CEREMONY
We all walked down the aisle to a beautiful acoustic version of Erev Shel Shoshanim. I circled my groom to Eshet Chayil, and Dodi Li was played as we signed our marriage certificate.

FABULOUS FLOWERS IN CORALS, CREAMS AND BLUES
My fabulous florist was Rachael Roberts at Vanilla Rose. I had a colour palette in mind: corals, creams and hints of blue and I wanted it to look fresh and natural, including roses. I met with Rachael twice, shared photos and ideas and we decided on a hand tied bouquet of Avalanche and Marie Jane roses, with dark blue hydrangea, blue delphiniums, cream veronica, cream lisianthus and eucalyptus, tied with ivory ribbon. My bridesmaid’s flowers were smaller versions of my bouquet, and table decorations were similar arrangements in glass bubble bowls. I absolutely loved the flowers, they were stunning.

DECOR
We had blue, peach and cream paper pom-poms which we hung from the ceilings to decorate the venue, from PaperPoms.co.uk. My dad and bridemaids had great fun assembling them the day before. I bought pillar candles from Ikea and little London toys from eBay to decorate the main room’s mantelpiece. I also bought dinky little London black cabs and red double-decker buses to decorate tables (also from eBay).

OUR FANTASTIC PHOTOGRAPHER
Amy Murrell of Especially Amy was our photographer. After a lot of research, Amy was the only photographer that we chose to meet for coffee. We chatted, looked through her portfolio again and then booked her! We loved her unobtrusive and contemporary style. We knew we didn’t want lots of fussy, formal photos. Instead, we wanted natural shots, capturing key moments and emotions. Amy is creative, honest (about what will and won’t work at the venue) and extremely professional – she also has a great sense of humour! What was particularly helpful on the day was how she kept to timings, particularly for group shots: she had authority without being bossy. Our photos are wonderful and many guests have asked after Amy’s contact details to pass on to friends and relatives, as they were so impressed with her.

A DELICIOUS CAKE THAT PERFECTLY MATCHED OUR COLOUR SCHEME
Our wedding cake was by Jen Cooper at Jen’s Cakery. Jen and I sat down in her kitchen at home, talked through ideas and what I’d seen on her Flickr, then we drew a sketch. I chose a 3 tier vanilla sponge with lemon buttercream, with ivory icing, decorated with pearly details and wrapped in coral ribbon. Jen went to a lot of trouble to get the colour match of ribbon just right (the same colour as the nail polish I wore). I wanted the cake to suit the colour scheme, to look elegant and also be delicious – which it was! There wasn’t a crumb left!

A VINTAGE ACAPELLA GROUP… AND A DJ!
We had The Frockettes, a quirky acapella group, sing at our drinks reception and introduce us into the dining room. They sang old standards such as Keep Young And Beautiful and My Guy. Polly and her vintage singers were a huge hit with our guests.

We had a brilliant DJ, Matt Maurice, who took time to understand what kind of music we were after for the party. We made an example playlist and he even asked us for a list of songs that were absolute no-nos.

FIRST DANCE
Our first dance was to You and Me by Wannadies. It’s fun and upbeat and we wanted guests to join us on the dance floor! It’s about the everyday of relationships, and we didn’t want anything slushy. We also had the typical Israeli dancing songs!

In an ideal world, we would have both liked a live band for the evening, but the prices seemed extraordinary.
ART POSTCARDS + A WEDDING POSTBOX, INSTEAD OF A  TRADITIONAL GUEST BOOK
Instead of a traditional guest book we gave out art postcards from London galleries and asked guests to write us messages, draw pictures, anything they like… We got cartoons, poems, word searches! Everyone then put them in our wedding postbox. At some point I plan to put these in a frame to have on the wall at home.

A LONDON UNDERGROUND MAP TABLE PLAN
I made the table plan, by mounting a retro poster of London Underground and fixing luggage tags onto different tube lines which listed the guest names (tables were named after lines).

ADVICE TO OTHER BRIDES

• Don’t be afraid to negotiate wherever you can on prices. Suppliers are open to this, so ask! If they won’t give you discount, then what else can they include in the price?
• Plan ahead and look out for ‘holiday’ online deals e.g. we bought our stationery online at Christmas, Prosecco on bank holidays, sign up for e-newsletters and use those discount codes!
• Digital printing is much cheaper than letterpress stationery.
• It’s easy to get lost down the rabbit hole of research online and overwhelmed with quotes. Only contact your top 3 suppliers for quotes and then choose from them.
• I met every one of our major suppliers in person. Don’t forget that it’s not just the product you’re buying, but the service – ask yourself: are they the kind of person that you’d like involved in your big day, do I like working with them? If not, don’t book them!
• Be honest if you don’t like a dress you’re trying on. As Jo at Bell Amore, the shop I bought my dress from, said ‘Dresses don’t have feelings! Get it off quick and try on something else!’  Although you might have in mind a particular style of dress, be prepared that it may not suit your body shape. Experienced staff in wedding shops should be able to recommend styles to try on by listening to what you’re looking for and then advise what will be flattering for you. My idea of a slinky 1920s number went out the window, it just looked awful on me!
• I had particular flowers in mind and then discovered that as September is end of summer, a lot of the brighter ones are (of course) dying off. Fortunately Rachael sourced some for me, but a lesson learnt in bearing the season of your wedding in mind when making choices.

ROS + ALEX’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photographer – Especially Amy
Venue – The ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts), London
Catering – Peyton & Byrne
Bride’s Dress – Justin Alexander from Bell’Amoré
Bride’s veil – Angelica Bridal
Brides’s Jewellery – Lovett & Co
Bride’s Gloves – Vivien of Holloway
Bride’s Shoes – Harriet Wilde
Hair + Make up – Pretty Me Vintage
Groom’s attire – Reiss
Groom’s cufflinks  – Paul Smith
Bridesmaids’ dresses – Whistles
Bridesmaids’ shoes – Marks & Spencer
Bridesmaids’ gifts  – Tatty Devine
Ketubah – Ketubah Kraft
Florals – Vanilla Rose
Wedding Cake – Jen’s Cakery
Entertainment – The Frockettes
DJ – Matt Maurice
Decor – PaperPoms.co.uk, Ikea and eBay
Invitations – Hello Lucky

The post Ros & Alex | Contemporary cool Jewish wedding with 50’s and 60’s touches, at The ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts), London, UK appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

As a fan of bold colour, multi-cultural weddings are such a visual treat for me. So I’m totally thrilled to be blogging this afternoon’s fusion Jewish Hindu or ‘HinJew’ wedding that’s an all-out explosion of colour and fun. From the bride’s multi-coloured hair to her stunning dress, vivid jewellery and wonderful mix of flowers, to the groom’s hip style and snazzy bejewelled shoes!

This wedding really shows how to perfectly amalgamate cultures, rituals, merrymaking, and personality! Talia and Indra made sure that amongst all their combined traditions they didn’t forget to let their personalities shine through. One of my favourite (and oh-so-simple) party details is that they had a design-your-own-‘mac-and-cheese-bar’ , because Talia is obsessed with this dish!

I absolutely adore Talia’s colourful dress and accessories which suit her down to the ground and I think that it’s safe to say that Talia’s dad agrees too. The emotional photo of him when he sees her for the first time gave me a lump in my throat…

So settle down and enjoy Talia’s infectiously fun words, alongside some super stunning imagery from Roots of Life Photography.

a colourful city chic venue

Talia, the Bride: We chose theWit in Chicago, as we wanted a unique and colourful wedding venue with a city feel within easy walking distance to fun things to do before and after the wedding. And in terms of Chicago, there is definitely a significance there. We knew we were going to be a destination wedding for most people no matter where we had it, since we had guests traveling from South Carolina, North Carolina, Indiana, Texas, Canada, India, etc. So we chose to go with our favourite US city, which earned a special place in our hearts since we had our first date there. It made the whole event that much more meaningful to be able to visit our first date hangouts just before getting hitched.

Stationery

Both our Save The Date, which we sent out electronically via Paperless Post, and our paper cards, involved a lot of research to find just the right style to represent how fun and special our relationship and this wedding was going to be. While we were fairly untraditional with our colour scheme for a Hindu or Jewish wedding, we decided to go with the red version of this card  to honour the red bridal colour typically seen in Hindu weddings.

Bridal style

My dress and all of our wedding garb (jewellery, veil, his outfit, shoes…. pretty much everything except my sandals) came from Sahil. I had gone shopping a few times with family and friends and hadn’t had any luck. During Indra and my winter vacation, we decided to look together and found this dress… Well sort of. It was actually a more pastel version of the dress, which I liked a lot, but wasn’t 100% sure about (I’m indecisive, so no surprise there).

Indra loved it and I texted a picture of me wearing it to my brother, best friend and mum and they all loved it too. And all of them mentioned how it matched my hair! BUT – I left it with Sahil to get fitted so it would be more of a cross between a sari and a lehenga, which was appealing to me since I could be a little more self-sufficient after the alterations. When they sent it back, it was the same dress, only way more vibrant! I guess they had replaced it with a similar, bolder one, but I love love loved it, so I guess it was meant to be.

accessories + jewellery

I wore a maang tikka, earrings, a veil, necklace and tons of bangles. I love big colourful jewellery so it went perfectly with my style. The maang tikka and bangles were to represent Hindu bridal styles and the earrings and necklace worked great with those. The veil was for Hindu and Jewish wedding traditions.

hair + make up

I just handed the reigns over to my super talented makeup artist Joanna of Joanna B Artistry. I didn’t have any look or anything picked out, which is kind of scary, but I knew from Tara she could be completely trusted…. and Tara was right! She took my personal style, wedding outfit and jewellery, skin issues, pretty much everything into account to make my makeup and hair absolutely stunning.

Jewelled sandals

Gold sandals with some clear jewel thingies on them. They matched my outfit brilliantly and allowed Indra to remain taller than me, whereas had I worn heels that would have brought our 3″ height difference even closer together… I have to say they were really comfortable though, especially since I had to take them on and off to get under the chuppah.

the handsome groom

Indra wore a teal and gold coloured sherwani with a pink and gold dupatta and the most amazing jewelled shoes! His brother even teased him asking if he was marrying me or his shoes because they were so over the top bejeweled! I loved them! And I loved that he matched my outfit so well. I knew in advance what he would be wearing since we picked it out together (honestly I picked out the shoes!), but he looked absolutely stunning wearing them. He also wore his adorable glasses that he bought just before the wedding.

bridal party

We had a bridal party who didn’t stand up at the chuppah with us, but did occupy the first couple of rows during the ceremony and did get special intros before the ceremony. We basically gave them an idea of what our wedding colours would be and then allowed them to choose their own outfits. They all had such different cultures and personalities and we really wanted that to shine.

Memorable moments of our interfaith HinJew ceremony

I just loved how amazingly the Bengali traditions tied in with the Jewish ones. Probably wrapping our toes around the betel nuts seven times was my favourite, but I got particularly choked up when we put our wedding rings halfway down each others’ pointer fingers and then on the ring fingers.

Also there was one part where Indra’s mum was helping during the ceremony and she whispered something very sweet to me, first in Bengali, then in English. It was very moving. Oh and how can I forget – my dad walking me down the aisle! It didn’t help that he purposely said something super sappy that made me cry just before walking down the aisle, but he’s very silly and sweet and in retrospect that wasn’t surprising whatsoever. In terms of pre-ceremony, the first looks with Indra and my dad were really meaningful. It was so special for me to spend time with just the two of them before Indra and I took our vows. And I can’t remember ever seeing my dad cry in my whole life other than during the first look.

chuppah design

I let my super talented florist Heidi of Field and Florist design our chuppah based on our taste, budget and overall feel of the ceremony, and she was amazing! We’re so lucky we found her.

music for the ceremony

 I couldn’t believe how seamlessly Max of Style Matters pieced together our totally varied taste in music. He played everything from the Jackson 5 to Led Zeppelin, John Lee Hooker, The Beatles, various Indian music, and more! Indian music played as our bridal and groomal parties walked down the aisle. I walked down the aisle to I Got a Sure Thing by the Jackson 5.

our outstanding florist

We went with a fresh picked flower look and other than requesting colourful things with interesting textures, we gave Heidi from Field and Florist free creative reign. She figured out our taste perfectly after just a couple phone calls and was a dream to work with. It was incredible how she so immediately understood our taste (and budget!), when other florists seemed to have a much harder time. I guess she’s a natural! On the tables she took that same look and combined it with mason jars and tea light candles.

our incredible photographer

Tara of Roots of Life Photography is seriously amazing! So fantastuc that even though she lives four hours away from us, we decided she was going to be our official photographer for any events we have from now on. We initially were thinking of doing our wedding in Charleston, South Carolina, and during that time had interviewed a lot of photographers and not found that great of a match (some were very talented but way overpriced, whereas others were in our budget but didn’t quite have the style we were looking for).

When we saw Tara’s photos and offerings, we knew that was it! But even more than that, she is just so super sweet. And considering how much time you spend with your photographer on your wedding day, that was really really important! She’s also really amazing at navigating family drama issues, which is a must for any wedding photographer…

make-your-own food bars!

Hors d’oeuvres included samosas, goat cheese tomato soup shooters with fancy grilled cheese and mango risotto cakes. The main course included a design your own mac and cheese bar (I am absolutely obsessed with macaroni!), a design your own pho station, and Indian curry bar with two types of curries and naan.

dessert bar

 We did a teeny tiny butter pecan cake mainly for photography purposes. But the real dessert action was at our dessert bar! We had Chinese almond cookies, Southern style coconut cupcakes and (my personal favourite), Vietnamese coffee shooters with Beignets.

The Chinese cookies were a reference to our love of and many visits to Chicago Chinatown. The cupcakes were a reference to us both being from the South (well really Indra moved to India when he was a toddler and grew up there, but he spent the last 7 years of his life in South Carolina and I grew up there). The vietnamese coffee is just another nod to our love of asian food and vietnamese coffee in particular and the beignets were a reference to our trip to NOLA, which was absolutely amazing. All of this was prepared by the pastry chef at theWit.

entertainment and party!

We had an open bar and DJ and figured that was enough! For the open bar we included four styles of craft beer local to the midwest and a few different types of liquor. We upgraded to kraken as our rum option and had them make a special version of our favorite drink for us, which includes kraken, clementines and bitters. After the reception was over, the young folks headed up to ROOF on theWit (the hotel bar) and then went bar hopping from there.

first dances

My dad and I first danced to Dear Prudence by The Beatles and Indra and his mum danced to Maa da ladla bigad gaya .For Indra and my first dance, we chose Happy by Pharrell because we actually wanted everyone to dance with that and we thought that would be a good song for that. It took some persuading but eventually people joined in. But the song that ended up feeling more like a traditional first dance was played much later (40 Day Dream by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros). It felt like we were the only people in the room.

favours

Old fashioned chocolate glazed doughnuts from Do-Rite Donuts and ground Intelligentsia coffee! Delicious. They are both super Chicago, make for a great breakfast combo for the day after the wedding, and are two of my favourite things to have while in Chi-town.

advice to other brides

Figure out what’s important to you, point your budget towards that, and the rest you can decide if it’s really needed and if so, how much you want to spend on us. For us, it wasn’t a big deal at all to have aisle runners, gold bows on our chairs, and things like that. But having amazing food, drinks and photography were musts, so we really honed in on that. Also it is possible to have gorgeous flowers without blowing bazillions of dollars on that! Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

In terms of enjoying the day, I really felt like having a first look with Indra and my dad was so important. It was meaningful but also allowed me to have a quiet moment with two of my favorite people. Having everyone stare at you for hours, especially if you’re an introvert, can be really intimidating! Figure out how to best make yourself comfortable as much as you can beforehand and plan accordingly. It’s a huge day, emotions are flying, you have to do you!

Also having a great DJ is important because once you’ve gone through the ceremony bit you can just dance your stress away! And remember that weddings can make people a little emotional, and they can show that in a variety of ways. Don’t expect everything to go exactly how you planned or for people to act exactly how you expect. Don’t worry about anything other than you and your soon to be spouse having the day of your lives.

 
Talia + Indra’s LITTLE WHITE BOOK

Photography – Roots of Life Photography
Venue + catering – theWit
Wedding Planner – Simply Azure Events
Bride’s outfit + accessories – Sahil
Groom’s Attire – Sahil
Flowers – Field and Florist
Hair + Make up – Joanna B Artistry
DJ – Style Matters 
Bridal Henna – Sumeyya of Henna Craze
Stationery – Paperless Post

The post Talia & Indra | Colourful fusion Jewish Hindu ‘HinJew’ wedding at The Wit, Chicago, IL, USA appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

I’m feeling very happy indeed this morning, because Abby and Lance’s wedding is such a gorgeous one to be blogging on a Friday morning.

The adorable couple married in San Jose, California – a city that is close to their hearts as it’s where they live, and it’s also where they went to high school. I should also add that these two first met when Abby was just 6 years old, when Lance generously gave her some of his sweets. Bags of those same sweets (Laffy Taffy’s!) were handed out at the wedding to all their guests. Super cute!

They wanted their wedding to be really fun for their friends…and it was just that. Throw in a beautiful outdoor chuppah setting, and an orange and peacock blue colour scheme – and I think you’ve pretty much got the perfect Smashing The Glass wedding to kickstart your weekend!

the fun factor

Abby, the Bride: We really wanted everyone to have fun at our wedding, and not feel like this was just another stuffy, boring wedding that they had already been to. What guided us was constantly asking ourselves, “Would this be fun?” We had drinks and hor d’oeuvres available for our guests prior to the ceremony and welcomed them to keep their drinks during the ceremony. Being that we got married in August, sundown was late in the day and pushed our ceremony and reception into the night. Rather than having another “rubber chicken” dinner that took away from time to enjoy dancing and partying, we selected about a dozen different kinds of foods to have set out during the reception. People could graze the buffets as they desired and all foods chosen you could eat with your hands or just a fork (i.e. no knife required).

the importance of friends and family

Our family and friends were involved in the preparation and were constantly surrounding us. It was incredibly special to have everyone in our immediate families and our bridal parties plus our witnesses be a part of our ketubah signing. Our Rabbi had printed a prayer for our parents to say to us and let’s just say the tears were flowing freely.

choosing a venue that was meaningful to us

We got married in San Jose, California at The Ranch Golf Club. We wanted to stay local to where we live, where our families and friends live and where we went to high school. Our life is here and we wanted to really enjoy celebrating in our city. When we visited the Ranch we felt like it met all of our needs. We looked out and saw a beautiful view of the city that made it feel like we were on top of the world. The venue is also set up to have the ceremony outside with the reception inside – exactly what we wanted!

the dress, veil and shoes

I got my dress from Elegant Lace Bridal and it was designed by Mori Lee. I really wanted a beautiful gown that was definitely a “wedding dress” and one that had straps. The gown I picked had lace straps and a very intricate lace overlay over the whole dress, down to the hemline. The moment I realised it was “the one” is when I was deciding between two dresses. When I had the other one on, my sister suggested putting my dress back on to help decide and I practically jumped out of the current dress I was wearing to put mine back on.

I also wore a veil that had lace on the edge, matching the dress. I wore a veil because it is Jewish custom and I wanted to uphold that. Plus, it is the only day you get to wear one – I couldn’t pass it up!

I loved my shoes, but they weren’t the focus of my wedding planning. The heels were about 3 inches tall and an ivory color. They were slingbacks with a jewel on the front that matched the embellishments on my dress. They were really comfortable right away and luckily lasted through the night.

hair + make up

For my makeup I wanted to look natural since I don’t wear makeup. It was important for me to feel beautiful, but not look drastically different than I usually do – I wanted to still look like me! As for my hair, I always wanted it to be up since I think it looks great and I can’t do that for myself. We kept it soft throughout because I think I look funny when my hair is pulled too tight around my face. I had one woman do both my hair and makeup, Karla Emm Novelo, and she was amazing!

The handsome groom

We wanted everyone’s attire to tie in with our colour scheme of orange and peacock blue so Lance wore a dark navy blue suit by Joseph Abboud with a white button up shirt and an orange tie from Men’s Wearhouse. His shoes were reddish brown and matched his belt. He looked incredibly sharp and I didn’t even mind that he chose not to wear the vest!

peacock blue bridesmaids

I had one matron of honour (my sister) and two bridesmaids (best friends). They all wore Mori Lee bridesmaids dresses in peacock blue, to tie in with the colour scheme. I wanted them to be comfortable in what they wore and have fun with it. Since bridesmaid dresses can be expensive, I wanted them to like their dress and be able to dance and have fun all night. With their different body types and clothing styles, they all picked a different cut of dress that was suitable for them. It was fun to see them all look coordinated, but still like individuals.

a symbolic chuppah

Our synagogue has a couple of different options for a chuppah, but Lance and I liked this one for two reasons. First of all the phrase (Hebrew transliteration: Ani le’dodee v’dodee lee and English translation: I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine) is one of our favourite sayings and it was perfectly placed on the chuppah for us and our guests to see. Secondly, it was the same chuppah that my sister and Lance’s best friend were married under 5 years earlier.

the ceremony

My brother was a musical theatre actor and is a great singer so we had him sing the Sheva Brachot. It was so special having him bless us and definitely made me cry! This was absolutely my favorite part of the ceremony.

music for the ceremony

We played all the songs we love at our wedding! We had a couple of songs that were our’s and found a way to get them all played at special times throughout our day. One of our songs is A Thousand Years by Christina Perri because I have loved Lance since I was 6 years old, when he was just my big brother’s friend who gave me candy. We dated for 4 years before he proposed so I also tell him it’s our song because I waited so long! I walked down the aisle to it with my parents by my side. Another song of our’s is You Make My Dreams Come True by Hall & Oates. He really does make my dreams come true and it was the perfect upbeat song to walk down the aisle to together after the ceremony was over.

bright orange flowers everywhere!

Shuli Gordon was our florist who took my request of “bright orange flowers” and made it into beautiful bouquets, boutineers, corsages and table centre pieces with various kinds of flowers (i.e. roses, gerbera daisies, etc.). She thought of making each bouquet with a different flower and doing the same across the 20 different tables at the reception. Everyone had the bright orange flowers aside from myself (white bouquet) and Lance (white boutineer). It made everything tie in together with the colour scheme.

choosing our perfect photographers

We met with several different photographers to figure out what we wanted for our pictures. We even met with our venue’s preferred vendor and struggled because we liked everyone on a personal level. The differentiating factor for why we picked, U Me Us Studios, instead of the others was really how amazing the photographs looked – we really liked their style! We knew looking back on our big day that they would be perfect for our wedding. When we met with them we also saw that they were fun people that we would be comfortable with and we enjoyed that they were a married couple who worked together.

a chocolate covered wedding cake

We. Love. Sweets. That is first and foremost to understand when it came to choosing our cake. We also both love chocolate so much that we decided to have as much as possible. In understanding that not everyone loves chocolate like we do, we also threw in a tier of vanilla cake, which helped us keep with our simple and fun theme. We bought our cake from a bakery in our city, C’est Si Bon Bakery, and they helped us design what we wanted. We didn’t feel the need to be like everyone else in terms of a white cake, so we had a chocolate buttercream icing on our two tiers. There were simple dots and ribbons as decoration and a ribbon of peacock blue at the bottom of each tier. We loved the feeling of being unique and getting what we loved – even if some of that chocolate went up Lance’s nose when we cut the cake!

a wonderful DJ who got everyone on the dance floor!

For the ceremony and the reception we chose to have a DJ who has had experience with MC-ing Jewish weddings. We considered having a band, but felt like in order to get all of the songs that we wanted without concern of how it would sound, a DJ was more appropriate for us. We met with the DJ, Joe Sheldon, and told him about the songs and changes from a typical wedding that we wanted. For instance, we wanted to start the reception with our toasts and go straight into Israeli dancing and then finally into our first dance as a married couple.

We talked to him about wanting to only dance for a short time before we did our parent dancese. He helped guide us to think about the timeline and things we hadn’t thought about – he was great! He also explained the dance moves to the Israeli dances for those that didn’t know how to do it so they could participate. So many people mentioned that this was the first wedding that they saw practically everyone joining in for the dancing! He really knew when to bring out the chairs during the Hora and when to cut songs shorter if people didn’t seem to be enjoying them. He was invaluable to our party that night!

favours that were super personal to us

When I was 6 years old, I was bugging my brother for candy he had just recently purchased. He brushed me off, as most older brothers would. Lance on the other hand, had younger siblings as well, and knew that if he gave me a piece of candy, I would go away. He handed me one of his Laffy Taffy’s and I was in love. When he proposed to me, he had bought a small bag of Laffy Taffy’s again and gave them to me “at the scene of the crime”. Laffy Taffy’s are clearly a symbol of our sweet relationship, so we put together bags of the candy for our guests to enjoy. We had a sign on the table saying “Please enjoy a taste of how we fell in love”.

advice to other brides

If you start planning and get the big decisions out of the way, you will have enough time to get through the smaller details and won’t stress as much as you get towards the big day. I would also say, do what you want to do, but listen to the advice you’re given and see if it works with what is really important to you. Just because things are traditionally done, doesn’t mean you have to do it that way.

Find something important for people to do if they are going to be in your life from now on (i.e. future in-laws – don’t push them to the side, you’ll likely regret it), and take the time to do the Yichud. It’s so nice to have a few minutes to be excited about being married without everyone watching you.

