It’s no secret that we love seeing a couple who crafts a unique Jewish wedding that’s totally, 100% them. And that’s exactly what today’s bride and groom did. Candy and Max are passionate about documenting their life together as an interabled couple at Riding Everest – Max, an investment analyst, has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, and in addition to a career in writing and social media Candy cares for Max, assisting him with all the tasks he needs help with due to his disability – and showing the world that relationships where one partner has a disability are just as loving, normal, and beautiful as any other.
And that seems to go doubly for weddings, based on Kristian Leven’s radiant, joyous photos of the day. This wedding was SO full of love, happiness, and cool personal touches, from papel picado in honor of Max’s Mexican heritage, eucalyptus leaves to reflect Candy’s Australian family, and tiny plastic horses scattered around the venue for guests to find as a nod to the couple’s 2018 horseback trek to Everest Base Camp! And they also worked in plenty of DIY touches, from hand-painted place cards (Max worked with a paintbrush held in his mouth, and Candy took charge of the calligraphy) to homemade gin favors.
We also love that these two opted to get married twice in one day, starting their day at the register office and ending it under the chuppah, which Candy and Max loved because it gave them the opportunity to have both a small, intimate wedding with just family AND a big Jewish wedding where they celebrated with their community.
And then there’s the exuberant Jewish music by Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Shir! This mega-talented group not only helped the couple pick their favorite tunes and iron out logistical creases in their day, they also led the Israeli dancing and made sure that everyone – even guests who’d never before attended a Jewish wedding – got involved!
There’s so much more we could say about this awesome wedding, but we’ll leave it to Candy – who started the day in a pale blue vintage tea dress before a secret pre-chuppah costume change into a beaded dress from BHLDN – to fill you in on the rest…
How we met
Candy, the bride: We met after my masters, when I needed a part time job (an MA in playwrighting isn’t a very lucrative way to get into the job market) and Max needed a PA at work. Then we accidentally fell in love and the rest is history!
One Day, Two Weddings
We ended up effectively getting married twice on the same day, once at the register office at Islington Town Hall, and then again in the evening under a chuppah at Finsbury Old Town Hall (which isn’t a town hall anymore, and actually normally functions as a dance academy!) This meant that we got to have a very small intimate wedding with just our immediate family in the morning and a Big Jewish Wedding with our community and all our friends in the evening, which was kind of fantastic!
An Accessible Venue
We started off by trying to do everything ourselves, booked a venue and then got stuck when our chosen catering company ghosted us… That’s when we found Dita Rosted, who was able to take our vision and the bits of planning we had already done and along with our caterer Jimmy’s – Jimmy Garcia Catering, craft the day into something that not only went smoothly, but was absolutely flawless.
Because Max uses a wheelchair, we were very concerned that we wanted the venue to be accessible to us. We were very lucky to have found a venue that was both accessible and beautiful. We wanted to cram as many of our favourite things into the day as we could, and make it as personal to us as we could. Just a few of the details I can think of are:
Personalised papel picado from Max’s family in Mexico – Max’s mum brought them back with her when she was visiting her parents a little while before our wedding, and they were so beautiful. It was great to have a piece of Mexican culture at our wedding.
Plastic horses – I had this mad idea that I wanted to hide a bunch of tiny plastic horses around the venue for people to find. In 2018, Max and I trekked to Everest Base Camp with a group of our friends to raise money for Riding For the Disabled, a charity which has helped Max immensely throughout his life.
Max was the first person with Cerebral Palsy to get to Base Camp on horseback. Lots of the people in attendance were horsey people, and the others would surely appreciate the slightly avant garde element of random horses strewn about the place.
Hand-painted place cards – Max and I made these ourselves, with Max painting them all with a paintbrush held in his mouth, and me going in afterwards with a dip pen and gold ink to calligraphise everyone’s names.
Invitation
We sent out paper save-the-dates and had those made by Mount Street Printers. Then we went a little off-piste with our main invitations, choosing to frantically email and text everyone with a link to a website, because we felt like there was just so much information that people might need, and a paper invitation just wouldn’t fit it all in! People could RSVP through the website which was very convenient.
Hair + Makeup
My mum did my makeup – I was all geared up to do it myself, but then at the last minute she decided to fly over from Australia, which was a relief as she is very good at doing makeup!