Abby & Lance’s LITTLE WHITE BOOK

Photographer – Evonne & Darren Wong of U Me Us Studios
Venue + catering – The Ranch Golf Club
Bride’s dress – Mori Lee from Elegant Lace Bridal
Bridesmaids dress – Mori Lee
Groom’s Attire – Joseph Abboud from Men’s Wearhouse
Hair + make up – Karla at J’Adore Beauty
Florist – Shuli Gordon of Designs by Shuli
Wedding cake – C’est Si Bon Bakery
Rabbi – Rabbi Sarah Weissman
DJ – DJ Joe of Joel Nelson Productions

The post Abby & Lance | Orange and blue Jewish wedding at The Ranch Golf Club, San Jose, California appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

Whatever you are doing today and however you are feeling, I’m pretty sure that this wedding will make you smile.

For a start, there are sunflowers by the bucketload, possibly the happiest flowers of all time. And if there’s ever a bride and groom that have beamed from ear to ear with infectious smiles for the whole of their wedding day, then it’s Jenna and Jeff.

Jenna and Jeff (or J² as they call themselves) toyed with the possibility of getting married on the beach, but for various reasons they didn’t, and instead, they brought the beach to their rooftop venue. They had a barefoot-toes-in-the-sand wedding, as beneath the chuppah was a box full of sand with J² etched into it. I absolutely love the fact that Jeff put one shoe on to smash the glass, and then he and his new wife walked back down the aisle barefoot…except for Jeff’s one shoe!

Regular readers know what a fan I am of personalised details and I am in raptures over today’s chuppah which was hand-crafted by a family friend. The pole structure was inscribed with Jenna and Jeff’s initials, as well as the initials of their parents, and their wedding date, and even an anchor to support their nautical theme. The fabric covering was Jenna’s grandmother’s lace table cloth.

Being a nautical-themed W day, I must also mention that Jenna and Jeff literally tied a knot… a seafaring “fisherman’s love knot”!

So let’s take a look. I’ve got the breathtaking images from Tiltawhirl Imagery, as well as the beautiful wedding film from MM Film Studio at the foot of the post. Jenna and Jeff have written their wedding report together.

A waterside venue that ticked all our boxes

Jenna, the Bride, and Jeff, the Groom: Although we didn’t have a specific venue or setting in mind for the wedding, we knew two things were important – being married by the water and having our toes in the sand. We initially thought about a destination wedding in Florida (where we met) or at the Outer Banks of North Carolina (where both our families have vacationed for entire lives.)

Ultimately, we decided to get married closer to DC to help accommodate certain guests that were essential to the weekend but would have had trouble travelling. It was also important to us to get married in a state that recognised marriage equality and neither North Carolina, Florida, or Jenna’s home state of Virginia did at the time. As residents of Maryland, and voters of the successful marriage equality bill, we thought that somewhere around Annapolis could work perfectly.

After checking out only one other venue, we selected the Annapolis Marriott. It allowed us to have both the ceremony and reception in the same spot, was right on the water, and allowed our guests to experience a unique city that many had never visited before.

a beachy, nautical, navy blue theme

We did not have a particular theme per se, but navy blue incorporated both a nautical theme as well as our Penn State blue! Being married in Annapolis, anchors and oysters (see the table cards – yes we ate all of those oysters) abounded as did sunflowers (Jenna’s favourite) for a summer feel. The vibe was a bit beachy, nautical, and natural.

our save the dates became our wedding invitations!

In an effort to save some pennies AND be green, we turned our save the dates into invitations and used mywedding.com to manage our RSVPs. Our save the date magnet had one of our favorite pictures of us walking on the beach in the Outer Banks, NC. We included a slip of paper that read (among other things): “This save the date also serves as your official wedding invite; we will not be sending a separate, formal invitation. Instead, please visit our wedding website below to RSVP and discover the many hotel accommodations available in Annapolis.’ 

The URL is: mywedding.com/messwith

the perfect dress

My dress was called ‘Eugenia’ and I found it at Adriennes.  I wanted something boho and vintage yet classic, and most importantly, something comfortable that I could dance in! The cut and vintage lace on this couture dress immediately caught my eye. When it fit like a glove off of the rack and the owner offered it to me at a discount – I WAS SOLD! Jeff said that when he turned around at our first look that he couldn’t have imagined me in anything else. It was so perfect for me and fit my style and personality so well.

Flowers in Jenna’s hair and sunflower hair clips for the guests!

Jeff would probably describe Jenna as hippie, Jenna would probably describe herself as boho beach glam. Regardless, you can see that a floral crown with additional flowers in the hair were a must! Not only did the bride and bridesmaids wear flowers in their hair, small sunflower hair clips were made available to all guests along with yarmulkes. The sign read, “If you wish, grab a flower for your hair or a yarmulke for your head. Then go grab a seat because soon we’ll be wed!” It brought Jenna so much joy to look out at the guests during the ceremony and reception and see little yellow flowers dancing on so many heads! Her friends and family are still wearing them!

Accessories

Jenna wore a rose gold (her engagement ring is also rose gold, her favourite) monogrammed ring (with her new initials) that was gifted to her as a bridal shower gift by her matron of honour, her big sister Jessica DeDomenico. Jenna waited over 2 months to wear the ring because she wanted it to be her “something new” on the wedding day! Jenna also wore a mother of pearl bracelet that her paternal grandparents gave to her mother. This “something borrowed” was symbolic for Jenna because it was a way to bring in her grandfather, who passed away last year.

Jenna’s “something blue” was a Penn State garter belt that has been passed around, like the sisterhood of the travelling garter belt, among all of her Penn State best friends. Jenna’s wedding was the garter belt’s 5^th wedding, and in November it made it to it’s 6^th and final wedding! The jury is still out on how the girls will “share” this momento!

barefoot bride

Jenna was not the kind of bride that had planned out her entire wedding as a little girl. In fact, when asked what she envisioned for her wedding, she would reply “All I want is to get married to my best friend, barefoot in the sand. The rest is just a bonus.” Although the venue was waterfront, the ceremony was on a roof, not a beach! Jenna and Jeff decided that they could get creative here. They had a family friend construct a small cedar sandbox for them to stand in and they had friends bring in sand from the various places they have lived and vacationed over the years, and fulfilled Jenna’s vision of getting married barefoot in the sand (with her best friend right in the sandbox with her).

When Jenna was not barefoot, she was wearing a pair of rose gold wedges (to match the rose gold theme). There are some great pictures of Jeff and her sister Jessica trying to remove her shoes before she stepped into the sandbox with Jeff. And there are great pictures of Jeff putting on one shoe just to break the glass, and then preceding down the aisle with one shoe on (Jenna was still barefoot).

The handsome groom

Jeff, the Groom: To go with our nautical touches, I did not want to wear a full suit nor have my groomsmen in one either. We went with white dress shirts (with the sleeves rolled up) and grey pants with blue boat shoes. I wore a blue vest and a long navy tie while my groomsmen wore braces with bow ties. We added a Maryland touch with grey socks with blue crabs on them for fun! Also, you can’t forget the navy yarmulkes.

Since Jenna and I got married with our feet in sand, I walked down the aisle without socks and removed my shoes before the ceremony. Prior to the breaking of the glass, I only put one shoe back on to break the glass before heading back down the aisle. Some of my favorite pictures show me half-barefoot celebrating with my new wife!

bridesmaids

I had five bridesmaids. They wore navy blue Bill Levkoff dresses, all different styles. I gifted four of my bridesmaids a beautiful Stella & Dot bracelet and gifted my matron of honour an incredible Stella & Dot necklace to set her apart.

The ketubah

We wrote our own vows and had those vows translated into Hebrew and painted on to our ketubah. The ketubah, from Ketubah.com, featured our nautical theme and was commissioned by Jenna’s two aunts and witnesses. We later found out that the artist they commissioned for the ketubah also a member of Jenna’s family’s synagogue!

chuppah design

Our chuppah was handmade by the same family friend who also made the sandbox.. It was made from cedar wood and carved with our initials, our wedding date, our parents initials, and things that we considered important to our relationship. Along with the chuppah, we used Jenna’s grandmother’s lace tablecloth as our cover.

a very personal and family-orientated Jewish wedding ceremony

We had so many special and personal moments during our wedding ceremony:

• Jeff’s wedding ring is his father’s, David Sr., who passed away in 1997.
• Jeff’s sister-in-law Bobbi sang “In My Life” by the Beatles and Jenna’s brother Jason accompanied her on guitar. This was special because it was the same song that Bobbi and Jeff’s brother David used as the processional to their wedding, and was a favourite of Jeff’s father.
• Our ceremony was very special and family oriented for us. Jenna’s sister Jessica was the Matron of Honor while Jeff’s brother David was the Best Man. The two of them shared the first cup of wine for the opening toast from the Kiddush cup (one Kiddish cup was Jenna’s father, Ed’s from his bar-mitzvah, the other was her grandfather’s – who recently passed away).
• Our nephews (Jessica’s three sons) were our ring bearers.
• We also had a reading from three of Jenna’s college friends – a reading that has been used in all of their weddings throughout the years.
• Our parents were also involved in the ceremony. They each read two of the seven blessings (which we found online and added a few personalised touches ourselves.)
• Another special aspect of the ceremony was the Rabbi. Rabbi Amy Schwartzman (Senior Rabbi at Temple Rodef Shalom) performed Jenna’s bat mitzvah as well 17 years before!
• The glass Jeff broke was a special glass that we will have made into a mezuzah.
• Lastly, we literally tied a knot! A nautical “fisherman’s love knot” – there are great pictures of this, too!

music for the ceremony

The bridal party processed to You and Me by Dave Matthews Band. Jenna and her parents processed to All of Me by John Legend. The recessional was All You Need is Love performed by David Lynden Hall (the version from Love Actually). As we processed, the guests blew bubbles. It was picture perfect.

FLOWERS ARRANGED AND DESIGNED BY FAMILY FRIENDS

We must acknowledge Jeff’s mother (Liz) for taking the lead on the absolutely gorgeous flowers that you see in these pictures! Initially, we weren’t too concerned with flowers and even contemplated not having any at all! Liz loves all things gardening and has such a great eye for flowers. “No flowers?” she asked. This was unacceptable. She asked Jenna and Jeff to give her some ideas, Jenna loves sunflowers and Jeff really liked the idea of  Black-Eyed-Susans (Maryland state flower) as his boutonniere. She enlisted the help of some of her generous friends to select and design the beautiful bouquets and chuppah arrangements. Some of the blooms were picked from Liz’s very own garden. In looking back at the pictures, we realise how much brightness and joy the flowers added to our event. They were perfection, and we are incredibly grateful for the loving and creative work that went into making them part of our day.

Centrepieces created by both Jenna and Jeff’s mothers

Iris (Jenna’s mother) and Liz (Jeff’s mother) worked on the centrepieces together. They would send us pictures of themselves baking cookies, drinking wine, and coming up with centrepiece ideas.. It was a fun project for them to work on together and the results were beautiful! Mason jars with Penn State ribbon, lanterns (borrowed from one of the bride’s best friends), candles, baby’s breath, and little chalk boards with table numbers on them. Also on the tables were pictures of Jenna and Jeff at the Outer Banks this past summer, wearing white, with numbers written in the sand for each table number. Some of these were quite candid and very cute!

our phenomenal photographers

We used Tiltawhirl Imagery as our photographers. Rachel and Mark were phenomenal to work with for our wedding.  From the minute we were referred to them, they showed sincere enthusiasm for our wedding and made it a priority to learn as much about us as possible. Throughout the planning process, Rachel and Mark kept in constant communication with us to ensure that all photos we wanted would be accounted for. On the day of the wedding, they were extremely proactive, organised and professional the entire time. Their work was impeccable and has garnered rave reviews from our family and friends. On top of that, the turnaround in which Rachel and Mark got us our initial proofs and final photos was the quickest I’ve ever seen!

our incredible videographers

We used MM Film Studio for our videography. This pair is incredible. My husband and I found them relatively last minute and they could not have been easier to work with or more accommodating to our needs.

Cupcakes instead of cake!

Cake? Who needs a cake? We actually catered with the famous and local Georgetown Cupcakes to get about 14 dozen cupcakes of different varieties for our out of town guests! The line for Georgetown Cupcakes is usually around the block, it was just a little shorter at our wedding! We were able to personalise the cupcakes in a variety of very cute ways, including a J² (our nick name, we are both J’s) and the Penn State lion head logo. We got a small cake for our cupcake tower topper – a blue velvet (yes, Penn State blue) cake from a local bakery, The Main Ingredient. Red velvet is Jenna’s favourite!

a live wedding band

We knew that we wanted to have a band at our wedding. Initially, we looked into hiring the same band that Jeff’s best friend from high school (and groomsman) had at his wedding, but after some research they just seemed to not have the same vibe we remembered. After some more looking, we found an a DC based band named Amaretto. In a word, Amaretto was awesome. They’re a 12 piece band complete with a horn section. Needless to say, the dance floor was filled the entire night!

Our first song was More Than Anyone by Gavin DeGraw (this has been our song for quite some time). We secretly took dance lessons to choreograph our first dance and it paid off! We killed it and everyone was thoroughly impressed that Jeff didn’t have two left feet.

Very special favours…

In lieu of traditional favours,, we gave a gift to Lambda Legal in order to use our happy occasion to help others have the same opportunity. We acknowledged during their ceremony that the world is not whole and that the ability to commit love openly and publicly and to legally wed, is not a right bestowed to all people. With this gift, we hope to help to bring about change and legal rights for LGBTQ Americans.

Advice to other brides

Our photographer asked us a few months before our wedding what the most important part of the day was. We said “That we are present in the moment and ENJOY IT, savouring the love and positive energy! I hope we have moments that we can just be still and connect with one another. It is our hope that our guests can feel our love and appreciation for one another and for everyone in attendance. They are all important people in our lives. On top of that, we hope people dance and have a blast!” That was thoroughly accomplished. We truly felt like we were able to be present in every moment of that day and weekend with one another and with our guests. Nothing felt rushed or stressed. It felt perfect.

Jenna & Jeff’s LITTLE WHITE BOOK

Photography – Tiltawhirl Imagery
Videography – MM Film Studio
Venue + catering – Annapolis Marriott
Bride’s dress – Adriennes
Bridesmaids – Bill Levkoff 
Hair – Behind the Veil – Kristi Crawford
Make up – Behind the Veil – Katie Spanoghe
Flowers – Stephen McLeod & Laura Scanlon, as a favour to the groom’s mother
Entertainment – Amaretto Band
Ketubah – Ketubah.com
Cupcakes – Georgetown Cupcakes
Rabbi – Rabbi Amy Schwartzman

The post Jenna & Jeff | Sunflowers and seafaring Jewish wedding at Annapolis Marriott Waterfront, Maryland, USA appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

I have a real sweet treat of a Jewish wedding for you this afternoon folks. Set amidst the boats and charm of Old Jaffa in Tel Aviv, today’s W-Day was planned in just 3 months (nope, I’m not even kidding!) and is bursting at the seams with lots of personal and thoughtful touches.

Rachel and Moshe both come from Modern Orthodox backgrounds, yet it was important for them to make their ceremony as egalitarian and personal as possible. For example, for the Sheva Brachot part of their Jewish wedding ceremony, they invited couples to come up to the chuppah together. The man said the traditional blessing, whilst the woman wrote a personal blessing. Rachel says, “hearing the personal blessings written by the closest women in our lives was so moving and special. They are words that will accompany me throughout my life.”

They also loved the concept of having a procession with klezmer musicians parading through the alleys of Jaffa, leading them to their chuppah in a park overlooking the city and the sea. To them, it felt very timeless, reconnecting to a special tradition that doesn’t happen so much anymore.

Today, not only do I have the usual dose of W-day eye candy for you, taken by the super talented Noa Magger (in particular I am loving the Jaffa harbour images, and the ‘party faces’ of the guests – you have to check them out!) but for those of you that may be stressing over every minute detail in the run up to the big day, Rachel’s words are both wise and super helpful. I particularly love what she says at the end of the post: “I think the biggest piece of advice is to find ways to incorporate friends and family in a meaningful way –  I think it makes for the best memories.”

So true… Let’s hear more from Rachel and Moshe, a smashingly creative, fun and outgoing couple.

A Tel Aviv venue combining the ancient and the modern

Rachel, the Bride: We got married in Lauren’s Gallery in Old Jaffa, it is a preserved Ottoman era structure with beautiful arches, that has a lot of charm and character. The space exuded a really tasteful blend of ancient and modern that I really loved. The place was recommended by a friend who was a former wedding planner and she said that they do “perfect events”. Well she was right! Our engagement lasted only three months so we had to be pretty decisive about everything fairly quickly.

There were a number of reasons why we went with this venue: we wanted a Chanukah wedding, to celebrate our first anniversary, and that meant a winter wedding. Although we live in Jerusalem we decided to have the wedding in Tel Aviv, since it is much warmer than Jerusalem, and there was a good chance that we could have part of the wedding outside (though we also were delighted that Lauren’s Gallery could hold the whole event indoors if it was stormy and it would still be a wonderful space).

a procession with klezmer musicians through the passageways of Jaffa

We loved the concept of having a procession with klezmer musicians through the alleys of Jaffa and then having the chuppah in a park overlooking the city and the sea, it felt very timeless, reconnecting to a special tradition that doesn’t happen so much anymore. As a wedding is a public declaration of love and commitment it also felt very right that it should happen in public space. We were lucky with the weather and got our outdoor chuppah!

Getting married on December 21st 2014 – the shortest day of the year, and also the 6th night of Chanukah

We got married on December 21st, the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, on the sixth night of the Festival of Lights that was also Rosh Chodesh – the new moon, it seemed pretty clear to me that the theme should be lighting up the darkness, we used blue and gold tones. We didn’t have a wedding planner, Lauren’s Gallery does their own in-house design and we did all the extras ourselves. The underlying theme was a really awesome Chanukah party!

Designing our own invitation

I have a background in painting and design and Moshe is an amazing illustrator with a lot of design sensitivity and we co-collaborated on the design concept of the invitation. We created a beautiful blue and gold invitation that  expressed our feelings with a quote in Hebrew that related to the cosmic elements of the solstice and Rosh Chodesh by the Israeli poet Zelda:

Our modest home is partner
To the celebration of the sky;
Sun casts its flaming gold inside
While night floods us with the darkness of stars
~Zelda

A Catherine Deane wedding dress

Believe it or not I ordered my dress off the internet. I looked at many dresses in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and the whole time I was eyeing this stunning gown online by Catherine Deane. In the end I took the plunge and ordered it, and then took it to a local seamstress for some alterations. I loved the quality, craftsmanship and the style of the gown and I just felt that it was the perfect one for me. The skirt had 15 meters of delicate silk and it moved in the most lovely way.  It was also very comfortable- it was important for me to be able to dance a lot!

A flower crown and a champagne-toned veil

I had a flower crown made by Galit of Arnonim who does great flower designs, and my veil was made by my seamstress, Sharon, from a champagne toned tulle to match the dress. My mother got married with a flower crown made from babies breath and I grew up with that image in my mind, the flower crown I chose had soft purple tones and added a dash of warm colour that was very refreshing.

I actually had a bit of trouble finding the right colour tulle to match the gown- it was such a specific colour! After quite a search through most of the fabric stores in Jerusalem I discovered it and was delighted with my find!

Lace up heels

I got a very cute pair of Roni Kantor lace up heels in off white that had a substantial heel. I very rarely wear heels and after having them on for not very long I switched to a pair of kitten heels that I got for my sister’s wedding, they were much more comfortable and I danced the night away in them without a second thought.

hair + make up

I wanted an updo for my hair- a feminine and romantic look to compliment the dress and integrate the flower crown. As for makeup I wanted something that looked soft and natural, and not too much of it!

I went with Avital at Avital hair and makeup on the recommendation of a friend, and they were really professional yet very warm and friendly, providing a very good vibe on the morning of the wedding which was really appreciated!

the handsome groom

We got Moshe a stunning blue Van Gils suit in Brussels about a month before the wedding, I had a work conference and he came along with the hope of getting a nice suit, which he found the first day we were there. He took me to see it and it was an immediate yes- it looked perfect! It had some very quirky detailing that suited his personality. He picked out a grey cashmere tie, got a pair of snazzy brown pair of cap toe Oxfords and had a rose boutonnière to match my bouquet. His best feature was his smile though, it gets me every time…

The wedding ceremony

The ceremony was very important to us and we put a lot of thought into the content. We both come from Modern Orthodox backgrounds, yet it was important for us to make it as egalitarian and personal as possible.

For the Sheva Brachot we had couples come up to the chuppah together: the man said the traditional blessing, whilst the woman wrote a personal blessing. A very dear friend of mine is a brilliant scholar and she read out our Ketubah in Aramaic. Our Ketubah was designed by another close friend, Rachel Bickel, who does amazing work. She created a unique Ketubah that was inspired by our invitation design and renaissance celestial diagrams that incorporated the lunar cycle to emphasise the significance of the date. We had four friends hold up the chuppah: two women and two men, and we also had a double ring ceremony- I gave Moshe a ring before the smashing of the glass.

My favourite part was hearing the personal blessings written by the closest women in our lives. It was so moving and special, they are words that will accompany me throughout our life.

chuppah design

The chuppah design was mostly expressed through the placement of the ceremony and procession that accompanied the event ie. walking through the alleys of Jaffa at night lead by klezmer musicians up to a park overlooking the city and the sea was the design aspect –  a journey through ancient spaces accompanied by the most important people in your life. The chuppah itself was very simple: four bamboo poles that held a white canopy, supported by close friends that we wanted to bring into this moment of ours.

wedding music

We had lots of wonderful music at our wedding. For the reception Moshe and I were separated until the Badeken. Two of my friends and my sister have a tradition of playing a blend of Jewish and folk music – they play guitar, violin and cello – and they also brought percussion instruments for other people and we had a circle playing together. It was a really sweet and intimate moment to hear all these special people in my life playing and singing together until Moshe came with four Klezmers for the Badeken. The Klezmers played beautiful hassidic tunes that accompanied us through the procession.

For the first round of dancing we had separate circle dancing and they played upbeat Klezmer dance tunes- it was so much fun! At the end of the first round of dancing we lit the Chanukah candles together with our guests and they played Chanukah tunes as well- including Maoz Tsur.

An amazing DJ with an amazing playlist!

The second round of dancing was more of a party- we had a great DJ, Eyal Daskal, and he helped us put together a fantastic playlist that combined dance music from the 1950s until today- it was one amazing song after another- people keep asking us for our playlist!

flowers

My bouquet was designed by Pine & Clover, made of roses, wax flowers, and ranunculus to match my flower crown. They also created boutonnières for the groom.

The venue did the table centres and floral design of the hall. We told them that we would like shades of blue and gold, and they used  blue delphiniums, candles and soft pastel colours, with pale gold tablecloths and delicate blue silk napkins. The overall effect was really magical.

Our fantastic photographer

For our photographer we went with Noa Magger. I discovered her online and loved her colours and compositions. Her work had an exceptional artistic quality that we really appreciated and it was an easy choice for us. We were delighted with the results and I can’t stop looking at the pictures. Noa was also really fun and had a familiar and relaxing vibe, helping calm any nerves that also made for really natural looking images. We highly recommend her!

catering

Ziv Shelef Catering did all of the wedding food- they were organised by the venue and the food was amazing, fresh and superb quality!

dreidel favours for chanukah!

We bought plain little wooden dreidels to tell people their seating arrangements- we wrote their name and table number and tied coloured ribbons on the top. We gave out Chanukah Gelt at the end of the evening – the gelt bag had  a sticker that we designed using the invitation concept thanking people for coming and wishing them a happy holiday!

the importance of friends and family to our big day

Our friends and family were very much an integral part of the wedding. They played music, wrote blessings, held up the chuppah, designed the Ketubah and read the Ketubah! These are the some of the most memorable parts of the day- dear faces that surround you and their love and energy.

Friends also brought fun hats and hawaiian shirts for the second round of dancing, and we brought a box of eclectic props, with necklaces, funny glasses,  glow in the dark wands and other cute things to make the dance floor crazier.

advice to other brides

We had a fairly small wedding by Israeli standards (200 people). I wouldn’t have wanted it any larger – it would have felt too overwhelming as the whole time you are greeting or saying goodbye to guests. I think at the end of the day you need to make sure that it is an event that you will enjoy and be present in and think of things that will make it very special to you…  once it starts it goes by very quickly! We were lucky that our venue had an in-house caterer and designer- it was less to worry about especially since it was all done in three months, so that is something I would recommend.

The other perks we did ourselves and it was a fun project to do together and saved us some money- we really enjoyed the process and the results. I think the biggest piece of advice is to find ways to incorporate friends and family in a meaningful way- I think it makes for the best memories.

our fabulous videographers

Uri & Tamar managed to capture the most beautiful moments of our wedding with sensitivity and grace- we felt that they made a creation that encapsulated the essence of our wedding in a perfect way- thank you, thank you!

Rachel & Moshe’s little white book

Photography – Noa Magger
Videography – Uri & Tamar
Wedding venue – Lauren’s Gallery
Bride’s dress – Catherine Deane
Bride’s flower crown – Arnonim
Bride’s shoes – Roni Kantor
Groom’s attire – Van Gils
Ketubah – Rachel Bickel
Hair + make up – Avital hair and makeup
Catering – Ziv Shelef Catering
Flowers – Pine & Clover
DJ – Eyal Daskal

The post Rachel & Moshe | Intimate and joyful Israeli wedding organised in just 3 months at Lauren’s Gallery, Old Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Israel appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

Ok forget your to do list for a second folks and step away from the mood board for your own big day. I have a little bit of allure and tranquility for you this week to calm, revive and reignite your senses. Are you ready to be transported away?

Once described by Aldous Huxley as ‘the most beautiful lake in the world”, it doesn’t get much better than the captivating glory of volcano-fringed Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. Put it this way, the location’s so good that even Tel Aviv paid a visit… I’ll let Valerie explain that one!

Both Guatemalan born, it was the perfect choice. The wedding party entered to a string quartet rendition of Home, the invitations were hand made locally, the garlands, and table dressings were all indigenous flowers, fruits and vegetables – strictly vividly coloured ones. Pastels, and in fact anything bland, was banned!

I love the whole vibe of this wedding and I’m especially drawn to that floral crown – I mean, wow – so striking and daring but so natural and simple too. It just works…

Daniel Lopez Perez’s photographs capture this rare gem of a wedding in such a crisp way that I’m sure you’ll be just as enchanted as I was by the rich colour, vivacity and freshness of this magical Central American dream.

a volcanic lake venue in the Western Highlands of Guatemala

Valerie, the Bride: We got married by Lake Atitlán in Guatemala We have always gravitated more towards natural surroundings and even though we wanted to do it in some places that were further away, they were not prepared for bigger parties. Plus my mom (jokingly) threatened not to go if it meant travelling more than three hours…. (like a normal jewish mum)

a riot of colour… and no pastels allowed!

We had a pretty good idea of what we wanted our wedding to look like and feel like. Basically we wanted it not to feel too protocol-ish and we wanted to be able to celebrate as much time as we could with family and guests. We also wanted to make sure we added some of our favourite things regarding food, music, games and style. I did not have a colour scheme…the only specs for the florist was that I wanted a lot of colour and no pastels. I heard my florist say my wedding style was rustic bohemian and a bit green.

very special wedding invitations

Our invitations were very special. We had them made by Guatemala Greetings which is a small group of women that make handmade greeting cards in the rural community of Magdalena Milpas Altas, Guatemala.

We really enjoyed working with them as they personalised to perfection our cards and a portion of the sales went to buy medicine for a pediatric clinic in the same community and provided jobs. We wanted the card to be very Guatemalan and to make the guests feel that what they were about to experience was an out of the ordinary fun party. I sat down with one of the ladies and she understood perfectly what I wanted. In the end they even attached a personal note from the women that made the cards. It was an amazing experience.

designing my own wedding dress

I designed my dress myself – it was an ivory french macrame with a structured skirt on top made from a blue flower print silk. I bought the fabric in Buenos Aires, Argentina and had a seamstress make it. I had investigated and tried on some dresses but always felt something was missing…colour! I am a very colourful person but I also wanted my dress to be very elegant and to be able to transform into something more comfortable for the party. (I love to dance too).

accessories

I had a simple (no details on it) long veil topped with a wildflower crown. My earrings were shaped as blue flowers.

super cool, super comfortable wedding shoes

I wore Melissa’s Patchouli wedge pumps in cream and red and they were trendy and super comfortable. I never took my shoes off! The ceremony started at 3:30pm and the party ended at 3:30am (that´s 12 hours of comfortable shoes!)

hair + make up

I decided to let my hair down, natural-ish looking with a braid on the side. I have really long hair and I wanted to be able to show my children and grandchildren that I had long beautiful hair when I was younger. Plus my now husband always used to tell me when we were dating that he loved my hair down. I went for a light grey smokey eye look and pink lips. I had a couple of hairdressers and makeup artists come all the way to do my, my mother´s and my bridesmaid´s hair and makeup.

custom bow ties for the groom’s party

Jason wore a James Bond white blazer with a black trouser tux. We contacted a local company called Korbata that uses indigenous textiles to do ties and bow ties and had bow ties made for the groom, fathers, brothers and groomsmen. It was a bow tie and matching hankie in light blue, blue and purple. We also had kippot made from an indigenous textile as well for all the men in the wedding.

three bridesmaids, three bridesgrooms, one groomsmaid and five groomsmen!

We had an interesting arrangement with bridesmaids and groomsmen. The thing is that we both have really good girl and guy friends so we decided the whole bridesmaids on the bride´s side and groomsmen on the groom´s side did not work for us. So we had each of our respective friends and family on each of our side. So I had three bridesmaids and three bridesgrooms and my husband had one groomsmaid and five groomsmen. The men wore a black tux with their indigenous textile bow tie, hankie and kippah. The women wore their choice of dress in ivory lace or similar fabric with a smaller version of my bouquet. For throwing the bouquet, I gathered all of their smaller bouquets and tied them to make a big one. I didn’t want to throw mine.

a bougainvillea chuppah design

I saw on pinterest a really nice design with bougainvillea and I really liked it and it was very doable because there is quite a bit of it in Guatemala.

the ceremony

I had a traditional wedding with the seven circles and all…with some twists. We had our parents standing inside the chuppah in front and opposite from each other. So that my parents could see me diagonally and so did his. We also chose a rabbi and his wife cantor who sang most of the blessings which was very special.

In the middle of the ceremony we had an amazing surprise. There was a “party” boat passing in front of the ceremony and the people aboard noticed it was a wedding and cheered and waved at us. The rabbi then noticed and said out loud “I don´t know if you noticed, but the boat´s name is ‘Tel Aviv’!” and everyone that was present laughed and enjoyed the moment very much. Also, one of Jason’s best friend made the ketubah by hand with a beautiful coloured tree painting.

music for the ceremony

The wedding party entered with a string quartet version of Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and I entered with my father with a string quartet version of Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles.

“no pastels, no roses, no tropical flowers and no tall arrangements”

My wonderful florist was Decoracion Arysa and I gave her ideas and pictures of what I wanted and told her I loved sharp colours, fruits, vegetables, marigolds (which interestingly enough are used in November to celebrate the day of the dead in Guatemala..which is a happy festivity by the way).

I said no pastels, no roses, no tropical flowers and no tall arrangements. Our venue had beautiful gardens and an amazing view so why compete? We also came up with banana leaf underplates and rosemary napkin holders, an entrance with a curtain of winebottles with flowers, a wooden swing with hanging flowers, decorating kites in the food section because november is the windy month in Guatemala and people fly kites everywhere, and many other wonderful things.

our amazing photographer

We hired Daniel Lopez Perez because we wanted pictures that looked more documentary style and artsy than the usual posed ones. We saw he had done some nice work in Atitlán and he actually lived there which was very convenient. We had an interview and we hit it off. So that was it!

a traditional Argentian BBQ

We hated the huge wedding buffets and we are both BBQ lovers (my parents are Argentinian and Jason is a major carnivore) so we hired an Argentinian BBQ parrillero to cook and serve traditional argentinian asado (grill) starting with the choripan, meat cuts and chivito a la cruz (goat set vertically on a cross which is nailed to the ground near the fire.)

no wedding cake… and my biggest wedding budget tip!

I did not have a cake… and I will tell you the secret to planning amazing weddings respecting your budget: Make a list of the 2-3 things that matter the most to you…and spend your budget on those! Make those amazing and make or don’t make the other less important ones. For some people it´s the dress, invitations, food, photographer, video, cake, etc. For us it was all about the PARTY so we dropped the cake and video and spent more on food and entertainment.

Entertainment

we had garden games for entertainment during the cocktails (while people waited for the wedding party to take the pictures). We hired two live bands: one big band that played all the latin goodies and one that played funk and rock.

We decided to skip the first dance and save our strength in order to begin the party with a huge jewish bang! Everybody went crazy with the horas and dances.

artisanal mask favours

We had artisanal masks made that were copies of traditional wooden masks used in indigenous ceremonies in Guatemala. They were shaped as local folk animals such as monkeys, jaguars, deers,etc. We saved some of them and then hung them as decoration.

advice to other brides and grooms

Don´t tell people about your wedding plans! If nobody knows what to expect than nobody notices when things don´t happen or go wrong! Also enjoy it…don´t worry if your hair is perfect or if the music started late….THIS PARTY GOES BY FAST! Everybody told me this and it is 100% true. Also pace yourself with the drink and choose comfy shoes so that you can accomplish the enjoying of the party 100%! Remember if you have a long dress people will barely see them.

VALERIE & JASON’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK

Photography – Daniel Lopez Perez
Venue – Hotel Atitlan
Wedding Planner – Byron Gomez
Shoes – Melissa
Flowers and decor – Decoracion Arysa
Catering – Parilla Monolo
Entertainment – Son Rumbero and The Mother Funkers
Invitations – Guatemala Greetings
Bow ties – Korbata

The post Valerie & Jason | Colourful, rustic bohemian Jewish Wedding at Hotel Atitlan, Lake Atitlán, Guatemala appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

Rachel and Nikki put together a Jewish wedding full of warmth and love with a very personal vibe. Their day was all about sharing, loving and being together, and they designed their entire ceremony so that every part of it was intentional and meaningful.  It was based on a traditional Jewish wedding ceremony, with adaptations for their progressive values and the fact that they were two women.

One element I particularly love is that their processional to the chuppah was led by Nikki’s and Rachel’s 97-year-old and 87-year-old (respectively) grandmothers walking hand in hand down the aisle. Apparently there wasn’t a dry eye in the room from that moment on.

Sustainability was also central theme of their big day. For the centrepieces they chose bamboo, orchids, bonsai trees and succulents planted in driftwood. Guests were able to take these home with them and Nikki and Rachel said how wonderful it has since been to visit family and friends after the wedding and see the plants in people’s homes.

Rachel and Nikki are here to tell you more about their special day, along with images from Michael Temchine.

how we met

Rachel & Nikki, the Brides: We met through a social group for Jewish lesbians in Washington, DC called Nice Jewish Girls. Our first significant conversation happened at an end-of-Passover pizza dinner. We had met at previous events but never really connected until then, but it still took a few more months before we actually started dating.

the venue

Our wedding was at Temple Emanuel in Kensington, Maryland, USA. We wanted to do the wedding in the area where we live and the venue matched a number of the things we wanted: lots of natural light and a nature-like feeling without being outdoors (so we didn’t have to worry about the weather) plus the sanctuary had a tree-of-life theme bimah with reclaimed wood; two side aisles in the sanctuary which we could walk down simultaneously; enough space for all our guests; good spaces for the ceremony, reception, yichud, and gathering place for the family before the ceremony.

wedding dresses

We both got our dresses from White Swan Bridal in Vienna, VA, which had been recommended by a friend of Nikki’s (and we’ve subsequently recommended it to other friends who have gotten dresses there). We had talked generally about styles but didn’t see each others’ dresses until the wedding day.

Nikki: I ended up with a strapless dress, which I didn’t think I would get going in. I was trying to decide between two similar dresses and then I tried on this third one to “clear the palette.”  I was with my mum and when I walked out of the dressing room with this third dress on and saw her face, I knew it was “the one.”

accessories

Rachel: I wore a kippah and family pearls. Because I usually wear a kippah during services, I also wanted one for my wedding, but wanted something more bridal than I usually wear, so I found a white laced kippah on Etsy.

Nikki: I wanted to cover my shoulders so I wore a lace bolero jacket for the service only and then took it off for the reception. I wore my Bubby’s pearl earrings and my Nana’s pearl necklace. I also had a hair comb with lace decorations.

shoes

Rachel: I wore silver sandals with a small heel for the ceremony.

Nikki: I wore off-white 2 inch heels I got from Nordstrom’s bridal shoe department.  After the ceremony we changed into matching Skechers sneakers that were blue and grey.

hair + make-up… by Nikki’s sister-in-law

Neither of us wear make up regularly, so we went simple. We purchased our own make up from Bare Essentials and Nikki’s sister-in-law, Janna’s sister did our make up for us on wedding day. When we purchased the make-up, one of Nikki’s friends came with us and the people in the store did a trial run, complete with directions for the day-of. Then, before Shabbat dinner the wedding weekend, we did a practice run of the make up with Janna’s sister.  We both had our hair in partial up-dos, done by the woman who regularly does Janna’s hair. So basically, we can thank Janna for our hair and make up!

A cutomised ketubah

We also had a custom made ketubah. We wrote the English of our “vows” together and spent many conversations talking through what we were promising to each other. Our rabbi then translated it into Hebrew and we had an artist who we found on Etsy create the artwork – it’s a custom made paper cut (with items of significance to us, like bicycles) overlaid on a watercolour with the calligraphy. 

A very meaningful Jewish wedding ceremony

We designed our entire ceremony (with our rabbi), so every part of it was intentional and meaningful.  It was based on a traditional Jewish wedding ceremony, with adaptations for our progressive values and the fact that we were two women. We had friends read parts of our ketubah. Three friends of ours sang the Hebrew Sheva Brachot in a specially arranged harmony and other friends and family read adaptive English translations.

A friend read a wedding poem based on five-element acupuncture, of which Nikki is a student. After we exchanged rings (which were made from a family ring) the rabbi led the congregation in a communal promise of support. We used ritual elements with family significance at various points in the ceremony: We were wrapped in Nikki’s deceased grandfather’s tallit and we used a kiddush cup that Rachel’s mum gave to her dad when they got married.

We each have two siblings and so the four of them held the chuppah poles. One of the favourites was that Nikki’s 97-year-old Bubby was there and even walked down the aisle!

music for the ceremony

We walked in to A Thousand Years. It didn’t have any significance to us beyond that we liked the melody. Nikki’s 14-year-old nephew played it on his violin, with accompaniment by the band leader, as we walked in.

sustainable wedding flowers

It was important to us that the flower choices be sustainable. Nikki worked with the florist from Petal’s Edge Floral Design. For the centrepieces, we had bamboo, orchids, bonsai trees and succulents planted in driftwood. Each table had one and it went with the natural feel/theme. Guests were encouraged to take these with them and it’s been nice to visit family and friends after the wedding and see them in people’s homes. The boutonnieres and corsages were white cymbidium orchids. A posey was designed for Rachel’s 3 year old niece to carry as the flower girl. We had two alter arrangements flanking the bimah, featuring dark blue hydrangea, fuschia gladiola, blue delphinium, and roses in lavendar hues.

our fabulous photographer

We used Michael Temchine as we really liked his photojournalist style, his energy and he had come recommended from friends. The way we went about making decisions like this, was to quickly narrow down our options to two to three, and then meet with those to make a decision.

a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream cake and locally sourced food

We mindfully chose not to have a traditional wedding cake because that tradition didn’t hold meaning for us and we preferred to focus our food budget on having locally sourced, healthy, tasty food. Our catering was done by Lauren Levine at Festive Foods, with a focus on local, seasonal (autumn) foods. the food was delicious — many people commented on it afterwards. Our wedding was on a dear friend’s birthday so we surprised her with a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream cake and then also had a dessert buffet.  We chose the cake because Rachel loves ice cream and Nikki knows the owner of a local Ben & Jerry’s shop.

entertainment

Music was provided by the Mark Novak Band, who specialise in a combination of Jewish simcha music and “American”/party music.  Rachel had seen them at multiple friends’ weddings and liked them.  We both loved Mark’s energy and approach.

What was most special to us about our wedding was having family and friends there to celebrate with us and involving them in different parts of the day. Our family members were the processional and it was led by Nikki’s 97-year-old Bubby and Rachel’s 87-year-old Grandma walking together down the aisle. Friends said there wasn’t a dry eye in the room from that moment on. This was particularly special given that Bubby passed away only a few months later. We worked very hard on our guest list and that showed in the feeling on that day. Everyone there was closely connected to us and the love and joy in the room was palpable from beginning to end. A number of Nikki’s friends had never been to a Jewish wedding before and have since commented that it was the best wedding they’ve been too. Even people who had been to many Jewish weddings had similar comments!

advice to other brides and grooms

At the beginning of your planning, have a conversation about what aspects of the day are most important to you and then be sure that those are the things you spend the most time on.  For the other things, quickly narrow in on a couple options and make decisions.

Rachel & Nikki’s LITTLE WHITE BOOK

Photography –  Michael Temchine
Venue – Temple Emanuel
Wedding dresses – White Swan Bridal
Shoes – Nordstrom’s and Skechers
Hair + Make Up – Nikki’s sister-in-law, Janna
Flowers – Petal’s Edge Floral Design
Catering – Festive Foods
Entertainment – Mark Novak Band

The post Rachel & Nikki | Jewish lesbian wedding with a nature-inspired theme, at Temple Emanuel in Kensington, Maryland, USA appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

“It’s like rai-ayy-ann on your wedding day…” Alanis Morissette famously sang. And it’s not ironic, it actually doesn’t matter one jot! This wedding proves that, for one, you’ll end up with some incredible pictures (today’s images are by the awesome June Cochran). I’m talking happy guests dancing in the rain, colourful umbrellas adorning the ceremony, and a whole heap of merriness and creativity totally untroubled (hell, even enhanced!) by the showers.

Shoshana and Sam mixed Jewish tradition and boho chic together effortlessly, and handcrafted so many thoughtful details for their W Day. They are also testament to the fact that wedspiration can strike anywhere: their colour scheme was inspired by coffee packaging they came across at their local grocery store!

As will as bringing their own creative talents into play, they called upon family and friends to play a very central part, both in the lead-up to the wedding, and on the day itself. As Shoshana puts it (and I SO agree with her) “Ask for help… people really want to be a part of your celebration so don’t be afraid to assign tasks.”

And doesn’t Shoshana look beautiful? Her French lace Sarah Seven dress is divine and I love how she’s accessorised her look with fresh flowers in her hair – she looks sensational.

Tragically, Sam’s grandmother died a few days before the wedding but the couple  knew even before the event that she wasn’t in a position to travel. So they chose a beautiful white latticed blanket that belonged to her as their chuppah covering. Sam told me, ” I was extremely close with my grandmother, so it was very meaningful to have a tangible token from her with us. And that it was covering us during our ceremony was even more poignant.”

This detail is so very special and an illustration of exactly why I started Smashing The Glass – to inspire you with the most beautiful, creative and symbolic ways to personalise your Jewish (or Jew-ish) wedding from start to finish. Shoshana and Sam’s W Day has it in bucketfuls. Take it away you two!

how we met

Shoshana, the Bride: Sam and I met in graduate school at NYU while studying Food Systems. We actually had a mutual friend in common (that lived in Colorado) that told me to look for Sam in one of my classes. I spotted him, eventually introduced myself, became friends for about 6 months and then started dating. Much more to the story than that but that’s the simple story!

our wedding in a nutshell

When I chose the colours for the wedding I wasn’t sure how they were going to play out – in other words I didn’t have a vision for what items I wanted to be coral or blue. A personal passion and hobby of mine is creating shibori textiles – japanese indigo dip-dying techniques. So, I decided to do a huge DIY project and made 22 nine-foot table runners. Sam was a huge help and it was a bonding experience for us. I’ve even started selling them since then.

On another note, Sam’s 98 year old grandmother passed away four days before the event. In the Jewish tradition, a funeral can wait until after a joyous occasion, so the wedding went on as planned, and flew to Massachusetts right after for the funeral. It was incredibly sad and certainly changed the initial tone of things, but she was celebrated throughout the weekend. We even had to change out mini-moon from the mountain of Colorado to the beaches of Cape Cod. When families come together to support one another through joy and difficult, it all works out well in the end.

We got married at the River Bend in Lyons, Colorado. It’s a small mountain town along a beautiful river. We wanted a summer wedding near water and this was the best water venue we could find in a land-locked state. It was a perfect setting.

Besides envisioning an outdoor wedding, the two things we wanted were good food and good music. The rest came about organically. Our colours were inspired by a coffee package we came across at the grocery store. We used a wedding planner, Julie Lundy, for some of the coordination, but majority of it we did ourselves, along with our families.

invitation design

Our friend, Sarah  from MPH Design who is a graphic designer offered to design the invitations as a wedding gift to us. She and I are both inspired by Indian textile prints, so she used that as the basis for the design.

A Sarah Seven dress

I had no idea what I wanted in a wedding dress before I started looking, so it took me awhile to narrow things down. Ultimately, the last place I visited ended up having “the one”. Sarah Seven, in San Francisco, which is where we lived at the time, is where I bought it, and the style was “Helene”. It was the only style I kept coming back to in my head so I just followed my intuition and it turned out beautiful.

accessories

I wore fresh flowers in my hair, a pair of rose gold “rose” studs given to me by my Aunt Esther, and a bracelet gifted to me by my Mother-in-Law, Joyce.  I wore my mother’s veil during the badeken ceremony, but I didn’t wear it down the aisle – too traditional for me. I also wore a belt on my dress which I bought from Sarah Seven.

coral wedges

I hardly ever wear heels so my wedding wasn’t going to be the exception. I found a coral pair of wedges from Sole Society that were perfect for the occasion. It poured rain at our wedding so the shoes were trashed by the end and I tossed them!

hair+ make up

I feel privileged to have worked with two of the best hair and make-up styles in the area – Beth Walker for make-up and Ashley Smith for hair. I don’t wear a lot of make-up so I knew I wanted a natural look with a pop of colour on my lips. And for hair I wanted a low, side bun look which Ashley nailed on the first try!

The handsome groom

Sam was really excited to work with a custom tailoring company for his suit. Even though they were based in Arkansas, Strong Suit did an amazing job of taking measurements over Skype and the suit was beautiful and he looked extra handsome!

the ceremony

We worked with Rabbi Tirzah Firestone for many months leading up to the wedding, and she was an integral part of the entire experience. Her depth of knowledge, spirituality and energy brought Sam and I together throughout the various ceremonies and rituals on our wedding day. We chose to sign a ketubah and have a small badeken in advance of the larger ceremony and it was all magical. During the big ceremony, we had a close childhood friend of mine read a poem by Pablo Neruda, as well as friends and family read the Seven Blessings. Our ketubah was from Tallulah Ketubahs.

chuppah design

I found some inspiration on Pinterest – both for the frame and the flowers. Our friend Tyler’s family owns a construction company and so he offered to help us build our chuppah from scratch. Sam and Tyler bought all of the materials, stained, sanded and cut the wood and Tyler put it together. We loved the chuppah so much that we donated it to the venue to use for future weddings.

Sam, the Groom: Like Shoshana said, my grandmother died a few days before the ceremony. We knew even before the event that she wasn’t in a position to travel, so my mother found a beautiful white latticed blanket that belonged to my grandmother that we wound up placing over the chuppah. I was extremely close with my grandmother, so it was very meaningful for me to have a tangible token from her with us. And that it was covering us during our ceremony was even more poignant.

flowers

Shoshana, the Bride: Our wedding venue is owned by the Lyons Farmette down the road, where we were able to source local produce and flowers for our wedding. Unfortunately, the night before the wedding a huge rainstorm came in and demolished the flowers, so our amazing florist, Helen, worked with local vendors in a pinch to select beautiful flowers for arrangements. I gave Helen some Pinterest images to work with, but she is so talented that she created stunning arrangements for everything. For the table centerpieces, my Mother-in-Law, Joyce, and I rented some eclectic pieces and Helen filled them with gorgeous flowers.

Our fabulous photographer

We interviewed several photographers and then we found June Cochran and just loved her style of photography. We hired a videographer only for the ceremony.

Catering, Wedding pies and a white wine cake

We worked closely with Chef Dale Lamb to create a menu that we loved (and we heard our guests loved, too!) Chef Lamb works one on one with his clients, and sources meat and produce locally which was important to us. He’s amazing to work with.

Food is incredibly important to both of us, personally and professionally, so we worked hard to make sure everything was top notch in this realm. We really wanted pie for dessert so we ordered a variety of delicious pies from the Long I Pie Shop. Our dear family friend, Diane of Culinary Hearts Catering, gifted us our cake. It was a white wine cake with lemon curd filling and goat cheese frosting – incredible!

entertainment

We had a jazz trio during dinner and a DJ (DJ Jahsonic) for the rest of the evening. Fun fact about our DJ is that he’s the host of a world-renowned reggae radio show based here in Boulder, Colorado, so we were thrilled to let him infuse the evening with some of his tunes, along with a variety of music we asked him to play. We didn’t do photo booths or anything like that. The venue was so beautiful and the food delicious that it provided enough entertainment.

spice favours

We aren’t into gimmicky things, so we wanted a favour to be simple if we were going to do it at all. Sam hand blended a spice mix and we gave out tins of that to each guest.

advice to brides and grooms currently planning their wedding

Just remember, DIY literally means you have to Do It Yourself! Keep that in mind along the way so you don’t save everything for the last minute. Ask for help, people really want to be apart of your celebration so don’t be afraid to assign tasks. That said, DIY makes it that much more special and we wouldn’t change a thing.