My hair was done at Oskar Pink, which is fairly close to where I live so I was able to just pop over there in the morning! I had a relaxed updo with flowers in it.
Two Dresses
I had two dresses! For most of the day I was in a pale blue vintage tea dress from Blackout II in London, and then I did a secret costume change right before the chuppah ceremony into a sheer, beaded dress from BHLDN. I loved both dresses, but the vintage one was definitely more “me”! Both dresses were very budget-friendly, because I just couldn’t fathom spending a huge amount of money on something I’d only wear once.
The vintage dress was quite fragile and I did end up having to sew it up while I was wearing it, about fifteen minutes before leaving for the register office in the morning, but it was definitely worth it because it was really unique and I had so many compliments about it!
My top tip is to sort out what underwear you’re going to wear earlier than the week of the wedding. I ended up having many very stressful underwear shopping experiences as late as the day before the wedding, and I don’t recommend that as part of the nuptial experience! It was fine in the end though, but please learn from my mistake!
Accessories
I had flowers in my hair, and wore pearl drop earrings given to me by my mother. She had worn them to her own wedding a couple of years before, and it was nice to feel like they had become an heirloom of sorts.
I chose to wear my glasses, which I know is not a common decision for myopic brides, but I just wanted to be comfortable and feel and look like myself for the day. I was tempted to go for contact lenses, but eventually opted to stick to my signature bespectacled look. It also meant I didn’t have to worry about my eyes getting dry by the end of the night.
Shoes
I wore blue shoes by Irregular Choice with both of my dresses. They doubled as my “something blue” (although I don’t know if I had any of the other things from that tradition…), and the heels were low enough that I didn’t worry that I’d fall over!
The handsome groom
Max’s suit cost more than both of my dresses put together… He got his suit, shirt and tie tailored by Ozwald Boateng. There’s actually a video of him getting his suit fitted, made by Barcroft TV. It’s a beautiful deep blue three piece suit. Because of his disability, Max finds it hard to find suits that fit him perfectly, but the tailors at Ozwald Boateng were so professional and helpful, and even hooked him up with a pair of custom shoes!
Max chose Ozwald Boateng because it is important to him to support pioneering people of colour, and Ozwald Boateng is the first Black British Savile Row tailor.
Max looked very handsome and adorable all day, and it was clever to have a waistcoat because it meant when he got too hot in his jacket, he still looked really smart in his waistcoat and shirt.
Bridesmaids
I didn’t have bridesmaids because I didn’t want to rank my friends, but I did choose my two closest friends to be my witnesses. My friend Eleanor was my non-Jewish civil ceremony witness, and my friend Tilly was my Jewish ketubah witness. Max had his cousin Danny and best friend Adam as his witnesses.
Ceremony
Just before our Jewish wedding ceremony, we had a Havdalah ceremony to mark the end of Shabbat. It was an incredibly meaningful and powerful moment of the evening, and it got everyone into the mood for something spiritual to happen. Our wedding was a bit topsy-turvy because we had everyone eat and drink (and dance a little) before the ceremony because we couldn’t have the chuppah until after sundown.
So the Havdalah was a great dividing moment to change the mood. As part of the Havdalah ceremony, I sang a duet with Cantor Tamara Wolfson, who performed our wedding ceremony. She is a dear friend of ours and an absolutely kick-ass Cantor, so it was a real honour to sing with her. We sang the ‘Oseh Shalom’ by Elana Arian, to rapturous applause.
For the actual chuppah ceremony, we got seven of our close relatives and friends to read interpretive versions of the sheva b’rachot, which was a lovely way to involve as many people as possible. Everyone did a wonderful job, and there was a lot of crying!!
Our ketubah was designed by Ardyn Halter, and had the Reform Judaism wording on it, which was important to us as egalitarian Jews.
Chuppah
We wanted our chuppah to reflect my bouquet, and we chose lots of floral embellishments for the chuppah frame, including eucalyptus leaves as a symbol of the Australian side of my family, as well as lots of autumnal blooms.
Our music choice
We hired the amazing band Shir for our wedding, to play music during the reception and ceremony. We knew of them from their amazing presence at Finchley Reform Synagogue’s Simchat Torah celebrations, and we really wanted to encapsulate some of that joyful, Jewish energy for our wedding.