Shoshana & Sam’s LITTLE WHITE BOOK

Photography – June Cochran
Wedding Planner – Julie Lundy
Venue – River Bend
Catering – Chef Dale Lamb
Flowers – Lyons Farmette
Bride’s dress – Sarah Seven
Bride’s shoes – Sole Society
Make up – Beth Walker
Hair – Ashley Smith
Groom’s suit – Strong Suit
Dessert pies– Longi Pie Shop
Cake – Culinary Hearts Catering
DJ – DJ Jahsonic
Bartending – Garnish Bartending
Stationery – MPH Design
Rabbi – Rabbi Tirzah Firestone
Ketubah – Tallulah Ketubahs
Shibori table runners – The Bride (shoshana21@gmail.com)

The post Shoshana & Sam | Outdoor Bohemian DIY Jewish wedding at River Bend in Lyons, Colorado, USA appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

If the image above doesn’t draw you right in to this Greek / Jewish  (or Grewish!) wedding, I don’t know what will! I’m obsessed with the energy and aesthetic of it… and the talents of the man behind the lens, Ronen Boidek, whose work I’m honoured to have featured before on Smashing The Glass.

Courtesy of Ronen’s photography, and a very entertaining wedding report by Tamar the bride, not to mention an incredible film by Nikos Vamvakidis at the end of the post, we’re being whisked off to the gorgeous Greek island of Paros today. Blue skies, smiles for miles, sandy beaches, a bride and groom jointly smashing the glass, broken plates, smashed pomegranates, Jewish wedding traditions, Greek wedding treaditions, the sparkliest of azure seas, Greek music, Jewish tunes, a first dance tango to Por Una Cabeza (one of my favourite pieces of music)…. wow! As the bride puts it, this wedding is literally a mesh of joyous inclusion.

And not only did bride Tamar rock a gorgeous Grecian-style dress from High Street label Monsoon but she switched into ANOTHER gorgeous frock before the bash was over too! And Vasilis played his part of the snazzy groom splendidly in his linen suit and trilby… totally dashing!

There are many humorous moments (as could only be found at a big fat Greek Jewish wedding) brilliantly told by Tamar, including a very funny proposal story, the groom’s getting ready story (I have genuinely NEVER heard anything like it!) and tales aplenty about Tamar’s mother’s insane dancing…

Just a word of caution – you may well be booking a little trip to Greece by the time you’ve finished this post…. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

how we met and the groom’s (five!) proposals

Tamar, the Bride: Vasilis and I met in a boho tea room on Brick Lane in London in November what feels like 100 years ago. Five years after that he proposed five times! He had intended to propose on the anniversary of our first meeting. We had planned to go to Budapest that November and he wanted to get on one knee in the middle of the bridge between Buda and Pest. But he couldn’t wait. So the first time he proposed I was in my pyjamas the night before we flew and was so shocked and a bit sad: I wanted to have at least been wearing a bra!

The second time was only two minutes later with bra on and shock not over. The ring was a bit big so we planned to resize it after our anniversary holiday. The third time was that weekend on a bridge between Buda and Pest and the fourth time was a few minutes later on an even better bridge that he liked even more. Then, when we returned to London we had to get the ring resized and after picking it up he presented it to me again on the balcony of the Royal Opera House. He says that he loves proposing to me and that every time I say yes his heart leaps, so although the count is at five proposals, they may not be the last!

A paradise wedding venue on the Greek Island of Paros

Vasilis was born in Montreal but he’s Greek through and through and has a large family. My family is spread all over the world, (Alaska, Israel and Cornwall in the UK), but there are not that many of us.

It made more sense to have the wedding at the greatest convenience for the greatest number of guests. There are thousands of Greek islands to choose from, some are more difficult to reach and some have more Italian- or Turkish-style architecture.

We decided that the island of Paros was perfect; the beaches are paradisal and the Cycladic style of architecture is quintessentially Greek and cuteness incarnate. Boudari Hotel has it’s own private beach and the nearly next door Golden Beach Taverna cooks gourmet quality food from it’s own organic farm produce. They even invited us to meet the goat that made the feta cheese! And the sand is literally flakes of gold. We had guests coming from all corners of the earth, some even applying for their first passports to join us. Thus we wanted to give them the best golden sands, bluest seas and purest white villas that Greece has to offer and for them to enjoy it as a beautiful holiday as well as a celebration.

A Greek / Jewish blue / white theme of sorts!

The Cycladic islands are known for their white stone houses and sparkling azure sea, so the wedding colours naturally tended toward white and blue. The decorations were not at the forefront of our minds however, we care more about an equal balance between both our Greek and Jewish traditions. Some of those traditions are already shared between both cultures such as the theme of community, circle dancing, even smashing the Jewish glass underfoot and the Greek plates on the floor! Our musician friends combined both Greek and Jewish music together to make something uniquely “Grewish” (or should we call it “Jweek”?). In that way, our wedding style came together as a mesh of joyous inclusion.

invitation design

Handmade invites with wax seals were sent en masse across the globe. I made them out of antique maps of the region that I sourced, hand coloured, inscribed with destination details, tied with ribbons and sealed with a wedding bell wax stamp, the design implying the guest had been invited to follow a secret map to a hidden treasure.

hair + make up

I did my own hair and make up while my sister, sister-to-be and a select handful of close friends made up for lost catch up time during make up time. We live in so many different countries we needed to share every spare minute. They entertained me with laughter and music, and my mother even did a dance just for us. They doubled checked the finishing touches on my hair and face, but here’s how it went: mum was ready before all of us. So mum decides to do a dance. Typical mum! It was a joy to watch her. I think you know you’re mother is happy when she does a spontaneous performance!

The groom getting ready in a very traditionally Greek way!

There’s a Greek tradition that the groom is helped by his friends to get ready for the wedding. My partner has so many disparate groups of friends that he got forced-dressed, stripped and re-dressed… seven times!

The entire process took hours and involved pinching him for good luck (maybe it was tradition, maybe it was just mean), putting his clothes on upside down and backwards, celebratory cigars and of course taking breaks for live music and Greek circle dancing even in his underwear! Really, how many best men does it take to clothe a groom? The priest/rabbi officiator, best man and groom were all sporting stubble and barefoot. They were ‘The Three Whiskateers’.

All the boys plotted and pinched and wondered what to do with/to/on/around/against my man bear until his grandmother intervened and forced his attire on, saying “I love you, even if you still can’t dress yourself.” He ended up in a light linen suit and a trilby but I wouldn’t have minded if he’d come in fewer clothes, it’s his green eyes that stun me every time.

Two wedding dresses from Monsoon

I originally hired a bespoke seamstress to make my gown. We moved countries halfway through that process and she demanded payment without me seeing the final result. I paid as I believed I had no other option, it was posted and the dress didn’t fit! It was very poorly made and I was very sad and scared that I wouldn’t find a replacement in time. Seamstresses and tailors in our new city were horrified at the mess, debated over the difficulty of taking shoddy workmanship to court from a distance and couldn’t even redeem it by reworking the fabric. (I only share this sad episode to forewarn those considering the same and console those who have also receive unprofessional practice in the wedding industry.)

Luckily, my sister joined me on a single day of last-resort wedding dress hunting. It was a challenge as I knew the Greek beach that would be our aisle would be hot and most dresses sold in northern Europe are multilayered for chillier weather. I ended up finding two dresses at the very last moment at the end of a long day of fittings. Surprisingly, they were the most affordable and also the most appropriate for our special day, location and weather. Coming from Monsoon’s bridal boutique, one had an empire waistline that worked well for the beach ceremony and the other was a more traditional light silk Grecian-style dress that worked well for all the circle dancing.

wearing a ‘stefana’

I wore no jewellery or veils. There is a Greek tradition that both the bride and the groom are crowned with stefana. These are simple halos linked by ribbon worn only during the marriage ceremony to symbolise a connection between our souls. A friend gifted us a beautiful set made out of jade and silver. The silversmith who made our stefana no longer produces such work but we are so grateful that our friend was able to commission one last family heirloom from her.

Greek-style sandals.. .and silver tango shoes

I couldn’t wear stilettos walking down an aisle made out of shifting golden sand, or lead our wedding party from the beach across a vineyard, into a taverna and then dance in circles for hours on very high heels! Instead I opted for ancient Greek-style sandals for the beach and a silver pair of low tango shoes for our couples dance.

Walking down the aisle with my mother and sister

My mother and sister preceded me down the sandy aisle with cala lilies that matched my single lily bouquet. My close friend played the violin that accompanied me down the aisle. The groom’s young half-sister and niece were dressed in matching white and beige stripes and threw petals from their baskets as they passed in front but later, at the end of the ceremony, they morphed into little thugs ready to attack with copious rice thrown from said baskets!

The Jewish Greek wedding ceremony

Our guests parted into two rows of beloved ones as I passed through them to join my husband-to-be at the head of the beach. A close friend officiated as both Jewish rabbi and Greek Orthodox priest. He combined all the traditional elements of Jewish and Greek marriage ceremonies while cracking jokes and translating from English to Greek for the benefit of all our guests.

It was a glorious summer day but not too hot. (Greece guarantees good weather.) The Aegean sea glowed azure and sparkled with a light breeze across the water and I was delighted to see that many guests felt free to dip their toes and stand barefoot in the warm waves as we performed all the Greek and Jewish ceremonial moments (being crowned with the stefana, circling the chuppah to their multilingual, communal counting), and we read vows we’d written for each other which of course made us both cry.

My favourite part was when we’d finished smashing the glass (the Jewish tradition) and smashing a pomegranate (a Greek tradition), we were bombarded with rice and hugs and kisses. Then, whilst leaving the beach our musician friends played and we danced a little waltz on the sand before leading the entire wedding party up from the beach, in one long line, to the tune of our musicians, dancing all the way across the little coast, through a vineyard to arrive at the organic farm taverna. Looking back as we walked was my favourite part, looking back as we spun ahead and seeing a long line of everyone who taught us how to love, following us to celebrate the love we share.

A meaningful chuppah design

Our chuppah is a family heirloom made by my great-grand-aunt while living in the Belgian Congo. It is a large piece of traditional Cornish lace that uses the celtic technique of knitting by knot work and featured her leaping pet hound at the heart. We could not secure chuppah poles in the sand with the breeze blowing on the beach that day so three dearly loved family friends and the groom’s sister held up the corners of our symbolic future home.

Music for the ceremony

Our musician friends joined forces across Jewish and Greek musical traditions to bring us a combination of the two. Eugene Feygelson played a classical violin processional piece that accompanied me to the beach and at the end of the ceremony he joined stupendous Cypriot vocalist Vicky Anastasiou and prodigious Greek Rebetiko musicians Pavlos Melas and Pavlos Carvalho (from the Greek music series Rebet Asker and the group Plastikes Karekles in playing traditional Greek wedding songs that led everyone dancing off the beach. Months later my now-husband recorded both Eugene and Vicky performing two of our beach songs (the ones that caused the most tears) in an intimate performance in London (you can listen to both of them here and here.

Our fabulous Photographer…

Despite almost melting in the Greek sun, Ronen Boidek was actually the star of the show, immortalising us all. He came all the way from Israel and just did not stop. His genius was apparent the first time I witnessed his work, but it was the final album that he posted us, printed on card and bound in crafted leather, that left me utterly speechless.

He just kept going, giving his time and energy and enthusiasm and I think you can tell that he was ever present and observant and kind when you see his sense of humour and the gentle portraits of every guest in flattering angles which he somehow grabbed, unbeknownst to the subject, at every opportunity. One guest dubbed him the “Incognito Ninja:” how did he get the most surreptitiously opportune snaps? I didn’t realise how much and how often I laugh leaning back with my mouth thrown open in abandon. Thank you, Ronen! That fleeting happiness was lit perfectly and is now bound in the leather album he made us.

…And videographer

We also had a videographer, Nikos Vamvakidis who came from the same town just outside of Athens that my grandmother-in-law comes from (the film is at the end of the post). Ronen, our photographer, recommended the lovely Jewish music at the beginning.

You can even see both our photographer and videographer at work here in this behind the scenes video.

Entertainment and music

After the ceremony we arrived with all our wedding guests from the beach to the taverna and were greeted with “our song” which is called Tes Lacets Sont des Fées by Dionysos. It’s silly and lighthearted and the music video is illustrated by a hero of mine. We did an un-choreographed swing dance to that one as it shouldn’t have been “the first dance” but happened to be the first! Later we performed our couple’s dance, a beautiful tango to the song Por Una Cabeza. This had been perfectly choreographed by Jens-Christian Beelte of Media Luna -Tanzstudio am Südstern in Berlin.

Eugene, Vicky and both the Pavloses brought together our cultures on the dance floor and all the guests danced traditional Jewish Ashkenazi dances as well as heartfelt Greek dances from Crete, the Peloponnese, the Cyclades and even Komotini.

Later, our friend the broadcaster, journalist, and DJ Prokopis Doukas brought everyone the modern tunes. We saw posters of him all over the island and we’re still lucky enough to wake up to him on the radio!

My mother on the dance floor

One of the headlines in the next morning’s paper should have read: Mother of the Bride Pulls Focus in Dance-off. It’s true. She taunted me. Challenge accepted. Then, she danced rings around me. Now we have far too many photos of my mother’s epic stamina and my utter failure in dance combat. At least she’s on record: evidence of excellence.

Our Greek wedding cake and catering

A local baker Maro made our cake. She gave us both chocolate with chocolate on top and orange pie (“portokalopita”), a particularly Grecian surprise for all our foreign friends.

I bought a little bear and a little fox in a top hat and veil from a wedding cake topper artisan on Etsy and brought it with me all the way to the island in my handbag.

Paintings by the bride as thank you gifts for the guests.

Here are the miniature paintings I made of the island as thank you gifts for all our guests…

They are being included in a Brussels-based exhibition of oil paintings of Greece before being distributed.

Additional wedding celebrations…

The dinner we shared the night before the wedding turned into another party that had it’s own Greek music conga line. This is distinct from the one that occurred the night after, inspired by the song “Come on Eileen” and dedicated to our guest Aylin coming all the way from Istanbul. Afterwards, the night-before-drinks-party turned into yet another party, each having their own after parties before the day-of party. One quick note: Dear Those of You Who Had the Secret Skinny Dipping Party the Night Before, I loved hearing your laughter as I fell asleep. And your underwear thrown on my balcony was a bonus.

Our wedding highlights

Personal highlights from our Greek Jewish (or Grewish!) wedding include sharing yoga on the beach the morning of the big day, everyone enjoying the pools, beach volleyball, kayaking, snorkelling and “painting” fairy wings with school glue and sand on our shoulders. We wanted to make golden-sand-wings on Golden Beach! One guest was almost arrested by airport security for carrying bottles of school glue for no clear reason. It didn’t totally work, but was worth the effort. Literally, worth a lot. There were real gold flakes in there.

Greek traditional charms against the “evil eye” were thwarted with porcelain eyeballs, a special hand painted gift from a loved family friend. My sister and I hid them in the traditional Greek mint and chocolate almonds to startle friends.

My sister, in fact, did 16 weeks of Greek dance lessons in order to lead the way on the day. She also arranged a Greek dance lesson bachelor+ette party in London to help all the guests who are not Greek to feel confident and comfortable.

The repetition of names in big Greek families is always a point of humour for foreign guests.
“My name is Vasilis, you might have met my cousin Vasilis? No, not the best man Vasilis. Nope, not the nine groomsmen Vasilis. The main event Vasilis. The ‘That Guy’ Vasilis. *The* Vasilis, you know, the one Tamar chose. Fine. Just call me Bill.”

One of our friends from America bought a “baglama”, a traditional Greek musical instrument and learned how to play it on the trip. Another inexplicably brought costumes for the wedding party. WHICH HE CARRIED IN HIS SUITCASE ALL THE WAY FROM HOLLAND. He recalls the packing of said suitcase: “I didn’t know what to wear to your wedding. Then I saw the rubber chicken. Then I knew.”

One group of friends made matching t-shirts, another group took their hotel sheets to make togas, and a close one home made cookies and hand carried them all the way from Paris to Paros.

Someone, I don’t even know who, made edible table decorations. I illustrated colouring books for the little ones to keep them quietly entertained during the speeches.

We have so much gratitude to all the people who added their own little touches. Thank you to whomever sourced the antique head table! Thank you to whomever thought of stocking the joint with wine from the island! Thank you to my sister for being the one on top of the wobbly ladder and decorating the taverna! Thank you to the film producer, dentist, electrician and accountant who figured out the fairy lights that lined the path from the taverna back to the hotel. Thank you! You lit the late owl’s way home across the fields… (And yet, I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere… How many best men does it take to screw in a lightbulb…?)

Other highlights include exploring the villages the days before and after. My husband was a superstar driving everyone everywhere in a rented white jeep convertible. Naoussa, the main fishing village of the island, was spectacular by the light of the moon.

Also, our wedding night was the night of the full moon which also happened to be the night of the Super Moon and it turned the sea silver.

My best friend Karen Woo had passed away a few years ago. There were meant to be lanterns at her wedding. Instead we lit them at her funeral. So we lit these lanterns and lifted them into the night sky to remember and honour her as we would have loved her to be there with us.

At the very end, the remaining guests played guitar and sang songs on the beach and we watched the sun join the moon in the sky. Then the moon met the sunrise. We sang the sun up.

A final note from the bride

We were deeply touched by the efforts of so many people to travel so very far, some crossing continents, some crossing decades. Some friends met in Athens beforehand and some friends met in Santorini on a black sand volcanic beach beforehand… by surprise! I hereby, on record, deny it. I did not orchestrate THAT one (except for the black stallion that happened to gallop past them.) Some friends had dune buggie adventures on the volcanic isle before joining us on Paros. Some friends took a boat. Some flew. One friend came from Geneva for the night before and another friend from London for the day after. They couldn’t make the day itself but did their best to be there nonetheless. Thank you so so SO much for coming to join us and fighting to be there even if you could only make it the day after or before the wedding. Your effort and company and hugs meant so much. Happily, some friends went on to party on other islands after our wedding.

Advice to couples currently planning their wedding

If you do a destination wedding you tend to welcome only the people who truly love you enough to make the effort to travel. Also, it was a good stress release, quite cathartic really, to abide by the Greek celebratory rule: plates must be broken.

Tamar & Vasilis’s LITTLE WHITE BOOK

Photography – Ronen Boidek
Videography – Nikos Vamvakidis
Venue – Boudari Hotel
Bride’s dresses – Monsoon
Ceremony music –Eugene Feygelson, Vicky Anastasiou, Pavlos Melas and Pavlos Carvalho
DJ – Prokopis Doukas
Cake – Paro’s Catering

The post A Monsoon bride for a super fun destination Jewish Wedding on the Greek island of Paros, Greece appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

Girl crush, girl crush!  Oh my goodness, today’s bride, Claudia is utterly gorgeous, and what amazing fashion choices she made – an astonishing Stephanie Allin wedding gown adorned with blue flowers, followed by a party dress to dance the night away in, not to mention some spectacular jewellery. She made a speech too (a smashing-the-glass-ceiling bride if ever there was one!) and I could literally write pages about Claudia’s creative talents alone… She’s definitely one clever and very accomplished woman.

But full credit to her dashing groom, Edward, too… Claudia was working as a doctor in Africa for much of their engagement so Edward spent many a weekend wedding planning and venue-hunting with Claudia’s mum. Hat’s off, Edward!

Details-wise, I can’t kick off with anything but that glorious chuppah… The groom’s father cut branches off a tree in his Norfolk garden where the couple got engaged and together with Edward built the chuppah in his back garden. The delightful Liz from Blue Sky Flowers worked her magic on the chuppah structure with the most sensational blooms, and for the canopy, one of Claudia’s friends assisted all the hens in decorating fabric ‘Stars of David’ on the hen weekend. The stars were then sewn on to a simple white tablecloth and it felt like the most wonderfully personalised starry sky.

What’s more the couple are now repurposing the chuppah poles as a gazebo in their garden and growing flowers up it in time for summer. Perfection!

What makes this wedding all the more special is that both families had known each other long before Claudia and Edward had ever got together. Oh, and as an aside, Claudia has a twin brother and identical twin sisters – how extraordinary is that?!) Claudia told me.

During the ceremony our Rabbi asked us to turn around to look at all our family and friends. It was overwhelming… To have so many people you love all there for you. Our families have been friends for 40 years and lots of people commented that they’ve never been to a wedding before where they love all the people under the chuppah – we are incredibly lucky and were completely surrounded by love all day.

There are lots more treats, surprises, advice, tips and just a wonderful account of a glorious day so if you can get five minutes with a cuppa to sit down and read Claudia’s wonderful words, as well as look at the stunning photography from Ria Mishaal, I promise you will get so much out of this wedding story.

With thanks to the lovely Alex from The Bijou Bride for submitting this very original Jewish wedding (and although heavily pregnant at the time, spot how ‘on theme’ Alex was in her beautiful blue and white ‘ceramics pattern’ maternity dress… I love you girl!)

Speaking of which, you’ll see Alex holding an umbrella over Claudia in one or two of the images. Claudia quite rightly says, “don’t stress about the weather – it poured with rain all day for us but we had so much fun no-one even noticed and if you’ve surrounded yourself with the right professionals they’ll make the reorganisation needed completely seamless. We walked around the grounds having our picture taken through the rain and you’d never know from the pictures!”

Spot on, Claudia… SPOT ON! Enjoy every last detail of this very special Jewish wedding.

how we met

Claudia, the Bride: Our families have been friends forever but somehow Ed and I didn’t meet until a few years ago. We hid our relationship from our mothers for the first few weeks because we thought they’d start planning our wedding after the first date! He took me to the Zetter Townhouse for cocktails, and we ended up in the games room playing Jenga until they closed. When Edward walked me home, we narrowly missed my brother who I lived with at the time who got home minutes later. He took me for a picnic two days later and cooked me dinner after a set of night shifts later that week and the rest was history!

I’m a doctor and had always planned to work abroad for a year and Ed was unwavering in his support for me doing this even though he couldn’t come with. He proposed in our favourite place in Norfolk just days before I left the country to work in Zanzibar. He didn’t realise he’d signed himself up to months of Sunday lunches with my mum planning and Saturday expeditions to wedding venues!

Choosing to get married in an English country garden in Oxfordshire

We got married in the gardens of Adwell House in Oxfordshire. We knew we wanted an English country garden and a marquee company suggested this private venue to us – we were their third ever public wedding. I was working in Africa so Ed spent many saturdays venue hunting with my parents and emailing me photos an Skype-ing me to discuss. This one was perfect – I agreed to it months before seeing it myself!

We had a marquee for the reception and had planned to get married in the walled garden. In the lead-up to the wedding the weather forecast changed almost hourly. On the Thursday we had to decide and knew we couldn’t take the risk. Ben from our marquee company, Joseph Benjamin Marquees, put up a transparent marquee roof over the garden and it actually looked brilliant – like a huge outdoor conservatory.

A blue and white colour scheme… and a fabulous wedding planner

We chose blue and white and wanted an oriental ceramics pattern to run through the styling. We got some of the way through planning before realising that we’d need someone to co-ordinate the day as we were bringing all the suppliers in ourselves. I loved Alex’s blog, The Bijou Bride, and rang her up – and loved her immediately. She came on board and helped keep us organised in the run up and was a superstar on the day!

Having Alex on board gave us the chance to have all the creative input and make all the decisions but in the knowledge that it was all going to come together and she thought of lots of little things we would never have considered. We also had jäger bombs on the drinks menu but somehow managed to forget to buy Jägermeister so she did a last minute run the morning of the wedding which I didn’t know about until the next day!

Invitation design

I had an idea in my head and decided to design them myself. I used a graphic from a website called creativemarket.com which cost $3.99 to download and use in any way we wanted! Ed is a technology whizz so neatened up my design and we took the file on a USB to a local printer who printed them with the the gold foil effect – they looked stunning! I used leftover invitations to make the table plan as they were too pretty to waste.

Hair + make up

Pinterest was my go to – I knew I wanted a bright lip but otherwise simple make up and my hair up so it wouldn’t need to be fussed with during the day. Claire Nicole did the hair and make-up for my best friend and bridesmaid at her wedding a month earlier and we both booked her together. Getting ready was so much fun and I loved seeing Mum have her hair and make-up done.

A Stephanie Allin wedding dress adorned with blue flowers

I knew I wanted something different and had an idea that a dress with blue flowers would be unique. I went to various shops and didn’t find anything that stood out and thought I’d have something made. Mum and I decided last minute to go to the Brides sample sale at the Mandarin Oriental.

We walked in and Stephanie Allin had ‘Violet’ on a mannequin. Mum looked at me and we took it straight into the changing room to try on. It was perfect and the girls said they’d been waiting for a tall bride (I’m 5’10) to buy it as all the flowers were concentrated around the bottom and shortening it would ruin it. It was a one-off they’d made for a catwalk show, and whilst I did a quick run round the ballroom to make sure there was nothing else I loved, Mum managed to haggle the price even lower! One of the seamstresses at Stephanie Allin did the alterations for us as a private job. As beautiful as it is I’ll never wear it again and would love to sell it to someone wanting a unique and special dress – very happy to give my email to anyone interested!

I had a second dress from Self Portrait – I love dancing and I worried that a big dress would hold me back. I was right – so after our first dance I slipped into the catering area of the marquee and did a quick change and then didn’t leave the dancefloor all night!

accessories

Ed had bought me some stunning earrings for my birthday which were so beautiful I saved them for the wedding day. I wore his grandmother’s watch which he inherited – she was very special to him and I adored her too. They were my somethings old and new. Mum remembered she had an aquamarine bracelet and lent it to me for something borrowed and blue – and we realised it matched my engagement ring perfectly (which had once belonged to Ed’s other grandma!).

My wedding ring was made bespoke by Alex Monroe with tiny diamonds and gold leaves that matched the delicate leaves on my vintage engagement ring perfectly.

My dress was so embelllished that I decided against any hair accessories and went for the simplest veil I could find. I wanted it to be two-tier so that Ed could lower the veil over me during the badeken.

For the evening I had an amazing huge crystal necklace (I’m known for my love of statement jewellery!) which I put on with my second dress.

shoes

I’m very tall and the dress was long so I was always going to go flat – my gold flats from Boden look gorgeous and were incredibly comfortable.

The handsome groom

Ed looked amazing – he wanted to stand out too so had a navy-blue tux made for him. He found Tailor-Made, an amazing tailor that has a 3D body scanner. I went with him to the first fitting and it was almost perfect immediately. I loved that Ed had chosen a blue and white patterned lining and had our wedding date embroidered into it.

He had bought watches for his groomsmen and they all had matching blue and white striped straps. Ed’s parents have always called him Bear so I had some polar bear silver cuff links made for him by Tomfoolery.

Seven bridesmaids!

I’ve got the world’s two best sisters who were my best women, my first cousin George who feels like my big sister and Ed’s sister, my newest sister! I’d asked them and gone to volunteer abroad. I then realised when looking through all my photos that I didn’t want to get married without my three best friends so asked them too, it was a very big but very fun wedding party! There’s so many hours of the wedding day before it actually begins, I recommend spending them with as many of your favourite people as possible! I shared my hotel room the night before with my twin brother so had him around as well which may not be conventional but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

My bridesmaids wore a dress from ASOS – I loved it, ordered 16 of them in varying sizes and lengths and the girls all came over for an evening and everyone managed to fit into one! It worked out perfectly that half of them chose pale blue and half dark blue which also gave my identical twin sisters a chance not to look identical on the day. I couldn’t believe what a success it was… eight of us going shopping together would have been chaos! As gifts I gave them each an initial pendant from Harry Rocks – an amazing jeweller who happens to be Ed’s cousin.

Rose my goddaughter wore a dress from Monsoon and I made her a flower crown from fake flowers. My little cousins Leo and Finlay wore pageboy outfits from Next and mini versions of the grooms party bow ties which came from Mrs Bow Tie.

A beautiful ketubah

Our ketubah was expensive but I absolutely fell in love with it and had it made in the USA. When it arrived it was worth every penny and our rabbi said it was so beautiful he almost didn’t want to sign it in case he ruined it!

chuppah design

We wanted the chuppah to be as personal as possible. Ed’s dad cut branches off a tree in his garden in Norfolk where we got engaged and together with my Dad, built the chuppah in our back garden! I have some amazing photos of the building stages… We’re repurposing the chuppah poles as a gazebo in our garden and trying to grow flowers up it now.

One of my best friends is very creative and helped all my hens decorate fabric stars of David on my hen weekend. She then attached these all to a simple white tablecloth which we were married under. It was like a starry sky but made with love and varying degrees of artistic ability!

The flowers were done by our florist-extraordinaire, Liz from Blue Sky Flowers. Alex had introduced us and I knew I wanted to work with her from our first meeting. I gave her a picture of what I wanted and left her to run with it. Walking down the aisle I was so nervous I forgot to look at the flowers, but after the ceremony I saw they were absolutely stunning!

the ceremony

Our ceremony was incredibly special. We chose the music very carefully and my brother sang whilst I walked down the aisle and during the ceremony. We wrote our wedding booklets very carefully with explanations for all the non-jewish guests. Our rabbi, David Mitchell from WLS has known Ed since he was a student and also knows my whole family – he married my first cousin and her husband the summer before and makes his ceremonies incredibly personal. He really spent time with us and had us over to his house to get to know us as a couple which shone through our ceremony.

We decided to have our family involved with the Sheva Brachot. David read them in Hebrew and then our parents, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins came and read the translations as well as giving us their own blessings. Dad even write a short poem! We felt this was more personal than choosing readings.

During the ceremony Rabbi David asked us to turn around to look at all our family and friends. It was overwhelming – to have so many people you love all there for you. Our families have been friends for 40 years and lots of people commented that they’ve never been to a wedding before where they love all the people under the chuppah – we are incredibly lucky and were completely surrounded by love all day.

Having my twin brother sing through the ceremony was incredibly special for me, he’s a huge talent and we’re extremely close. Phil was also our MC and introduced each of the speeches with a few funny lines and a carefully selected theme song for each of us – he’d co-ordinated with the band and it was the perfect warm up.

Music for the ceremony

We walked down the aisle to L’cha Dodi but sung to the tune of All of Me by John Legend. My brother Phil sang with Maya and it was beautiful. We walked out to Higher and Higher by Jackie Wilson which felt like our wedding theme tune and we both love Motown and soul music.

 
Incredible Flowers

Liz from Blue Sky Flowers did all our flowers – she is a genius, amazing fun and huge talent. She understands what we wanted from the first meeting and ran with my crazy idea to have hanging flowers along the length of the marquee. She developed my idea and built the most stunning installation – it was breathtaking!

I wanted simple white roses which were lovely, my bridesmaids had beautiful corsages and my flower girl, my goddaughter Rose had a flower wand which went down a treat! She told us ‘I’m the only princess here today’!

In the last few weeks I worried that everything was a bit too blue and white so we decided to introduce some splashes of pink which I think brightened up the day. The tables had a mixture of tall and short arrangements but with a country garden feeling and simple blue and white or clear glass vases. I’d sourced gold cutlery and hand printed blue and white napkins after realising hiring/buying patterned napkins or tablecloths was extortionate and we didn’t want the overall look to be too fussy.

Our fabulous photographer

We found Ria Mishaal Photography in the nicest possible way. We’d been living on different continents for almost a year so when I got home, Ed took me away to the Cotswolds for the weekend. We sat in the lounge of Barnsley House and were flicking through the wedding albums there when Ed looked through one Ria had shot and commented on how beautiful her pictures were. We checked out her website and loved her style and when we met her we knew she was perfect. She is an incredible talent, an absolutely lovely person and was a pleasure to be around. If there’s going to be someone in the room when you’re getting ready with your loved ones you have to be happy to have them there too! Jake, her husband, was her second shooter and was also a total professional and we cannot stop looking at the beautiful pictures they took for us.

fortune cookie favours that were also escort cards for the guests..

With 225 guests I wanted people to have a fun way of seeing which table they were sat on without having to queue for ages to get to the table plan. We ordered 225 different flavour fortune cookies (salted caramel and banana were out of this world) and I hand wrote stickers to go on each one with the guest’s name and their table name. When we had some last minute table plan changes I had to stay up all night finding all the right boxes and rewriting the stickers!

A wonderful lemon drizzle cake made by one of our bridesmaids…

My bridesmaid Claire is a super baker and our cake was her wedding gift to us. She was incredible – she went out and bought the biggest cake tins she could find and spent weeks practising and timing how long different size sponges need to cook. She made us a four tier lemon drizzle cake and decorated it with edible flowers – it looked and tasted amazing! It all disappeared though so she’s going to have to make us another on for our first anniversary.

…and a monkey cake topper made by the bride!

I made little his and hers monkeys to top our wedding cake – Ed is a huge fan of all monkeys (he’d say simians!) and the first stop on our honeymoon was the orang utans in Borneo!

Our fabulous caterers

Our caterers were absolutely brilliant too. We’d had a disappointment with another caterer who we thought would be fab but the tasting was just a huge let down both on taste and presentation. Miranda and Maz at Carte Blanche had catered one of my best friend’s weddings the year before and from the first meeting we felt we were in safe hands. We went for the tasting with all our parents and the minute the first canapé came out we knew they were in another league! Everyone commented on how great the food was (and at a Jewish wedding people really take food seriously!) and the salted caramel chocolate brownies were the best I’ve ever had.

We had a delicious starter of beetroot carpaccio with mozzarella and a shot of minted pea soup. The main course was pink roast lamb or sea trout with roasted sweet potatoes and delicious Ottolenghi style salads, and we had mini dessert buffets of every table.

Entertainment

Soul Fiesta had played at a great friend’s wedding and we remembered how talented they were. My Dad is an enormous music fan and we took him to see them play live at the Dover St Jazz club. He wouldn’t leave the dancefloor so we knew they were the right fit. Not only were they brilliant on the night, they couldn’t have been more helpful in the lead up and lent us audio equipment for the ceremony. Charlie the band leader is one of the nicest people in the whole world and a brilliant problem solver!

They sang all the hora music live, did a brilliant female Otis cover and had the dancefloor filled all night with Motown and funk numbers. One of my favourite photos from the night is the band selfie Ed and I took with them at the end of the night…

First Dance

It took us aged to choose our first dance song but found the perfect one – That’s how strong my love is by Otis Redding, our favourite musician of all time.

…and lots more creative details

I made the table plan from unused invitations and hung them in a huge gold frame which looked lovely and we named all the tables after Michelin starred chefs as we’re both massive foodies! We made little table name signs with details about the chef such as the name of their restaurant, signature dish etc. I did have some complaints as lots of my friends wanted to be on the Marcus Wareing table!

Our best man flew in with his fiancée from a round the world trip and made a fantastic speech – with various props he managed to tell the story of his friendship with Ed and had everyone in hysterics – I’d been nervous about that but it was a highlight of the day!

I think our families and friends were involved through every step of the wedding – from the cake to the chuppah. Our dads were brilliant chuppah-builders. Fabric printing the napkins took ages, Alex helped me do the first 100 and my heavily pregnant friend Sarah came to London from Wiltshire for the day to help me print the rest.

A DIY Photo booth

We didn’t have room in the budget for a photo booth so we made our own – by buying a photo printer and a remote on a cable, we set our digital camera up on a tripod and the whole thing cost us under £100 including 250 Polaroid prints. We were going to sell the printer again afterward but it’s a fun thing to have! We collected various fun fancy dress including the inflatable sumo outfit I’d had to wear on my hen and everyone got involved.

Advice to couples currently planning their wedding

I think that despite being really organised, there are always going to be a million jobs to do in the last few weeks. I took time off work which made it much less stressful and managed to fit in a lovely day with Mum where we went perfume shopping and had our eyebrows threaded – a moment of calm in the storm!

Accept all the help that’s offered – not only will it take the pressure off but people really love getting involved and when I made my speech and thanked everyone it made me so grateful for the amazing people we have in our lives! Making a speech was such a good decision – I nearly bottled it at the last minute but am so glad now that I got the chance to tell all the special people in my life how much they mean to me. If I was doing it again I might have spoken before dinner to get any nerves over with – surely as the bride you can dictate when you speak!

Finally, don’t stress about the weather – it poured with rain all day for us but we had so much fun no-one even noticed and if you’ve surrounded yourself with the right professionals they’ll make the reorganisation needed completely seamless. We walked around the grounds having our picture taken through the rain and you’d never know from the pictures!

Claudia & Edward’s LITTLE WHITE BOOK

Photography – Ria Mishaal Photography
Wedding Planner – Alexandra from The Bijou Bride
Venue –Adwell House
Flowers – Blue Sky Flowers
Catering – Carte Blanche
Bride’s dress – Stephanie Allin
Second dress – Self Portrait
Bride’s shoes – Boden
Groom’s suit – Tailor-Made
Groom’s shoes – Joseph Cheaney
Bridesmaids – ASOS
Bridesmaids’ gifts – Harry Rocks
Flower girl – Monsoon
Page boys – Next
Hair +Make Up – Claire Nicole
Band – Soul Fiesta
Marquee – Joseph Benjamin Marquees
Bride’s wedding ring – Alex Monroe
Videography – Rupert Ward Lewis
Bear cuff links – Tomfoolery
Favours – Cracking Cookies
Rabbi – David Mitchell from West London Synagogue

The post A Stephanie Allin bride in a blue and white wedding dress for an English country garden Jewish wedding at Adwell House, Oxfordshire appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

Orit and Ido had a simple, contemporary wedding with a calming subtle blue colour scheme that was small, intimate, informal, and unquestionably stylish.

They decided to do away with many wedding traditions in favour of creating a day that reflected them as a couple as well as making it an amazing experience for all their friends and family, and I have to say that looking at their super stylish photos it definitely made for the most wonderful, personal day.

On the fashion side, I’m totally coveting Orit’s custom-designed dress and those beautiful bronze shoes – the perfect accompaniment to the scenic backdrop of sunnies skies and golden beaches.

I love how tuned in these two were to their own desires and so much so, they chose not one but three different venues that they frequent regularly. One of them, Dallal, is one of my all-time favourite Tel Aviv brunch spots so I’m super happy to be featuring it today on the blog!

With thanks to the lovely Danielle from Danielle Yashar Photography for submitting the eye candy. Happy Friday folks!

A wedding that reflected us and the things we love doing

Orit, the Bride: As we started planning our wedding, it was clear to us that we wanted it to be our day. For us that meant doing things we like the most, surrounded by our family and closest friends.

We wanted our event to be intimate and we wanted to have the opportunity to spend time with each one of our guests. We started our morning in the Dallal Bakery at Neve Tzedek where we regularly meet friends for coffee at the weekend. We strolled along the beach to Jaffa, which is so beautiful at this time of the year, and there we met our family for a brunch at Kalamata restaurant (one of our favourite restaurants) which is located in old Jaffa over looking the Mediterranean sea.

Just before Shabbat we gathered our family and closest friends in a nearby synagogue at Neve Schechter-Legacy Heritage Center for our chuppah. After the exchange of rings we kissed our family goodbye and returned to Kalamata for a festive and upbeat lunch with our friends. To close the day, we invited everybody to a private concert by one of our favourite artists and whilst taking in the sunset at the Old Jaffa Port.

 
A blue and white colour scheme

We decided to keep a simple, clean and elegant colour scheme relating to the dominating colours of Jaffa port – navy blue and cream.

Hair  + Make-up

It was important for me to keep a natural look, but still feel glowing and care free about my hair or makeup since I knew that it was going to be a long sunny day full of excitement. Or Kopelis helped me to achieve just that – my hair and make up held up great until the very end of our celebrations.

The Bride’s dress

My wedding dress is based on a picture I saw a couple of years ago of a dress designed by Ceil Chapman in the mid 50’s. I was lucky to find a very talented seamstress which took the original design and made few adjustments  to match my personal style. It came out just perfect.

Bronze Wedding Shoes

Since our wedding took place on a Friday morning, I preferred to break out of the ‘all white’ traditional look and wore bronze shoes which matched the lace of my dress. For the most of the day I wore Coach skyscrapers and later on, I changed to lower heel Salvatore Ferragamo shoes in the same colour.

The handsome groom

Ido used the same colour scheme of blue and cream wearing a Ben Sherman trousers, a local designer shirt and Camper shoes.

The ceremony

We wanted our ceremony to reflect the values we believe in, which are based upon partnership and mutual respect. It was important for us to give a personal touch to the ceremony, we both exchanged rings and we took the opportunity to share thoughts about each other and the journey we walked together since the day we met.

Our fabulous photographer

On our special day we wanted to be surrounded with people we love, and our photographer was no exception. Besides being a very talented photographer (we really love her style, Danielle Yashar is also a long time friend. She makes us feel so comfortable, and we knew she would be perfect for us to capture our special day.

Orit & Ido’s little white book

Photographer – Danielle Yashar Photography
Ceremony – synagogue at Neve Schechter
Breakfast – Dallal
Brunch and lunch – Kalamata restaurant
Hair and Makeup – Or Kopelis
Wedding Dress  – made by a seamstress and inspired by a Ceil Chapman dress
Wedding Shoes – Coach skyscrapers and Salvatore Ferragamo lower heels
Groom’s attire – Ben Sherman trousers and a local designer shirt
Groom’s shoes – Camper

The post A laidback Israeli wedding at Kalamata and Neve Schechter Center, at Neve Tzedek and Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Israel appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

Yes, a Jewish-Caribbean Wedding in period fancy dress is actually a thing – or at least Emma and James have certainly made it a thing. Think ‘Pride & Prejudice’ meets Jimmy Choo. Think the Hora and Caribbean steel bands. Think jerk chicken BBQ with salt beef sandwiches for midnight munchies. Too good right?!

And it’s all such brilliant fun. Of course it’s not just the creative ideas and details that make a wedding awesome, it’s how much of a good time everyone is having and this bunch are having A REALLY GOOD time. All I can say is gutted I wasn’t invited!

With thanks to the ever lovely Amy Murrell from Especially Amy for submitting the eye candy.

How we met

Emma, the bride: We meet at a work summer ball, it wasn’t until 3am when we finally plucked up enough courage to talk to one another!

A weekend wedding at Cowley Manor, Cotswolds

We wanted somewhere away from London so our friends and family would stay over and make a weekend of it. We regularly go on holiday with friends in the UK and the Cotswolds is a favoured location.

The uniqueness of Cowley Manor made it the perfect venue; from the quirkiness of the downstairs rooms, to the grandeur of the building and splendour of the grounds and gardens – we knew it was right for us the moment we walked in.

A Jewish-Caribbean wedding and love for period dramas

We planned the wedding ourselves and played equal parts in the organisation, with a little help from the wedding co-ordinators at Cowley Manor. The brief was to have a relaxed, party with our friend’s and family and everything grew out from there.

We have been together for 12 years and wanted to ensure that the wedding represented us, our passions for stately homes in the English countryside, our love for period dramas, Jewish and Caribbean heritage and for all our friends and family to feel included.

We chose a laid back venue with exclusive use, and had a BBQ (with Jerk Chicken and lamb on fire pit) rather than a sit down meal, making it less formal so everyone could relax and have fun. We set-up lawn games as they are a cornerstone of our UK holidays and our dress code was ‘Garden party chic’, as who wants to spend a day in the sunshine wearing a suit?!

We opted for a DJ so we could play some old school tunes and soul classics with no obligations to dance – and our selection was a real crowd pleaser. The night was topped off with Salt Beef Sandwiches for midnight munchies.

A civil ceremony in fancy dress… and a separate Jewish blessing

We had a civil ceremony for our close family and friends and a Jewish blessing for the main event. What made our wedding totally unique was the way that we chose to separate the civil ceremony from the Jewish blessing, so the first time James saw me in my dress would be at the blessing.

James suggested dressing up in period dress (a real Mr Darcy) as he truly understands my love for all things ‘Pride and Prejudice’. We spent a great day trying on different outfits and hired regency period fancy dress including wigs from Mad World in Old Street. To set it off we included six additional close friends and witnesses to dress up with us as we took our vows.

 
Wedding Stationery

The Mother of the Bride recently attended some art classes due to ill health – she drew a sketch of Cowley Manor which we used on the invitations. We felt really proud seeing them printed and to know that they were produced by a family member meant more to us. They were pale blue to fit in with the colour scheme and used silver foiling for a subtle elegance from The Foil Invitation Company.

Hair + Make-up

My hairdresser was Sheena of Sheena’s Wedding Hairstyles and my make-up artist was Make-up by Jodie Hazlewood.

A Justin Alexander dress

I had been researching 50s dresses as I loved the style. The options were limited when it came to this type of dress, however I found a dress designed by Justin Alexander which fitted perfectly! A 1950s style short dress, champagne colour, lots of embellishment and beadwork. I knew I wanted something tea length, not white or ivory but wasn’t sure if the style would have suited my shape. As soon as I tried it on I knew it was the one! I bought it at Xquisite Bridal.

50’s style accessories

I wore a birds cage veil from Mia Sposa Cockfosters as I wanted something that would complement the 50s style dress. I also had a jewel hair comb from Not On The High Street, earrings, a bracelets from my bridesmaids and an engraved bracelet from James on the day.

Jimmy Choo heels

Given the shoes were fully on show due to the length of the wedding dress I couldn’t resist getting a pair of Jimmy Choo’s for the occasion. Mid height heels with champagne colour embellished with diamantes to die for!

The handsome groom

As mentioned above James looked like a dashing version of Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice for the civil ceremony. I couldn’t believe how elegant James looked in the full attire – sporting, pantaloons, breeches and white stockings!

For the blessing James looked amazing, funky but chic. Wearing Hugo Boss light blue trousers, navy jacket and white shirt. Dark blue bow tie, navy braces, brown suede shoes with blue laces.

Six bridesmaids

I asked five of my closest friends plus my sister to be my bridesmaids – six in total. I surprised them all at the end of my hen do by giving them each a handmade Will You Be My Bridesmaid invitation. The design was a cut dress on a wooden hanger with a blue ribbon matching the theme. There was lots of screaming, jumping for joy and tears of happiness. I then lead them through to a room which had various 50s style dresses in cornflower blue and navy from Chi Chi London. I bought various sizes so they could all try them on there an then.

The Jewish Ceremony

As a multi-faith wedding we wanted to ensure everyone felt included and Rabbi Anna did a great job. We had a Jewish blessing underneath a tree which was decorated with coloured lanterns to match the theme. We used James’ Tallit (bought by James’ grandparents for his Bar Mitzvah) held up by James’ cousins, and drank from James’ grandparents kiddush cup.

Our music choice

As we had various parts to the wedding, this enabled us to have a variety of songs.

For the Jewish blessing outside:

• A piano version – Ain’t Nobody – Bridal party enters
• Pachelbel’s Canon In D Major – Bride entrance

For the Civil ceremony:

• Sebastian – Adrian Johnston (as our 2yrs son is called Sebastian)
• At Last – Etta James and music from Pride and Prejudice
• Pride and Prejudice opening music by Dario Marianelli
• Georgiana – Dario Marianelli

Flowers

Tucked away in a barn on the outskirts of Bath is Flowers By Passion. We met with them and they interpreted our vision for simple elegant bouquets.

Floral selection quicksand rose, cappuccino rose, apricot lisianthus, mother of pear rose, supper bubbles spray rose, blue hydrangea, blue delphinium, scabiosa, brunia, dusty miller, cornflower, white stocks, acacia foliage, olive foliage, berried eucalyptus.

Our fabulous photographer and videographer

Our photographer, Especially Amy, was recommended to us by the team at Cowley Manor. Amy has a long history with Cowley and after checking out her portfolios we met in a pub in Kings Cross to get into the details. Amy knew instinctively what we wanted, as we are over the moon with the way Amy captured the special moments on the day.

Amy recommended Gorgeous Films which was great as Gary knew Amy so they worked very well together on the day

Cupcakes

Cupcakes with E & J initials theme blue and white and vintage ice cream bike by Chilli White – which went down a treat!

Entertainment

Our First dance was the Horah.

To reflect my Caribbean heritage we hired a Steel band for reception as we just loved the relaxed summertime feel that the music gives you. We opted for a DJ in the evening.

Favours

For favours we had sweet jars with a mixture of love hearts purple ones, drumsticks, refreshers and lollipops.

A surprise from bride’s dad

My dad surprised us on the day by turning up in his MGB GT classic car. It’s been passed down three generations of the family, and it meant so much to us for it to be there. I used to spend hours watching Dad renovate and restore the little red car, which reduced me to tears when the surprise got revealed!

Advice to brides and grooms currently planning their wedding

• Try and get the most of the build-up and planning, its all part of the fun and the day its self will fly by
• Create a spreadsheet – Excel is your friend
• Ask bridesmaids and ushers to help with planning beforehand, not just on the day
• Give the ushers and best man clear instructions (via another spreadsheet) – without direction they will be like lost puppies
• We planned our wedding in 5 months, both in full time jobs and with a 2 year old, so it can be done without the expense of a wedding planner.
• Don’t stress on the day if things don’t go according to plan – no-one will know and just relax and enjoy it!

Emma & James’ little white book

Photographer – Especially Amy
Civil Ceremony Photographer – Jonny Donovan
Venue – Cowley Manor
Bride’s dress – Justin Alexander bought at Xquisite Bridal.
Bride’s shoes – Jimmy Choo
Bride’s accessories – jewel hair comb from Not On The High Street and birds cage veil from Mia Sposa Cockfosters
Groom’s attire – Hugo Boss
Bridesmaids’ dress – Chi Chi London
Hair – Sheena’s Wedding Hairstyles
Make-up – Make-up by Jodie Hazlewood
Flowers – Flowers By Passion
Invitiation – designed by the bride’s mother and printed by The Foil Invitation Company
Vintage ice cream and lawn games – Chilli White
Regency period fancy dresses and wigs – Mad World
Videographer – Gorgeous Films

The post A Jewish-Caribbean Wedding (in ‘Pride & Prejudice’ fancy dress!) at Cowley Manor, Cotswolds, UK appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

Today, I have a rare and precious gem of a real wedding to share; one that, in my eyes, truly embodies the essence of what it means to be Jewish. I hope that you are as moved and inspired by it as I am. This introduction is a little bit longer than I would usually write, but bear with me, because I really feel that this is a truly uplifting story that needs to be told and heard. It is an honour to be able to do so on this blog.

One of the most special things about Judaism is that it really does feel like being part of one big, eclectic family. This network of ours of Jewish souls connected by our shared history, by the familiar melodies that live in our hearts, by the wounds of our ancestors and the never-give-up spirit of our community, creates a unique bond, inexplicable in words, but demonstrable in actions. We may squabble and disagree, we may exasperate one another and we may have a million different ideas about how to practice our faith (or not), but when it comes down to it, when we really need each other, we are there.