Ivor from Shir helped us to identify and pick our favourite tunes, and even helped us to iron out some logistical creases that we hadn’t thought of!
One of our favourite Jewish pieces of music is ‘Hashkiveinu’ by Dan Nichols, and we made sure that this piece was in the ceremony as the idea of a shelter of peace is something that felt very appropriate in the chuppah ceremony and going forward into our lives as a married couple.
Flowers
The flowers on our tables, my bouquet, all of the boutonnieres and the chuppah were all masterminded by the wonderful Catherine Short. We really like that all of the leftover flowers are donated to women’s shelters and similar organisations, as wasted flowers are such a shame!
I actually dried my bouquet and it is still very beautiful, hanging upstairs in our house. The theme was a warm, early autumn theme, with eucalyptus as a nod to my Australian family, and spicy warm blooms as a nod to Max’s Mexican family.
Photographer
Our genius of a photographer was Kristian Leven, and I cannot recommend him highly enough. He worked for the whole day, completely alone, and managed to capture everything so perfectly! I wish he could be my full-time photographer for my life, he made the day look like a work of art.
Food and cake
Our wedding was catered by Jimmy Garcia Catering. Food is very important to us, and we really wanted to make sure that everyone at the wedding would be well-fed and well-watered! We didn’t want anyone to go hungry, no matter what sort of dietary requirement they had, and I think that Jimmy’s did a great job at this.
We had a mixture of styles of food, nodding to the many strands of our cultural heritage, but a real highlight of the dining experience was the big sharing platters of lamb that came out. We had secretly designated certain guests to be the “chefs”, and when the meat came out, they were instructed to put on their chef hats and aprons, and they were in charge of dishing out the meat to the rest of the guests at their table.
Suddenly, all the people who had been designated “chef” all congregated together, and for a moment it was like being at a very ethereal chef convention. Lots of people have mentioned this to us after the fact, and my French uncle said, “does this happen at all English weddings” which I still laugh about.
Entertainment
Lots of our guests weren’t Jewish so we were a little nervous about the amount of Israeli dancing we had scheduled, but we needn’t have worried. Shir Music led the dances so well and absolutely everyone got involved! There was much treading on of toes, and a lot of bumping into each other but everyone had a wonderful time dancing.
I’m so proud of everyone for giving it a go! We also had a little photo station with a big sparkly moon for people to sit on and pose with their friends. It was camp and exciting and I think everyone enjoyed it!
Edible Favours
We made two enormous batches of gin ourselves at home, in plum and rhubarb flavours. My mum helped me to package them up into hundreds of little tiny bottles. It was unintentional, but they gave off a very Alice In Wonderland vibe.
We also bought huge amounts of Mexican chocolate and portioned that up into little packages for each of our guests, individually stamped with the name of the chocolate. Making favours yourself can definitely save some money, but be prepared to have a lot of your time taken up by the endeavour.
Honeymoon
We went to Australia for our honeymoon, to introduce Max to the members of my family who couldn’t make it to the wedding, and we managed to do a little traveling around Melbourne and Sydney in the process!
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
If your budget can handle it, absolutely get someone to help you to plan your wedding! I can’t believe I thought I could do it all by myself – and a wedding planner doesn’t mean you’ll end up with an identikit wedding! You can still make sure the day is super personal to you!
What ‘Smashing The Glass’ Did For Us
Smashing the Glass was super helpful for chuppah ideas!
CANDY & MAX’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography – Kristian Leven
Band – Shir Music {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Venue – Finsbury Old Town Hall
Bride’s dress – Blackout II , BHLDN
Bride’s shoes – Irregular Choice
Groom’s attire – Ozwald Boateng
Hair – Oskar Pink
Flowers – Catherine Short
Catering – Jimmy Garcia Catering
Ketubah – Ardyn Halter
Stationery/Invitation – Mount Street Printers
If you’re a Jewish or Jew-ish bride-to-be, you’ll want to join Smashing The Glass’ Brides Club. Guided by the world’s number 1 Jewish wedding expert, Karen Cinnamon, Brides Club is the private community for Jewish and Jew-ish brides that removes wedstress and indecision and gives you what you need to plan with confidence during these uncertain times. Join our Brides Club here.