That’s why this submission stopped me in my tracks and touched me beyond words. Reading the beautiful story of this couple’s special day gave me goosebumps, particularly as it involved Israel’s Lone Soldiers

Being half Israeli, I have felt a lifelong bond with Israel and so much gratitude and affection for the young soldiers serving on my behalf. While the IDF has a system of compulsory military service for young men and women, there are also those that volunteer from overseas when they have no obligation to do so. Many of these are Israel’s Lone Soldiers. Sometimes orphaned, from broken homes, new immigrants or travelling solo of their own volition, these soldiers often have no family or close-knit support base in Israel. The experience, while admirable, can be a lonely one. With that in mind, their role in this story is particularly poignant.

Margot and Glen, felt such a deep emotional connection to Israel that, rather than opting to wed in their home city of New York, they chose to be married in the old city of Jerusalem. It was a second wedding for the pair, and a variety of logistical and emotional reasons saw them choosing to elope and not to fly in their respective children, parents, siblings and extended families.

On arriving in Jerusalem, the couple faced a hurdle when they realised that they might not be able to assemble a ‘Minyan’ (a group of ten men over the age of 13 required for traditional Jewish worship and ceremonies) for the Seven Blessings under the chuppah. With no contacts or family nearby, how would they bring so many strangers together?

Fortunately, their wedding planner, Adena, had the perfect solution. Why not invite Lone Soldiers to be their guests and to participate in the ceremony? It would certainly be meaningful, memorable and would solve their logistical issue, while creating a special experience for the soldiers too.

Margot and Glenn loved the idea, and so Adina took to Facebook with an urgent plea explaining that the US couple had no Minyan, nor family or friends to dance at their wedding and were inviting soldiers to join as their guests.

The response was overwhelming. Dozens of replies poured in within minutes. Within just four hours of the Facebook post going live, around 18 soldiers arrived on time (anyone who has been to Israel will know this is a miracle in itself) to the wedding.

Almost every branch of the IDF was represented, including Artillery, Paratroopers, Tanks, Sniper, Intelligence and more. The soldiers came from a diverse range of backgrounds and ethnicities including Israeli, Ethiopian, American, Moroccan and Belgian, observant, non-observant, ultra-observant, traditional Jewish. United by their shared Jewishness, by the mutual need for family at this special celebration, they held the four poles of the chuppah, made the Seven Blessings, sang, and clapped and danced, they lifted the groom on their shoulders and raised the bride on her chair. They ensured the merriment continued for the entire evening, fostering an atmosphere of happiness, celebration and high spirits at the wedding. By all accounts, their actions brought tears to the eyes of everybody who was there to witness it.

Although this wedding is tiny in guest numbers, intimate in atmosphere and modest in decor, it is truly one of the most emotionally meaningful real Jewish weddings I have ever blogged and I know that Margot and Glenn returned to their families in New York with stories, photos (by the incomparable, and much loved Smashing Supplier Herschel Gutman), memories and feelings of a most memorable unparalleled event.

Goosebumps, right?

How we met

Margot, the bride: The “official” story is that we met through work. The rest is more clandestine, and we’ll never tell!

Eloping in The Old City of Jerusalem

We got married at The Eucalyptus, an exquisite restaurant in Jerusalem. We loved the space, and feel a special connection to Jerusalem, a city rich in history, architecture, archeology and spirit.

The ceremony and dinner took place on the restaurant rooftop terrace which overlooks the Old City walls on one side, and the skyline of the New City of Jerusalem, including the fountains at Teddy Park on the other.

Hair + Make-up

Roshelle Make-Up & Hair Artist was wonderful to work with. I wore a blue hydrangea in my hair, and nothing else except a ton of hairspray to keep my Jewish hair under control.

The dress

I bought my dress online (I’m sorry I can’t remember where from!). I fell in love with the lace.

Shoes

I love shoes. My sister calls me Imelda Margot (like Imelda Marcos, the widow of the Philippine dictator, who reportedly had thousands of pairs of shoes.) I ordered nine pairs of shoes from Nordstrom and had a neighbour consult on what looked best with my dress. Once I picked the “ones” I took eight pairs back to Nordstrom. I thought they might ban me for life!

The handsome groom

Glenn wore a lovely blue suit – again, we eloped, so we didn’t fuss. My deceased father always said to focus on the marriage, not the wedding. That’s what we decided to do.

Glenn also wore a kippah that his grandmother crocheted for his bar mitzvah in 1978! She made them for the entire family, and it made her more present 30+ years later.

Our Ketubah

We ordered a beautiful Ketubah from Papercuts by Oren, an artist in Tel Aviv. He integrated a scene from Jerusalem, where we were married, and New York, where we met plus five little doves to signify our five children.

Chuppah design

Our chuppah was my father and grandfather’s two tallits sewn together, which felt so very meaningful.

The presence of my father…

The night before the wedding, I was sitting with Adena, our wedding planner, and I just blurted out that I felt like my father would somehow show up. He died in 2012, but he felt very present.

The following day, as we entered the restaurant for our wedding ceremony, another couple walked in and I couldn’t believe it, but the man was the longtime friend and attorney of my father! He happened to arrive at the restaurant at that exact time, not knowing that we were getting married or even that I was in Israel.

I definitely felt it was a sign sent by my father that he was “present” with me at this special occasion, and we immediately invited the couple to be guests at our wedding. It felt like my dad sent someone to give me away…

Our fabulous photographer

Herschel Gutman captured the day. He was outstanding from start to finish.

Advice to brides and grooms currently planning their wedding

Elope! Especially for a second time bride or groom. Having no family and friends made it so much easier. We did tell our kids and parents in order to get their “sign off” (!) and everyone was just fine with this. There were so many decisions we didn’t have to make, so we could really focus on starting our life together.

Margot & Glenn’s little white book

Wedding planner – Adena Mark of A to Z Events
Photographer – Herschel Gutman Photography
Venue – The Eucalyptus
Bride’s shoes – Nordstrom
Hair + Make-up – Roshelle Make-Up & Hair Artist
Flowers – Pine and Clover
Ketubah – Papercuts by Oren
Minyan – Lone Soldiers
Cookies – Cake Away
Entertainment – Ely Katz of Symphonia

The post How Israel’s Lone Soldiers Came Together To Save One Couple’s Jerusalem Wedding Day appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

It’s a Big Day in America today (erm… understatement!) and I couldn’t possibly let the day pass without posting a gorgeous real American Jewish wedding, if nothing else, to divert us from all the madness!

Menucha & Austin are just the cutest and I’ve got an extra special treat in store for you today in terms of the bride’s FABULOUS frockage from BHLDN, one of my favourite bridal fashion brands – super sassy and achingly cool.

Austin isn’t Jewish, but is going to convert to Judaism and in the meantime, Menucha wanted to find a way to show that he was included and invited into the Jewish tradition.

So he had a tisch before the ceremony, and when they danced Austin in to see his bride for the badeken, he carried out the act of placing her veil over her face, but then she carried out her own really special addition to the short ceremony – she placed a white kippah on his head, to symbolise his future conversion to Judaism. It’s personal details like this that make for a truly smashing wedding…

The wedding ceremony itself was jam-packed with intimacy, personality and so much joy. Menucha’s father was the officiant, and the bride’s and groom’s siblings held the chuppah poles. Menucha’s mother also made the ketubah. Truly a family affair.

The images today come from Alyssa Kapnik Samuel – thank you for submitting this gorgeousness, Alyssa!

How We Met

Menucha, the bride: Austin and I met in college. He was roommates with my best friend from high school. And it was a long journey from there!

Choosing to get married at Piedmont Park in Atlanta

We got married at Park Tavern overlooking Piedmont Park. We picked this because it was affordable, easy, and right in our neighborhood, so it felt a little like home to us. It overlooked the park that Austin and I would walk in almost every day when we first moved to Atlanta.

A family oriented wedding

We made this wedding about us by having it very family oriented. My dad married us and our siblings and family members gave us the seven blessings under the chuppah in their own and personal words. We planned the whole thing, did not use a wedding planner. Our colour scheme was just light and calm neutral colours, which matched our brunch wedding.

Hair + Make-up

Tiffany Stone did my hair and make-up. She was truly the best. For my make-up, I went for a very natural but elegant look, and same with my hair!

A BHLDN wedding dress

My dress was from BHLDN. I had another dress originally but couldn’t resist this one, so I bought it! It was just so beautiful and brunchy.

Shoes

I just wore sandals. Cream coloured and very casual.

The handsome groom

Austin wore this adorable navy suit that he got tailored from Trio. Very slim fitting He wore this very down to earth grey tie and a beautiful white kippah. He looked better than me!

 
Bridesmaids

My bridesmaids wore dresses of their choosing but very neutral and light colours. My sisters wore light blue dresses. Their outfits were perfect for the calm and light vibes we were going for.

  
The Badeken

One of the most special moments for me was the Badeken ceremony. When the groom greets the bride for the first time being danced in with all his friends. He puts the veil over her head and whispers something sweet in her ear. It was my absolute favorite part. Also, after he put the veil over my head, I placed a kippah on his head. To us, that was a symbol of welcoming him into our Jewish family. Everyone cried and danced and sang.

Our chuppah design

My sister actually built and designed our Chuppah, so that was really special for us. It was so beautiful and white and looked great with everything else.

Walking down the aisle…

For when Austin walked down the aisle, we played the string quartet of All You Need Is Love by The Beatles. And when I walked down, the string quartet played Here Comes The Sun. Everyone cheered and clapped as we walked down the aisle – which was the best thing ever! It made us feel comfortable and excited.

Our ceremony

Everything about our ceremony seemed to be filled with special touches. We took the Jewish traditions but made it our own. My father married us, and my mother made and read the ketubah, and I signed it under the Chuppah. Austin’s parents and our siblings, and aunts and uncles came up under the chuppah one at a time to give us a special blessing in their own words (7 of them). My favourite part was when Austin and I exchanged our words to each other. They were funny, personal, and so full of love.

Also, I think the cheering when we walked down the aisle was really a special touch and says a lot about the friends and family that were there. They were so filled with joy and love and it really made our day so great!

Oh, and for our programs, we had little newspapers with a lot of information about Jewish weddings with some pictures, after party details, a weather forecast, horoscopes, and a crossword puzzle about us and a little comic strip. (My sister made those).

 
Green and white flowers

My sister actually made my bouquets and centerpieces. She bought different flowers from around the city and even picked lots of wildflowers from around Atlanta and put them all together! It was so beautiful! Lots of green and white.

Our fabulous photographer

Alyssa Kapnik Samuel was our photographer! I met with her once and we immediately felt so connected and I felt like she really understood me and what I was trying to do with my wedding. I trusted that she was tasteful and genuine and that’s what was most important for us when choosing a photographer. We also wanted to feel comfortable with our photographer and Alyssa was so easy and comfortable to be around, so it was perfect!

A vegan Dessert table

We did not have a “cake” we had more of a dessert table with cakes and cupcakes and cookies. We had the dessert table catered and set up from this sweet little vegan bakery called Dulce Vegan. They were SO delish. We had hummingbird cakes, strawberry cakes, chocolate coconut… lots of different flavours. We decided to do this because we are vegans and wanted to enjoy all the desserts! It was also important to us to support local vegan places Park Tavern did our overall catering, a vegetarian brunch…

Entertainment

We chose a DJ so we could play all different songs that we know and love. We also wanted to have a mix of Jewish songs and party songs.

 
Advice to brides and groom planning their wedding

I would say to just keep the calming people around you at all times and the stressful people away from you as much as possible! Once I was surrounded by calmness, I was able to really feel loved and enjoy the day. Also, ask for as much help as you need, people like to help!

Menucha & Austin’s Little White Book

Photographer – Alyssa Kapnik Samuel
Venue – Park Tavern
Bride’s dress – BHLDN
Groom’s attire – Trio
Hair + Make-up – Tiffany Stone
Desserts – Dulce Vegan
DJ – DJ Dre 1800

The post A BHLDN bride for a brunch-style Jewish wedding at Park Tavern in Piedmont Park, Atlanta, USA appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

Yukie and Jason’s Moroccan market-themed Israeli destination wedding was an epic, four-part production, thanks to super helpful mother-in-law, Victoria and their incredibly talented planner, Adena at A to Z Events.

Bright colours abound with lavish gold accents, maximalist patterns and oh my goodness, check out that cake! At Smashing the Glass HQ, we’re also loving the drama of those fantastically opulent thrones for the bride and groom (move over Posh and Becks), and these brilliant stylistic choices are matched only by the loveliness of the couple’s story.

For anyone out there who is living the sometimes taxing reality of the old adage, absence makes the heart grow fonder, take heart – this loved-up pair have proved that long-distance relationships can have a truly happy ending. With a groom from New York, a bride from Tokyo, the groom’s parents from Moscow but living in Israel and most of the guests taking their first trip to the Holy Land for the couple’s wedding, this is a love that brought together cultures from all over the world for a truly beautiful celebration.

The ceremony was custom built for Yukie and Jason. While it was important to them to have a ceremony that was “official” according to the religion, with Yukie having recently joined the tribe, they also wanted it to reflect their own feelings and personal connection to Judaism. Some of the personalised details included a reciprocal ketubah, and when the groom smashed the glass, the bride simultaneously smashed a plate. The rabbi composed his speech by asking the bride and groom for three important memories and three reasons they were each other’s one and only – from this, he created an incredibly moving tribute to their relationship.

Oh, and if you’re not already sick with jealousy over Yukie’s amazing Oscar de la Renta gown, she also had two more gorgeous dresses for the evening parties! Feast your eyes on it below, all perfectly captured by photographer Shabi Kedem and Levi Dovid.

How we met

Yukie, the bride: I am Japanese and spent my entire life in Japan before I met Jason. We met nine years ago in Tokyo while he was on vacation with his brother.

Although at first I thought he wasn’t my type, once we started talking we got along so well that we had a date every day for the week he was in Tokyo. We kept in touch after he left – he called me every day for the next two years.

We visited each other any time we could – he even came to live in Japan for a year. We kept our long-distance love going for for years between Tokyo and New York.

Then, four years ago, I finally decided to move to New York and we started living together.

 
Getting married at Caesar Yam in Caesarea, Israel

We held our wedding at Caesar Yam in Caesarea, Israel. Our priorities for choosing a venue were: a) it had to be a beautiful place with an extraordinary factor, b) we could party into the small hours of the morning if we wanted! c) the reception had a Moroccan theme so venue had to match.

Caesar Yam is located next to massive Roman ruins, and directly within Crusader fortifications right next to the sea, so we could use the amazing ocean view while being surrounded by the amazing vibes of the ancient ruins. It was perfect for our guests since most of them were flying in from the US, so the ancient feel was a real novelty! Plus, Jason is a HUGE history nerd, so it was the perfect spot.

A Moroccan-themed wedding

We used a wedding planner, Adena Mark and her team from A to Z Events. Originally, we wanted to have our wedding at a hotel in Morocco where Jason and his mother, Victoria, had stayed. They fell in love with the hotel, but unfortunately it could only accommodate up to 50 guests. After that, Victoria really warmed up to the idea of Moroccan-themed wedding and so did we. My husband’s parents live in Israel and we wanted to let his mother plan her dream Moroccan-themed wedding. That is why we chose to have our wedding in Israel, so she could be in charge to liaise with the wedding planer. The family agreed that we had to have provide the best time for our guests and make it a very special wedding for everyone so that they wouldn’t regret making the 11-hour trip!

Victoria and Adena planned the wedding ceremony and reception, while Jason and I took charge of the music and after party, as they were most important aspects to us. They did wonderful job and the wedding was divided into four parts: a traditional Jewish-style ceremony, an elegant classic reception, a Moroccan party-themed reception and then crazy after party. The fact that we kept changing themes and areas of the venue kept everyone from getting bored.

Our invitations

We only send paper invitations to our parents and relatives. They were elegant, silk-covered booklets with all of the information and our gold monogram pressed invitation.

For our friends, we used Paperless Post, and I designed a Moroccan-inspired e-vite with ancient-style font. We wanted be ourselves and didn’t want to go too elegant or traditional, so we kept it casual and fun, but also hinted at our wedding theme.

Hair + make up

I didn’t have any requests. I believe professionals always know better than amateurs, so I told them to do their best style for my face and outfit. All I asked was for them to consider that I had three dresses and two different headpieces to change, so I didn’t want to spend lots of time having to change and missing the party. They understood and I managed to pull off three different looks with little time wasted. Huge thanks to my hair stylist, Avi Ben Avi and his staff.

Three wedding dresses including an Oscar de la Renta gown

I had three dresses!

I bought the first dress in NYC at Mark Ingram, an Oscar de la Renta gown for the ceremony and the classic-style reception. Victoria’s request was that I look like princess with a BIG skirt, but still look elegant. The Oscar dress certainly had that, but had some more modern elements too so it fit my taste too.

The second dress was from Israel, by an Israeli Couture designer, Chana Marelus. I found an Israeli designer’s UK Vogue Instagram picture and fell in love at first sight. Every dress was amazing but this one especially had a very 13th century, Near East princess style with gold and cream colours, so I wore it for the Moroccan-themed part of the reception. The colour of this dress and its ancient look perfectly matched the theme and venue – it was my favorite dress.

The third dress was a cute, casual white mini dress for the after party, so I could be comfortable and dance the night away. It was from Proenza Schouler. Its black trim and off-shoulder made it really modern and cool.

Accessories

For the first white dress, I had a tiara as per my mother-in-law’s request. She wanted me to look like a princess with a simple long-drop veil, which Adena found for us. The tiara was designed by my mother-in-law at a jeweller in Moscow.

For the second gold dress from Chana Marelus, I wore a gold-leaf motif crown from Keren Wolf, which worked perfectly with the ancient princess look.

Shoes

I chose comfortable kitten heels for both the first and second dresses – white leather strappy shoes with a cut-out, lace-inspired design for the first dress and beautiful vintage satin mules, which I customised with an antique shoe clip.

For the third, short, dress, I wore fancy white floral and sparkly slip-on-sneakers from Christian Dior to dance.

The handsome groom

Jason wore navy, just a shade lighter than midnight blue. We started planning our wedding about six months in advance and had to do the dress and tuxedo shopping together, last minute, so the clothes were not a surprise for either of us! We all made decisions together.

We were going through Hollywood red carpet tuxedos and we both liked Daniel Craig’s tuxedo from the 007 Skyfall poster, Midnight blue with a black satin shawl lapel. While we loved the idea, most tuxedos in that colour were from last season’s collections and we couldn’t buy them anywhere. While we were in LA for a friend’s wedding, our friend Calvin introduced us to an amazing bespoke tailor, High Society, that makes suits and tuxes for red carpet events. We picked the fabric together and they tailored it just as we wanted (for a fraction of the price!)

Wee found an amazing shirt tailor called CEGO in New York who makes shirts for TV shows and movies. We matched the shirt with an extra-large butterfly velvet bow tie and velvet opera slippers to make him look super funky and cool.

Also on our wedding day, he blew out his hair to make it super big for hip tux style! He has very curly hair (AKA a JewFro) and while these days he keeps it short, when we first met, it was HUGE, and I wanted him to look like that!

Our music choice

We walked down the aisle to Bright Eyes – First Day of My Life

For the after party, the most important thing was to have good music and to make sure all of our friends could have a wonderful time. We really took the time and effort to find the right musicians, and we found amazing band, New Thousand, at the New Orleans Jazz festival and flew them to Israel from the US. They were our amazing secret weapon Their sound is sort of electronic Balkan music, with an electric violin, keyboard and drum machine. They rock so hard though and were such a hit!

We had a wedding band called Black and White for the ceremony and reception. We asked them to stick to songs from before 1990, soul music and funk highly encouraged.

We had a violinist for the cocktail party before ceremony and for the first part of the reception.

We had a Morrocan/Mizrahi singer for the Morrocan part as well and Moroccan outfits for all the guests to dress up in and have fun!

Finally, we used an Israeli DJ, Omri Smadar, who brought a great mix of deep house, dancehall and finally ended with some old-school hip hop!

Our ceremony

For the ceremony, the rabbi gave us surveys to fill out, asking for our three most important memories and the three reasons we know our partner is our one and only. He then took this and made it into the most beautiful speech ever, without even knowing us!

Flowers

All of our beautiful flowers were arranged by Pablo Design. My bouquet was white and pink and the table centrepieces were made up of colourful flowers to go with our Moroccan theme, like magenta, orange, yellow and blue.

Our fabulous Photographer

Our photographer was Shabi Kedem, picked by our wedding planner, Adena. There was a videography component too (and even drone footage!).

A Moroccan-themed wedding cake

We completely forgot about the cake and didn’t even mention it to Victoria or Adena. But, of course, they took care of everything and we had a beautiful Moroccan design cake by Delicia Designs to go with our Moroccan-themed reception!

Entertainment

We had a wedding band called Black and White for ceremony and reception. We asked them to stick too only songs from before 1990, soul music and funk highly encouraged.

Violinist for cocktail party before ceremony and first part of the reception (Classic and elegant part).

We had a Morrocan/Mizrahi singer for the Morrocan part as well and Moroccan outfits for all the guests to dress up and have fun!

The amazing secret weapon, New Thousand! We found them playing on Frenchman Street in New Orleans during Jazz Fest! Their sound is sort of electronic Balkan music, with an electric violin, keyboard and drum machine. They rock so hard though and were such a hit!

Then we used an Israeli DJ, Omri Smadar, who did a great mix of deep house, dancehall, and finally ended with some old school hip hop!

  
Favours

For our favours, we had Moroccan leather slippers called Babouche. We wanted to give our guests something and Babouche slippers are comfy and cool looking, plus people could change into them and ditch their high heels for the after party!

We also custom made satin dust bags with tassel draw strings to put the slippers in. And printed the Hamsa I designed on it – a combination of my family symbol and his family symbol.

Advice to brides and grooms currently planning their wedding

I think the most important thing is make to it clear what you want for sure or what you don’t care about that much and prioritise. Make sure you and guests can have a wonderful time, not just the two of you…

And most importantly, choose comfy shoes!

Yukie & Jason’s little white book

Wedding Planner – A to Z Events
Photographer – Shabi Kedem
Second Photographer – Levi Dovid Photography 
Venue – Caesar Yam
Getting Ready location – Casa Cala
Bride’s dresses – Oscar de la Renta from Mark Ingram, Chana Marelus and Proenza Schouler
Bride’s shoes – Christian Dior
Accessories – gold leaf motif crown from Keren Wolf
Groom’s attire – bespoke tuxedo by High Society and shirt by CEGO
Hair + Make-up – Avi Ben Avi
Flowers – Pablo Design
Entertainment – Symphonia Entertainment (Ely Katz) 
DJ – Omri Smadar
Band – New Thousand
Cake – Delicia Designs
Invitation – Paperless Post
Paper invitations – Paper Works and Events

The post Yukie & Jason’s Moroccan-themed destination wedding, with three designer dresses, at Caesar Yam, Caesarea, Israel appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

Brrr… it’s been a bit chilly lately – so we thought we’d bring on an early spring and showcase Ashley and Adam’s bright and beautiful real wedding at Parklands, Quendon Hall, shot by STG fave – Claudine Hartzel.

At Smashing the Glass, we absolutely adore personalised details, and both bride and groom happily rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in creating a wonderfully crafty décor scheme that truly made the day their own. The couple made most of their own decorations, from heart-shaped bunting to burlap-wrapped mason jars, for their relaxed, earthy big day.

In keeping with the natural vibe of the day, the chuppah was built using silver birch wood poles, small floral arrangements and a gorgeous multi-coloured tallit, sourced in Israel by the groom’s parents

To commemorate their dreamy hot air balloon proposal, creative groom, Adam, made a model hot air balloon guest book with a mini basket in which friends and family could leave messages for the couple.

But that wasn’t Adam’s only project. In a romantic move that has set the bar ludicrously high for grooms everywhere (if you listen carefully you can hear a distant, sarcastic chorus of “cheers, mate”), Adam ordered a custom-made bow tie using a design of a painting that Ashley had created for him. It was a wonderful surprise on the day and Ashley was blown away.

The meaningful details were sprinkled through every aspect of the day. Ashley customised her Cymbeline dress with a vintage brooch and wore a bracelet with a trinket from her grandmother so they she could feel connected. And a final, adorable touch was the hand-stamped mini succulent plants as favours for each guest – a lasting memento of a beautiful celebration.

How we met

Ashley, the bride: My best friend, Tash, knew Adam from uni. One day she invited me to come with her to his birthday drinks and we were introduced there. We met again at Tash’s infamous Seder night parties and then we hit it off again on a camping trip with a group of friends – the rest is history!

Choosing to get married at Parklands, Quendon Hall

We got married at Parklands, Quendon Hall in Essex. Ashley’s parents had been to a wedding at this venue and suggested that we check it out. We went to see it on a sunny day and fell in love with the beautiful grounds. The manor house overlooked a beautiful garden with a gorgeous fountain, and just beyond that was a nature reserve with fields of wild deer roaming. We had the chuppah overlooking the field of deer and the pathway of the fountain was my aisle.

It was a gamble to choose somewhere based on the grounds as, of course, we had no idea how the weather would pan out; but the manor house and marquee offered us plenty of room for loads of guests which was a key requirement.

A wedding that reflected us as a couple

The only requirement we had for our whole wedding was that it had to be a reflection of us. We didn’t have a theme, or a colour scheme or a particular style; we approached each element individually and thought about how we could make it our own and put our stamp on it.

I guess if I were to sum our wedding up, I would choose to describe it as a natural, relaxed, rustic, earthy party.

We hand made as many decorations as we physically could and enlisted help from most of our friends to do it. We chose seasonal flowers and food that we loved to eat. We chose party favours that were something our guests could take away to remind them of us and were from the heart.

We also understood that as much as you can decorate/stylise and theme your wedding, none of it really matters as it is ultimately all about the people, the spirit and the love. All we wanted was for it to be as relaxed as possible with a party vibe, and that is exactly how it turned out.

Our invitations

We wanted to keep the invitations lighthearted to present the casual vibe we were going for and I think they worked.

We chose a rustic-style invite on brown recycled card with floral detail and bunting designs from Norma & Dorothy. It was very easy to work with them and everything was online.

Hair and make up

My very talented friend and hairdresser, Leanne Pearson styled my hair, as well as mum’s and cousin’s. She is a good friend of mine, so we had talked a lot about what I wanted and since she knows me, she also had an idea of what I like and my general style. We had a couple of trials before the big day but they weren’t even needed. My hair was absolutely fantastic and I was so thrilled with how it all looked.

Not to mention it was great to have Leanne with me while getting ready. She has such a calming nature and I knew she would be 100% honest with me. Leanne was also a guest at my wedding so it was brilliant that she was with me throughout the day and night for hair touch ups (specifically after Israeli dancing)!

A Cymbeline dress

My dress was from Mirror Mirror in Angel and the designer was Cymbeline.

The detail in the lace, neckline and sleeves were exactly what I wanted and I fell in love with it immediately. I was very lucky too as I found a beautiful vintage brooch at a market which my dressmaker was able to add to the dress as a finishing touch. It felt like it made the dress unique and added that final touch of detail.

Accessories

I had flowers in my hair, supplied by the florist. I always knew I wanted to have that earthy detail in my hair on the day. I wore pearl earrings that Adam had given me as gift a few years ago and a bracelet with a kamaya (trinket) from my grandma attached. I knew I wanted to have something of her with me on my wedding day and it was the perfect way to have her near.

My veil was short and very plain as I wanted to avoid any distraction from the dress.

New Look chunky heels

My shoes were actually £25 from New Look!

I struggled massively to find the right wedding shoes. I was looking for comfort first but I also wanted height and didn’t want to spend a fortune. I had bought and returned at least three pairs of expensive wedding shoes, until I finally decided it didn’t matter at all what I wore and then decided to go with what I knew worked!

New Look shoes are always my failsafe option for style, height and comfort and they were absolutely perfect on the day! They were simple chunky heels with a wedge – and they happened to be white.

The handsome groom

Adam’s outfit was from Ted Baker. He wore a casual slim-leg chino, white shirt and textured waistcoat and it worked perfectly.

He also surprised me with the most romantic gesture by wearing a custom-made bow tie using a design from a birthday card I had painted for him a few years ago.

He also had custom-designed bow ties made for his dad, best men and groomsmen, each with a different design, themed with something to do with our relationship.

It was a total surprise and such an intricate detail that only I would notice.

It was one of the most romantic surprises Adam has ever planned. The small personal details like these were exactly what made our wedding so special.

Bridesmaids

I had my best friends Tash, Emily and Keren as bridesmaids.

I had never actually planned on having them wear matching dresses. I’m not a big fan of that style and would rather have the girls be completely comfortable and wear something that they loved, suited them and that they knew they would wear again.

As we didn’t have a colour scheme or style theme, I told them to wear anything that they wanted – all I asked was that they were each different colours and were all shorter in length.

I went with them to choose their dresses (apart from Emily who lives in Australia) and it was an absolute coincidence that they all chose something in lace, in complementing jewel tones and matched each other perfectly.

There was no theme, style or deliberate cohesion but they all looked beautiful and distinctly like bridesmaids in their own way.

Chuppah design

We wanted to keep our chuppah design natural, simple and rustic. Not over the top and not over decorated.

We chose to use silver birch poles and unstructured, seasonal flower decorations for the corners.

The most beautiful and special part of our chuppah was the gorgeous, multi-coloured tallit that Adam’s parents bought us from Israel. It’s a one-of-a-kind, handmade piece and looked stunning with the sun shining through it. We were so happy that we could show it off on such a beautiful day.

Our ceremony

We had a very traditional Orthodox ceremony. We didn’t want to change anything about the style of the ceremony with respect to the rabbi and the traditions.

We chose for the chazan to sing an Israeli song, called Mitachat Lashamayim as I came down the aisle – one of our favourite songs. It was so emotional and touching to hear it just at the right moment.

Flowers

Our flower theme was completely unthemed! We wanted wild, unstructured spring flower arrangements using flowers that were in season. We wanted as many colours as possible, mixed in with lots of leaves and green foliage to balance it out.

Miri was our florist and although she said our wedding was not her typical style, she understood exactly what we wanted and brought our vision to life.

We had tulips, daffodils, gerberas and other spring flowers of all different colours, mixed with herbs, aloes and moss. Our favourites were the burro’s tail succulents.

It all came together beautifully and the flowers were arranged in a mixture of taller structured vases, recycled jars and boxes made of rosemary.

Adam, his best men, groomsmen and my male family members wore daffodils in their buttonholes. Our floral theme was spring, so this was a perfect option for the men.

Adam and I love flowers and this was definitely the most fun part of wedding planning. It smelt amazing in the room.

Our fabulous photographer…

The wonderfully talented Claudine Hartzel was our photographer. We absolutely clicked and felt so comfortable with her. From the second she joined me while I was getting ready, I had complete trust in her. She was with us in every room, throughout the entire day and was an absolute rock.

Claudine kept us informed of everything that was happening, gave us great instruction and helpful timings. We are very pleased with everything that she did for us and also with the photos. They came out perfectly and we are so happy!

…and videographer

Our friend and neighbour Edan Schiller agreed to film and edit our wedding videos. He is a talented videographer in his regular day job but does not usually do weddings. We are thrilled with the video and we loved working with him – the care and attention he puts into his work is unbelievable.

Catering by Philip Small

We had Philip Small cater our wedding and the food was beyond anything I had expected. Everything we ate on the night was fantastic and so delicious. People are still telling us how good it was!

Not only did he cater the food at our wedding, he helped us plan the structure of the event and was instrumental in making sure the day ran smoothly.

Our first dance

Our first dance was actually less emotional and more of an uplifting song that we both love. We danced to Florence and the Machine’s You Got The Love. We played it again as our last song too which rounded the evening off perfectly.

We didn’t want to have too much of a serious/dramatic feeling throughout the wedding; we wanted more of an uplifting party atmosphere, so avoided ballads or anything too slow.

Entertainment

We took a gamble and chose a band that we had never heard of called The White Keys. We had not heard them play live before and hadn’t heard of anyone else that had used them.

Ashley found them online, really liked their showreel and felt that they were the perfect style of band for what we were looking for.

We wanted a great wedding band that wouldn’t be the showcase of the event but more of the ‘party starters’, and they absolutely delivered. They are so talented and such great singers, they brought the party to life! The music compilation was spot on, they looked fantastic and were great to work with.

We were able to give them requests and they were even happy to have an extra band member on the night (my uncle!).

Mini succulent plants as favours

We put a mini succulent plant at each place setting with a hand-stamped label saying ‘take me home’. We are very green fingered and loved the idea of giving our guests something special that reminded them of us, but that would also be a lasting thank you to them for coming to share our special day.

All of our friends and family still have their plants and our flat is overflowing with them. They were a huge success.

DIY-ing our wedding

We made all of our decorations. We chose to make all of the bunting that was strung around the entire circumference of the room. We used recycled paper and created heart-shaped bunting strung together with twine.

We also used recycled jars to hold all of the flowers and candles. Our friends and family had collected the jars for us over six months and we added lace, twine and burlap detail to each individual jar.

We bought a customised stamp and printed all of the labels that were attached to each individual succulent plant pot.

A hot air balloon guestbook

When Adam proposed, he took me on a hot air balloon ride, so we wanted to incorporate that into our wedding somehow. We also wanted to have something a little different instead of a guest book. Adam hand made a miniature hot air balloon. It had a basket attached, into which our guests could drop their hand written messages to us.

Advice to brides and groom currently planning their wedding

My advice to anyone would be to take all of it in. Your wedding day goes so fast, so try to step back and absorb everything that is happening. Remember to enjoy every minute. By the time that day finally rolls around, all decisions have been made and there is absolutely nothing to be stressed about – it’s time to let it all go and have the best day of your life!

Ashley & Adam’s little white book

Photographer – Claudine Hartzel
Videographer – Edan Schiller
Venue – Parklands, Quendon Hall
Bride’s dress – Cymbeline bought at Mirror Mirror
Bride’s shoes – New Look
Groom’s attire – Ted Baker
Hair – Leanne Pearson
Make-Up – Rachel Gold MUA
Flowers – Flowers by Miri
Catering – Philip Small
Band – The White Keys
Production – David Graham from Sound Division
Invitation – Norma & Dorothy

The post A Cymbeline bride for a DIY-detailed Jewish wedding at Parklands, Quendon Hall, Essex, UK appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

We love a bit of magic and whimsy on STG, and what could be more whimsical and delightful than a fairy princess garden theme?

Evan and Jeremy met at college where they became friends, and were later reunited when a work opportunity brought them back together.

Evan was adorned with precious family heirlooms, including her mother’s veil and jewellery from both grandmothers and her great-great grandmother, and shoe lovers who lack self control should shield their eyes now (don’t say we didn’t warn you) because you’re definitely going to want to splash out on a pair of the bride’s stunning, crystal-embellished Badgley Mischka heels. Can we say ‘bling’?

The couple had a Jew-ish wedding – an interfaith ceremony that integrated both Christian and Jewish traditions, honouring both the bride and groom’s respective backgrounds.

This gorgeous fairy princess garden themed wedding took place at idyllic venue, Old Red Museum in Texas, USA and all the details were expertly captured by AR Photography.

Let’s hand over to Evan to fill you in on every last detail!

How we met

Evan, the bride: Jeremy and I met at Texas State University in San Marcos, TX when he was a junior and I was a freshman. We became instant friends, and had a great (completely platonic) friendship for the rest of my college career. When spring rolled around my senior year, Jeremy reached out to me in regards to a job opportunity at his company.

He was living in Houston, Texas and I was targeting Austin, Texas. I got the job in his company’s Austin office. Shortly after, we began talking consistently. He then asked me to meet up with his friends and go camping one weekend. After that, the rest is history. Four months later he got a job offer in Seattle, and that is where we decided to start our lives together. A year and a half on from our move, he proposed.

A hidden gem venue at the Old Red Museum, Dallas

We got married at the Old Red Museum in Dallas, Texas. We wanted a unique venue that we had not been to for a wedding, and I wanted to feel like a princess on my wedding day. This venue is a hidden gem in the middle of a big city. It is the ‘Dallas Castle’.

A fairy princess garden theme

My mum and I were the wedding planners. My mum honestly should make wedding planning her side job. The theme was ‘fairy princess garden’. Which, in my head, went a few different ways. I wanted it to have a romantic antique princess vibe but also whimsical, like a fairy garden wedding. Our colours were dusty blue, ivory and white with a lot of greenery in the flowers.

Pearlescent invitations

I think the pearlescent glow of the invitations provided a beautiful touch. The blue and ivory shades of the wildflowers were great indicators of the theme of the wedding.

Natural shades with dewy skin

Starting our day, my bridesmaids, my mother, Jeremy’s mother and my godmother wore matching silk pyjama sets to get our hair and makeup done. It was like a mini sleep over with my best ladies.

Kreativ Beauty killed the hair and makeup game. Jenn Karsner and her associate, Xoe Hamous, came to my godmother’s Dallas skyscraper condo (where the bridal party got ready) and made all of us look glam.

I wanted to look as natural and glamorous as possible, so I asked for nude/natural shades with a dewy skin look. My hair length is past my booty, so I wanted an intricate up ‘do (medieval princess style). My hair is always down so I figured to mix it up for my wedding day. Jenn wrapped, curled and pinned every hair on my head.

A lace-finish Allure gown with champagne undertones

My dress was from downtown McKinney, Texas from LeAnn’s Bridal. The designer of the dress is Allure.

My mum and I planned on looking at dresses when I was home for the holidays and I actually thought I wanted a sleeve dress (similar to Princess Kate), but my mum sent me a picture of a dress in the window and asked if we could try that one on when I was in town.

It was the first dress I tried on and the way it sparkled all over won my heart. The champagne undertones beneath the white lace were breathtaking.

The bride’s mother’s veil

My somethong borrowed was my veil. It was my mother’s, from my parents’ wedding; a simple and elegant cathedral-length veil. We removed it from its 80s headpiece and put it on a comb to modernise it. I also wore my new sister’s crystal and pearl hair pins that she wore at her wedding. These beauties were from Nordstrom.

My something blue, was my great-great grandmother’s sapphire brooch attached to my bouquet. My something old was my grandmother’s high school ring attached to my bouquet, as well as my other grandmother’s pearl ring on my right middle finger. My something new was my wedding dress.

Crystal-embellished Badgley Mischka heels

My shoes… STILL IN LOVE. They were from Badgley Mischka. They were peep toe, ivory shade and had about 5” heels. They had a crystal bling wrap from the bottom of the heel up to the side of the shoe.

For the reception, I wore bright blue TOMS flats for a something-blue touch and dancing comfort.

The handsome groom in a J. Crew tux

Jeremy’s tux was from J. Crew. He wore an ivory vest and bowtie to make him shine. Two of my gifts to him were engraved collar stays and socks that said “don’t get cold feet”. He looked like a true gentleman. 

My first gift to Jeremy when we started dating was a hunting duck call made out of cocobolo wood. I had a designer from the same website, Custom Made, make Jeremy’s wedding ring. It is cocobolo wood inlaid in 14k gold.

For the wedding, I gave Jeremy personalised collar stays that say on one “always in my heart” and the other “…for my whole life.”

  
Bridesmaids in dusty blue

My bridesmaids wore a dusty blue shade dress, with a lace cut-out overlay. The top layer was floor length, over a nude slip that went to the mid-thigh. The sides and back were cut out. I wanted a dress they could wear again, and that was not the typical bridesmaid dress, but more of an artistic gown.

A chuppah decorated with vines and flowers

The chuppah was a natural decision based on the layout of venue. Our officiant, Cantor Tunitsky, saw the turret and said “historically, a chuppah is under a beautiful sky – representing the home and God’s creation.”

The turret was our enclosure and the beam that was already there made a perfect place for the florist to decorate with vines and flowers.

Our interfaith Christian-Jewish ceremony

We had an interfaith wedding, that mostly focused on the Jewish traditions but made sure some Christian traditions were sprinkled in to reflect me and my family.

Jeremy’s brother-in-law’s father is the cantor of the synagogue he grew up at and he also officiated Jeremy’s Bar Mitzvah. Cantor Tunitsky officiated our wedding and kept it very special for us.

There was a fireplace in the room where we had photographs of family members and grandparents that were no longer with us placed on the mantel.

My uncle and brother read scripture from the book of Ephesians to represent my Christian heritage.

On the back of our programs, we had the traditions listed out so that everyone understood what was happening. (i.e. the seven blessings, the chuppah, the scriptures from Ephesians, etc).

We had a sign before you entered the ceremony that asked for everyone not to use their cellphones. This was very important to us, because we feel when people have access to their phones/cameras it takes away from the intimacy of the event and also, can get in the way of our professional photographer’s shots.

A laser-cut mahogany ketubah

A coworker of mine is a very talented wood craftsman. We worked with him to create the design of our ketubah, which he laser cut into African mahogany. We collected the signatures from our witnesses and cantor prior to the wedding and he placed these on the wood for our piece of art. He also printed out the same design onto paper, with no signatures, for us to sign at the wedding.

I felt our ketubah signing was very special. I did not want Jeremy to see me, so our fathers held Jeremy’s grandfather’s tallis between us to shield us from seeing one another. We could both hear the other one beside us and feel each other’s presence but were not able to see each other. This is the same tallis our mother’s used at the end of the wedding to wrap us and bring us together.

Fairy garden flowers

We used The Stalk Market in Downtown McKinney, Texas. First off, I highly recommend them for a Dallas event. They are family owned and were beyond pleasant to work with.

Our flower theme was ‘fairy garden’, so we went with classic blooms as well as wildflower detail. Our main blooms were light blue delphinium, white hydrangeas and white roses and strong ivy accents.

The Stalk Market also put different types of thistle and greenery throughout our arrangements.

Our fabulous photographer and videographer

We used AR Photography. Ashley Rains Fondon did an absolutely amazing job of capturing our memories of the occasion and bringing our wedding to life in the photographs.

She owned the room. She knew exactly what she wanted and made it happen, and I appreciated her tactical business approach.

We met with Ashley and not only loved how bright and light her photography was, but clicked instantly with her personality. It just so helped that I was a maid of honour in my best friend’s wedding a few months before mine and saw Ashley’s talent at work there. That solidified our decision.

Our videographer was Oquist Productions. Jesse and his team did a fantastic job at getting the highlights and personalities of our night.

Cake, cake and more cake

My family friend and amazing cake maker, Debbie Day, made our wedding cake. The two top two tiers were strawberry flavoured with fresh strawberries and jam filling. Tier three and four were lemon cake with real lemons and lemon curd filling. The bottom layer was white almond cake with raspberry jam filling.

I met with Debbie a couple of times for us to put this cake masterpiece to life. I showed her a few photos I liked and that I wanted edible blue hydrangea décor. She took the reins from there and created our gorgeous, delicious cake. Each petal was individually formed and tinted.

Our groom’s cakes were beautifully arranged chocolate brownies. Jeremy does not particularly like cake, but loves his brownies, so my mum’s friends came together and made them for him.

Jeremy’s grandfather and parents did the blessing over the challah and my godmother did a blessing/prayer over the food.

Dancing the night away

For our wedding ceremony, we had an electric violinist, Gaily Bird.

Our first dance was to Wildfire by John Mayer; sung and played acoustically by our friend and talented musician, Reed Turner. Reed was able to make the song a slower pace for us to have more of a romantic dance to it.

For our reception, DJ Junior in the Mixx from Radio DJs carried the night away with upbeat dance music, that kept everyone on the floor and a fun light show.

The mother and son dance was to My Wish by Rascal Flatts, while the father and daughter dance was to I Loved Her First by Heartland. About three minutes into the song, the DJ scratched the disc and switched the song, to We Go Together from the musical, Grease.

My dad put sunglasses on and we “fun danced” for about 45 seconds of it, then he and my mother switched places on the dancefloor and I got a first dance with my mother as well. Both my mum and dad are huge influences in my life.

Our exit was 10 ft long streamers for everyone to wave us farewell. It was a perfect ending to the night. My uncle owns a gorgeous white Rolls Royce and dressed up as our chauffeur.

  

A popcorn bar

We had a popcorn bar in one of the turrets. The popcorn was from Mom and Popcorn in McKinney, Texas. Which is my absolute favorite place to get popcorn.

We had three flavours and cute little white popcorn boxes for our guests to snack. In another turret, we had a photo lounge for our guests to use selfie sticks and fun props to capture the fun. 

Advice to brides and grooms currently planning their wedding

Break up the tasks by weeks or months (depending on your time frame). I had exactly 12 months from the proposal to the wedding, so I broke each duty into around three-week time frames: first three weeks: find a venue; next three weeks, find DJ; next three, find a dress; next three: find a photographer, etc. It will make you feel more accomplished and less stressed!

Jeremy and I were advised this and we are so glad that we were. In the middle of your reception, while everyone is dancing, take a walk with each other. Soak in the moment. Then get to a place where you can see your dance floor. These people are here for you. These people will more than likely not all be together in a room again. All, both of your loved ones, all together, celebrating your love.

Evan & Jeremy’s little white book

Photographer – AR Photography
Videographer – Oquist Productions
Venue – Old Red Museum
Bride’s dress – Allure from LeAnn’s Bridal
Bride’s shoes – Badgley Mischka and TOMS
Bride’s accessories – Nordstrom
Groom’s attire – J. Crew
Hair + Make-up – Kreativ Beauty
Flowers – The Stalk Market
Caterer – Celebration Catering
DJ – DJ Junior in the Mixx 106.1 Kiss FM from Radio DJs
Electric Violinist – Gaily Bird
Singer – Reed Turner
Popcorn Bar – Mom and Popcorn

The post A Jew-ish fairy princess garden wedding with an Allure gown at Old Red Museum, Dallas, Texas, USA appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

“WOW” was our first reaction to Erika and Marc’s fantastically floral real Jewish wedding at Northbrook Park. At a glance, the effect is overwhelmingly beautiful, and delving into each detail only serves to foster an even greater appreciation of just how much work, love and incredible taste went into planning the day.

Every last choice was simply bursting with personality, wit and charm, and expertly captured by photographer, David Morgan.

Before we get into the details (of which there are many that you’re definitely going to want to pin – and steal), can we just talk about how lovely Marc and Erika are as a couple? Their extraordinary personalities really shine, especially in the stunning wedding video, filmed by Story Catchers (go on – watch the video of Marc’s eloquent and heartfelt speech and try not to cry… spoiler alert, grab a tissue).

OK, so this is definitely a gratuitous use of all caps and exclamation marks, but we feel it’s warranted: THAT CHUPPAH!!!! Who else is dying of chuppah envy? We didn’t even know that was a thing, but there you go.

The entire day, including beautiful bride Erika’s stunning wedding ensemble (the bride wore a breathtaking dress by Rue De Seine), stuck to a highly detailed colour scheme and a relaxed, bohemian aesthetic.

Erika and Marc creatively crammed the wedding with quirky, clever touches, including an illustrated mini Erika and Marc on their stationery suite, “wedlibs” for their guest book (amazing idea) and personalised escort cards with thoughtful little phrases for each guest.

Erika writes so beautifully about her and Marc’s simcha that there’s no need for us to embellish, so we’ll hand over to her for the full scoop!

How we met

Erika, the bride: Marc and I met at Limmud Conference 2012 as we were both volunteering in the catering team to make it a more cost-effective experience. Most people find dodgy pasta in the Limmud dining rooms, but we found each other.

Choosing to get married in a beautiful country house at Northbrook Park

We chose to get married at Northbrook Park, a beautiful country house on the Surrey – Hampshire border. We wanted a venue which was pretty, intimate, could be adapted to our tastes and allowed the use of an external kosher caterer. Originally we planned on getting married near to my parents in Hertfordshire. However. after weeks of searching. we were left with four venues which were familiar to me through meetings held there for work. As we wanted somewhere special, we widened our search and fell for Northbrook Park with its stunning grounds, majestic peacocks and lovely gardens.

A fun, quirky, elegant wedding

We planned the wedding ourselves without a wedding planner. We didn’t opt for a particular theme, but we are both quite quirky so we wanted to incorporate lots of individual touches into our day. We also decided early on that as much as it was our day, we wanted all our friends and family to feel involved so we focused on a fun, welcoming, elegant wedding to remember.

“Erika and Marc” illustrated invitations

While making all the big decisions, I found my mind wandering to all the little individual touches we could include on the day and I kept making wish lists for all sorts of things whether they would be possible to incorporate or not. We loved designing, so we were creative with the invites, the table settings, signage etc.

We decided to have an illustrated invitation picturing us in our full wedding garb (although our guests didn’t know this at the time). We focused on the details such as my flower crown and Marc’s burgundy cravat and blue suede shoes, with the flowers painted to match the wedding flowers. We printed the invites locally and tied the three pages together using ribbons in our wedding flower colours. We finally sealed the envelopes with a sticker featuring an “E & M” logo within a ring of flowers, again in our wedding colours.

We decided to use illustrated “Erika and Marc” and flowers throughout our day incorporating them into all our stationery including place cards, menus, reserved seating signs, order of service, table numbers, benschers, wedlibs, sparkler tags, and wedding favours.

We created “wedlibs” for people to fill in, instead of the traditional message book. These included sayings such as “I love you both but I am really here for the…” which included spaces for our guests to be fun and creative. We enjoyed reading them all through after the wedding.

We also created personalised, individual escort cards with phrases like “Nice dress, Sue” and “Leave room for dessert, Marc” to accompany our guests to dinner.

In addition we liked including attention to detail so we decided that we would have confetti made in heart shapes in our wedding colours. We also had kippot embossed with the word “Love” and the kippot in three different colour combinations.

Relaxed, boho hair and glam makeup

My hair and make-up was by the lovely and creative Jo from Love Hair. When looking for a hair and make-up artist, I typed something like” boho hair” into Google and Jo’s website came up. When I saw “buzz words” such as cool brides, “relaxed but beautiful styling” and “a champion of the undone look”, I knew she was the girl for me!

I went for a trial and loved my beautiful makeup and fabulous hair styles Jo tried out. I went with a half up half down plaited style to tie in with my boho look and glamorous make-up.

A boho beautiful Rue De Seine dress

I bought my wedding dress at Leonie Claire, Brighton, after an eight month search for “the dress”. I chose the gorgeous Chloe by Rue De Seine, a white long-sleeved sheer dress with all-over embroidery flowers and leaves and scalloped edges, teamed with a simple white silk slip underneath. Being a boho-style girl, I knew from the outset that I wanted a white, relaxed, pretty, cool, non-traditional floor-length lace dress with a train which wasn’t going to weigh me down. Also, I was attracted to detailed, stylish dresses by Australian and Kiwi designers, and I wanted something different from the norm, which Chloe was.

I visited vintage stores, designer wedding dress shops, traditional bridal boutiques, urban warehouses and even a designer in a church bell tower! It wasn’t until I tried on Chloe that I felt like I wasn’t playing dress up anymore. I was completely relaxed wearing the dress and didn’t want to take it off in the shop!

I originally went all the way to Brighton to try on another Rue De Seine gown I had seen online which was “visiting” the UK from New Zealand for two days only, although I would have had to sell my grandma to buy it so I decided to try on the more affordable Chloe and fell in love.

Simple but edgy, fashion-forward accessories

As my Chloe dress was so detailed, I wanted to have simple, beautiful accessories to finish off my outfit. I opted for a gorgeous handmade Luna Bea Bride hair comb made out of moonstone and 14k gold plated brass, which sat at the top of my simple, cathedral length veil.

I opted for minimal jewellery so as not to detract from my dress and decided that I only needed to buy earrings/ear cuff. I bought the Warrior ear cuff and feather stud earrings and mini ear cuff in gold by the brilliantly talented Phoebe Colman. I loved wearing them. My jewellery was beautiful, edgy and fashionable without being traditional and I liked the fact that I could wear it again and again.

Sky blue laser-cut Bionda Castana heels

My wedding shoes took a while to find. I originally tried to match my shoes to my dress and was getting nowhere. I knew I wanted shoes that I could wear again which were not necessarily bridal shoes. I also knew that I didn’t want to be taller than Marc so I could get away with a three-inch heel and that it was essential that they were comfortable to wear all day. Not too tall an order!

I discovered a designer called Bionda Castana and bookmarked their website. However I couldn’t justify the large price tag.

After weeks of sending back ivory, white and gold shoes, I googled Bionda Castana again and saw a website selling a sky blue pair of ankle tie, intricate laser cut Bionda Castana shoes in my size at a discounted price as they were the last pair in stock. I ordered them, they were the right height, didn’t cost the earth, fitted well and matched Marc’s blue shoes perfectly. It was meant to be!

The handsome groom in yellow polka dot socks

Marc chose a lounge suit as we decided we wanted a relaxed, informal feel on the day. The suit was from Impeccable, in Hatch End. It was navy blue with a subtle maroon and black Prince of Wales stripe throughout. Marc decided that he wanted a maroon cravat to match the stripes in the suit. He also chose a light-blue waistcoat as he wanted a colour that would stand out against the navy blue. To complete the waistcoat, Marc attached a solid, gold watch-chain which had been handed down to him from his great-great grandfather. Marc is known for wearing yellow clothes so he picked out a pair of bright yellow socks with dark blue spots to complete the look.

I was browsing for my wedding shoes online when I came across a pair of three-toned blue brogues, which matched the navy in the suit and the light blue in the waistcoat. It completed his outfit perfectly and everyone loved his blue suede shoes!

Our decadently decorative floral chuppah

I knew from the very beginning of our engagement that I would love a beautifully decorative floral chuppah. I absolutely love colour, lots of texture and creating a visual impact so I really wanted a special chuppah which had the “wow” factor that drew all eyes to the flowers, smells and natural beauty and showed off the skill of our super talented florist while tying in with our relaxed feel.

Noeleen, had never built a chuppah before, but as soon as I met her, I knew we were on the same wavelength and I had complete confidence that she would build something breathtakingly beautiful and brilliant. I knew I wanted birch trees for the poles and lots of flowers and foliage at the top and bottom of the poles.

After “pinning” lots of visuals on Pinterest, I gave Noeleen creative freedom to build the chuppah as she wished.

Noeleen looked at our “pins” and chose the colours which stood out from the boards. She chose lots of interesting textures and sourced many varied local blooms. She and her fellow florist Stephanie then started working on the chuppah at 8am on the wedding morning. When I saw it completed walking down the aisle I couldn’t stop staring at it in total awe. We had so many compliments from people saying it was the prettiest chuppah they had ever seen.

I also customised a Lego version of us under our Chuppah made by the brilliant Julie at Heart of Bricks and added a doily veil to “me” and a Blu Tack kippah for “Marc”!

Our religious ceremony

For our ceremony we asked a good friend of ours, Roland Brandman, if he would be our chazzan and we were delighted when he accepted. The ceremony began with Roland singing a classical piece of music called Caro Mio Ben. He sang without a microphone and filled the entire room with his beautiful tones. This was the perfect start to our ceremony and made it very special for us.

A contemporary string quartet

We also had a string quartet that played as we walked in. I chose One Day Like This by Elbow and Marc chose Can’t Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley. We then had Roland singing during our ceremony. We had so many compliments on Roland’s singing and nobody could believe that he wasn’t professional

Wild, whimsical and natural floral arrangements

I first discovered Noeleen and her company The Basement Florist on the wedding blog Mr & Mrs Unique. I saw her flowers and loved the fact that her designs included wild, whimsical, natural arrangements and that she worked with berries, feathers and lots of different textures.

We both loved Dutch 15^th Century floral paintings and we decided that the table flowers would be presented in stylised vases, similar to the look of these paintings.

It was easy to get carried away with having flowers everywhere, but in the end we settled on a wild bouquet with ribbons for me to carry down the aisle, textural, large button holes for the bridal party, several long and low statement vases dotted around the venue, natural displays for the tables and a “curtain” of carnations with glass baubles attached to the end of each row, each holding a tea light to light up a walkway.

Our fabulous photographer…

For the photography, we decided that we wanted a reportage/photojournalism-style photographer who would really capture the moments on the day. We chose David Morgan due to the high quality of his work. The fact that he had shot lots of Jewish weddings before was a real drawing point. In particular, we loved the images of the Israeli Dancing and how he had captured everyone joining in, enjoying themselves.

…and videographer

Our videographers were the amazing Pen and Cam from Story Catchers. I originally saw their work on Smashing The Glass of another wedding at Northbrook Park and felt that they had really captured the essence of that couple’s wedding day. I subsequently visited their website, saw more examples which I loved and decided there and then that they were right the videographers for us. They were really warm and welcoming and an absolute pleasure to work with. They made everyone feel at ease and you weren’t aware of their presence.

All the guests loved speaking with them and the films were captured in a magical, unobtrusive, natural, fun way. The stunning videos that we received are one of our favourite mementos of the entire wedding.

Giant garden games and a colouring-in canvas

We decided to have lots of entertainment to involve our guests throughout, so we arranged giant garden games and I created a giant colouring in canvas. We had an open photobooth so we were not restricted on numbers of people who could be snapped together and the back drop was designed to match our flowers and overall style.

After all the dancing, we served Pimms and champagne ice lollies courtesy of our caterer Ben Tenenblat, for the guests to cool down and finished the evening off with a sparkler exit.

Popcorn bags and a donation to Cardiomyopathy UK

During the reception, we had sweet and salty popcorn favours for guests to enjoy with their cocktails and canapés. I designed the popcorn bags; each complete with the ribbons in our wedding colours and a tag; which either said “thanks for popping by” or “all because Marc popped the question” on one side and our E & M logo and wedding date on the other side.

In addition to the popcorn and with all the money being spent on the day, we decided it was appropriate to donate money to charity. We have personal experience with cardiomyopathy and decided that we would like to make a donation to Cardiomyopathy UK.

As a thank you, they sent us pin badges featuring their heart logo, which we attached to cards and put at each person’s table setting. We were not sure if people would wear the badges (due to not wanting to ruin their outfits) but lots of people could be seen sporting the hearts.

Marc’s sister created a fabulous sweet stall and all the sweets were in our wedding colours which were popped into personalised sweet bags.

Advice to brides and grooms currently planning their wedding

If I could give one piece of advice it would be stay true to you.

I was provided with lots of recommendations/reasons for choosing certain suppliers even if I didn’t feel they were that in tune with us and our needs and was advised to proceed with them, due to experience/knowing the venue/value for money etc. However, each time I ignored this advice and found suppliers who “gelled” with us, I found I built the best relationships, trusted them implicitly and they delivered beyond our expectations on the day and afterwards.

Erika & Marc’s little white book

Videographer – Story Catchers
Photographer – David Morgan
Venue – Northbrook Park
Bride’s dress – Rue De Seine purchased at Leonie Claire
Bride’s jewellery – Luna Bea Bride and Phoebe Colman
Bride’s shoes – Bionda Castana
Groom’s attire – Impeccable
Hair + Make-up – Love Hair
Flowers – The Basement Florist
Caterer – Ben Tenenblat
Lego chuppah – Heart of Bricks

The post A boho beautiful Jewish wedding with a Rue de Seine gown at Northbrook Park, UK appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

The only type of wedding that compares culturally to a Jewish wedding is, of course, a big fat Greek wedding. So, as you can imagine, a combination of the two makes for a pretty epic Mediterranean family-centric celebration!

Christina and Oryan tied the knot on the beach in beautiful Crete, owing to both the bride and groom’s Greek and Greek-Cypriot backgrounds, and the convenient short hop from Israel, where Oryan has family ties.

We adore the laid-back feel of this gorgeous destination wedding, with the bride making her grand entrance on donkey-back, the couple exchanging vows barefoot on the beach (with one notable moment as an exception) and Greek / Israeli food and dancing.

The pair kept things simple, with no bridal party and ensuring that everything had a natural, organic feel to it. We LOVE the simplicity of the wooden Chuppah with its delicate floral arrangements perfectly framing the view of the sea. Stunning.

Family played a huge role in the ceremony, with both of the bride and groom’s sisters being given a significant part to play.

Oh, and Christina’s Catherine Deane dress was simply perfect – elegant, bridal, flattering and beach-wedding beautiful.  

Christina and Oryan wrote up the story of their real wedding together as a couple, and we’re delighted to hear the story from both of their perspectives, so we’ll hand over to them now to tell us more…

How we met

Christina and Oryan, the bride and groom: We met through mutual friends in NYC. We had both moved to New York in 2010 and had mutual friends in common through which we were introduced. We remained friends for several years before starting to date in 2014.

A big fat Greek Jewish wedding with a surprising bridal entrance

The decision to have our wedding in Crete was rooted in the fact that Christina’s dad is a Greek Cypriot and Oryan’s grandparents are Greek Jewish decedents.

In addition, Christina’s family had planned a trip to Crete that never took place, and so it happened that we got married in the Greek island of Crete. The proximity to Israel made it easy for all of Oryan’s family and friends to attend.  

We wanted to combine Oryan’s Israeli and Jewish culture with Christina’s Greek and American one. We didn’t understand it right away, but with the help of our two wonderful wedding planners who we cannot recommend more Crete for Love we basically invented our own ceremony.

To illustrate: the bride arrived on a donkey named Tasia and the groom shattered the wine glass wearing only one blue Dolce and Gabbana shoe. We wrote the entire ceremony ourselves and were able to include all of our friends and family in different parts which made it all very personal. 

Our theme was olive branches so all of the flowers were light colours accented with olive leaves.

Keeping the invitations casual

Most of the wedding guests received a direct WhatsApp message as an invite. For some of our older generation folks, Christina found hand painted Greek invitations from an artist in Australia.

A classic Catherine Deane dress

Christina’s dress was Catherine Deane, an up-and-coming Irish designer. A friend had recommended her to Christina and they had just opened a boutique in NYC where Christina and Oryan live. Christina loved the style of Catherine Deane dresses because they are simple, classic, yet feminine. It’s the only place she went to look for a dress and decided on the spot.

Christina did not wear any jewelry because Oryan has a weird hatred of earrings and necklaces so we agreed to keep it very simple and clean. We both wore flower Stefanas (olive branches crowns) on our head that were placed during the ceremony (a Greek tradition) and which we kept on throughout the rest of the evening.

A barefoot bride and a single Dolce & Gabbana shoe presented on a pillow

As the wedding ceremony was on the beach, steps from the water, we both wanted to be barefoot, to feel the slight warm sand under our feet at this life event. But at the end of the ceremony Oryan put on one light blue-grey Dolce & Gabbana shoe which, for laughs, was brought to him on a pillow by his Italian friend Corrado, so he could smash the glass.

For the reception that took place in the villa, Christina had a pair of deep blue Stuart Weitzman swede heels which she only wore until her feet started to hurt, then it was back to being barefoot! 

The groom wore D&G

Since Oryan used to live in Italy and has Italian friends in the fashion industry, on a recent trip to Milan he had a couple of friends (including Corrado who works at Dolce & Gabbana) help him find the outfit. He wore aqua light blue pants with a white shirt and suspenders. The light blue-grey D&G shoes were the highlight.

A natural, wooden chuppah

Since the ceremony was on the beach, we wanted something simple and natural looking for the Chuppah. It was made of wood and decorated with flowers.

 
A family-centric, multicultural ceremony

Christina’s sister was the officiant at the ceremony. We wanted to involve all of our close friends and family in the ceremony so we had our friends read the seven traditional Jewish Blessings, each friend in their native language which included Hebrew, Italian, Greek, and English.

Christina also had her cousin and a close friend read a passage from the Bible and a special poem. Another one of Christina’s cousins placed the stefana (olive branches crowns) on their heads and close friends threw rice as they walked around the alter three times, signifying our past, present, and future together as a married couple.

We also had each of our parents hold the four corners of Oryan’s talit (the one from the Bar-Mitzvah!) above our heads while Oryan’s brother in law read the blessing in Hebrew. Oryan read his vows to Christina in Hebrew and Christina read hers in Greek.

An honourable mention for Tasia the donkey

Our favorite part of the ceremony was the special guest, Tasia the donkey. It’s an old Greek village tradition that the bride arrives to the wedding on a donkey. After the ceremony, everyone enjoyed getting pictures with Tasia. 

Traditional Greek music

Oryan’s sister played the flute as Christina arrived on the donkey and walked down the aisle. At the reception, we had live Greek musicians playing bouzouki and classic Greek songs. We wanted it to feel like we were just at a local taverna. There was no formal entrance song or first dance.

We had the reception at the villa we had rented for the week in Crete. The dinner table and musicians were set up next to the pool so of course once the dancing started and everyone had several drinks in them, everybody jumped into the pool with their clothes on and the dance party continued in the pool for several hours.

In addition to the hora for us, we also lifted the mothers of the bride and groom as well as the fathers. They all enjoyed this so much!

Our fabulous photographer

Andreas Markakis is a local photographer who was recommended to us. We chose not to have videography. He really did an excellent work and we have many beautiful pictures. Super recommended!

A Mediterranean feast

The theme of the dinner was classic Greek/Israeli food. Keeping in line with that, desert was Christina’s favorite Greek sweet called loukoumades which are fried dough balls saturated in honey. There was also fruit and baklava. The caterers were a local company also recommended to us by our wedding planner.

Each place setting was decorated with glass evil eyes that Christina’s sister brought from the States that guests were able to take home.

An Israeli pre-wedding party

A week before the wedding in Crete, we had a big party in Israel that Oryan’s mum planned. She and close friends went to the Church of the Crucifixion in Jerusalem and picked olive branches from the trees there from which she made crowns for all guests to wear at the party. We loved the crowns so much, as well as the meaning behind them, and we brought several with us to Crete the following week. Many guests at the wedding also wore these crowns throughout the evening. 

Advice for brides and grooms currently planning their wedding

It would have been less stressful if we had the ceremony planned in advance and if Christina had started getting ready earlier in the day!
In the end, everything came together perfectly although things were a little rushed!

Christina & Oryan’s little white book

Photographer – Andreas Markakis
Wedding planner – Crete for Love
Bride’s dress – Catherine Deane
Bride’s shoes – Stuart Weitzman
Groom’s attire – Dolce & Gabbana

The post A big fat Jewish-Greek wedding with a Catherine Deane gown and a superb bridal entrance on the beach in Crete appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.

Our absolute favourite thing about destination weddings is that, without fail, they provide epic, awe-inspiring scenery, and today’s beautiful destination celebration in Marbella, Spain, is certainly no exception.

Lizzi and Mark met through a family connection and quickly fell in love. Set in Spain as the perfect backdrop for their big day, the couple enlisted incredible Smashing Supplier, optimum weddings by The Weddings Company to help them to liaise with their suppliers overseas and make their dream day happen. It goes without saying that Lizzi and Mark were overjoyed with the results.

The ceremony took place overlooking the sea with mountains in the distance – the postcard-ready picture was framed by the couple’s stunning Chuppah, with its beautiful floral arrangements. What more could anyone want?

There’s a lot to love about Lizzi and Mark’s big day, but we simply have to mention the phenomenal vibes of the Israeli dancing – as you can see from the pictures, the party was definitely buzzing, and nobody held back!

Fireworks filled the sky as the pair cut their cake, creating a Hollywood-perfect romantic moment to remember forever.

The wedding was shot by Your Wedding Moments.

 
How we met

Lizzi, the bride: Funnily enough, we met at my brother’s wedding in Israel in 2014. I thought I knew all of his friends, but turns out… I didn’t. Not his one Northern friend from Leeds. We met, there was an instant chemistry, he then moved down to London, and the rest is history.

A dreamy destination venue in Marbella, Spain

We got married in Spain, in Marbella, at a gorgeous venue called La Cabane at Los Monteros Golf and Spa Hotel. We picked Spain because it was our dream to get married overlooking a beach and nature, with blue sky, sun and mountains. 

We love Spain: the Mediterranean laid-back culture, late nights, big squares, wine and tapas. In terms of the venue, we wanted a fully kosher wedding. There are only three venues in Marbella that can 100% accommodate this. 

Once we decided on Spain, we met our wedding planner, Dyana from optimum weddings by The Weddings Company. Dyana took us to the three difference venues. La Cabane was without a doubt our favorite, a stunning location right on the beach. It was perfect!

An ivory, pale pink and gold colour scheme

For our colour scheme, we went with ivory, light pink and gold. We used a wedding planner, yes. Dyana and her amazing assistant, Sara, from optimum weddings by The Weddings Company were incredible and looked after every detail from start to finish. 

From the day we met them choosing venues through all the preparation, negotiations and meetings with the suppliers, Dyana and Sara were there for every aspect. Even after the wedding, they have been helping us to finalize certain elements around photos and albums. They are the dream team.

Perfect Perspex invitations and menus

Our invitations were actually a bit different and unique. We were recommended a great guy called Darren Gale in Elstree, London. He designed very cool Perspex invitations for us which fitted in with the ivory, light pink and gold theme. He also made us matching Perspex menus for the tables at the wedding.

Natural makeup and pretty plaits

I wanted my makeup to look as natural as possible. Dyana, our wedding planner, introduced me to her gorgeous makeup artist, Nicola McGeorge, who does a lot of her brides. 

Nicola is originally from London and she has one of the best reputations in Marbella. She used to be the editor of Confetti Magazine and she is so knowledgeable on all things makeup. I had a trial with Nicola a few months before the wedding and I loved her straight away.  

My hairdresser was also Dyana’s recommendation, Alex Harrocks. There are no words for how much I love Alex and how much she made everything about the getting ready part of the day, so fun and relaxed. 

I was very fussy when it came to my hair. I had a few hair trials with Alex on different trips to Spain. I knew that, in the heat, I wanted my hair off my face, but it felt a bit nerve wracking as I normally have my hair down and on my face.  

I loved the style I ended up going for – hair pulled back in plaits off my face. Alex got it perfect! Mark and I did a beach shoot a few days after the wedding and it was amazing to recreate the hair and have champagne with Alex again.

A customised Enzoani gown

The dress was bought from JS Couture in Marylebone, London. The designer was Enzoani. I went to so many wedding dress shops and tried on so many dresses. I knew it would be very hot in July in Spain, so I wanted something with a soft tulle and flowy, especially to keep with the beach theme.

The owner of JS Couture, Jessie, was so hands on and incredible. She did a lot of alterations to the dress, and added a lot of fine details, Swarovski crystals, pickups to the tulle and so on.

A family heirloom eternity ring and Italian heels

I wore a long veil to the ground for the Chuppah, also from JS Couture. Jessie added crystals and detail so that it matched the dress. 

In terms of jewellery, I kept it simple. I wore a special pair of earrings from my parents. I wore my grandma’s eternity ring. I bought some hairpieces from a wedding dress shop in Spain.

My shoes were gold, high stilettos. They were by an amazing Italian designer called Dino Dessiati, and I found them while shopping in Tel Aviv. I had bought shoes from this designer the year before also and I loved them because the leather is so soft and comfortable. I wore my shoes all day and night and, given how high they were, they did not fail me. I danced the night away!

The handsome groom

Mark’s suit was made by Savile Row tailor, Scabal. It was a navy suit and owing to his quirky personality, the inside lining reflected a comic illustration scene. It was very cool!

Mismatched bridesmaids in pale pink

I had three little bridesmaids and three adult bridesmaids, including my sister who was my maid-of-honour. 

The little bridesmaids wore matching light pink dresses, in keeping with the color scheme. I bought them all bracelets and hair pieces. They each had a basket of petals which they threw as we walked down the aisle. 

My three older bridesmaids chose their own dresses. They also wore light pink in keeping with the colour scheme.

Our chuppah

As the Chuppah was on the beach, we went for a simple design. We decorated one of the Cabanas at La Cabane with flowers.

A spiritual Jewish ceremony overlooking the sea

The main thing about the wedding that made it special to us was the fact that the ceremony overlooked the sea and we could see mountains in the distance. Under the Chuppah, the nature in front of us made it feel extra spiritual. 

We flew out Rabbi Moshe Mayerfeld and his wife, Liat, from London. I have been close to Rabbi Mayerfeld since I did Aish trips when I was 17, so it was amazing and very special to have him conduct the ceremony. 

We also flew out Mark’s Chazzan from Leeds, Alby Sebastian Chait, and his wife, Gila. Alby has an incredible voice and it was an honour to have him sing for us. 

Alby gave us an amazing idea for the smashing of our glass. He recommended Ahava glass. Mark bought the glass from there, it comes in a little bag which Mark had to stamp on to smash. It’s since been turned into an incredible glass ornament which is the best memory of our Chuppah!

 
Traditional Jewish songs and a sentimental first dance choice

During the Chuppah, we obviously had traditional Jewish songs which our Chazzan sung. 

For the reception, our first dance was High by the Lighthouse Family. Mark and I spent a couple of weeks on a road trip around California after we got engaged. We had the Lighthouse Family on constantly, so it was a bit of a no brainer! Plus, the words “we are going to be forever you and me” obviously resonated well!

An abundance of ivory peonies

The florist was also our wedding planner, Dyana’s, recommendation, Virginia Florista, in Marbella, Spain. To be honest, before my wedding, I was never one of those girls who had thought of every wedding detail or who had a clear vision of what I wanted flower wise. I put a lot trust into the florist in Spain. 

My main request was that my bridal bouquet was made up of lots of ivory peonies as I love those! 

Entertainment

We had a live band called The Legal Aliens for the early part of the wedding and until 1am. They were awesome, our wedding planner’s recommendation again. 

We then flew out a highly recommended DJ, Aryell Moussaioff, to do the later part of the wedding from 1am onwards. We chose Ari because he DJs at all the best nightclubs in Tel Aviv and London. He totally understood the music we would love, English and Israeli – he was the best!

As well as our amazing band and DJ, fireworks going off in the sky whilst we cut our cake was one of our highlights!

Kosher catering

The overall catering was done by the catering within the Los Monteros Hotel and all the koshering was overseen by Rabbi Marcos Cohen of Spain Kosher Services.

They also catered our welcome party on the Friday night and made incredible paellas (non seafood versions of course!). 

Finally, they made our cake, which we cut as fireworks went off.

A groom’s party of 16

Mark had 14 ushers and two best men. This meant a lot of Northern guys from Leeds who all made the atmosphere and ruach of the wedding insane.

Personalised fan favours

We had personalised fans, which we ordered from Create Your Own Fan on Etsy. These were very needed for the Chuppah in the heat!

We had flip flops for the party, plus mini bottles of Sangria to represent Spain. We also had a bags of sweets for the party and 2am snacks (burgers, hot dogs etc!) of course.

Advice to brides and grooms currently planning their wedding

It was quite hard at times dealing with some of the Spanish suppliers. Mediterranean culture is very different and they can be quite slow to respond. They often say ‘no’ before they say ‘yes’, but our amazing wedding planners from optimum Weddings by The Weddings Company looked after all of that!

Lizzi & Mark’s little white book

Wedding planner – optimum weddings by The Weddings Company
Photographer and videographer – Your Wedding Moments
Wedding venue – La Cabane at Los Monteros Hotel
Bride’s dress – Enzoani purchased from JS Couture
Bride’s accessories – Swarovski
Groom’s suit – Scabal
Hair – Alex Harrocks
Make-up – Nicola McGeorge
Flowers – Virginia Florista
Band – The Legal Aliens
DJ – Aryell Moussaioff
Invitation – Invitation London
Catering – Los Monteros Hotel and Spain Kosher Services
Glass – Ahava glass
Favours – Create Your Own Fan

The post A picture-perfect Jewish wedding overlooking the sea, with an Enzoani gown at Los Monteros Golf and Spa Hotel, Marbella, Spain appeared first on Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog.