Okay, so today’s interfaith Jewish wedding just might have one of the most stunning locations we’ve seen yet, in the breathtaking Canadian Rockies. It also happens to be the wedding of our beautiful STG Brides Club member Rebekkah to Jakob, so we’re extra obsessed – and so in love with the incredibly artistic images from Abbey Raine Photography, which totally look like they belong in a glossy magazine.
These two truly had one of the most gorgeous ceremonies we’ve seen, and while the majestic mountain backdrop obviously had more than a little to do with that, the couple’s simple birch chuppah adorned with white flowers, beautiful papercut ketubah from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Ketubah.com, and inclusion of sweet personal touches – like making sure their beloved dogs were present for the chuppah – really made the day.
Rebekkah, who looked stunning in Galia Lahav, also offered the great tip that when things are held up for whatever reason, use that time to take extra photos!
Take it away, Rebekkah!
How we met
Rebekkah, the bride: We met through a mutual friend and Tinder simultaneously. We had our first date walking our dogs along the river and have been inseparable ever since, and that was four years ago.
Venue
Our wedding location was Kananaskis Country Provincial Park, and our reception was at the Pomeroy Delta Kananaskis Hotel. We picked this location because my husband’s main wedding request was a July wedding in the mountains. Finding a July wedding location in the mountains happened to be a difficult feat. Most locations I originally had in mind in, places like Banff, Canmore and some ski resorts, had stunning venues with the silliest shut down times like 11 o’clock or 12:30. Which in my humble opinion is ridiculous, also I wanted a few specifications about the reception location.
In Canada especially near the mountains you cannot bank on an outside wedding because the weather is so unpredictable; you need to have an inside/covered back up available. Then I wanted to have a room with a nearby washroom and patio/smoking area. I always find at weddings (specifically in Canada) that the people get split up between the bar, the dance floor, the washroom, and the smoking area.
After driving a few hundred kilometers around our glorious Rocky Mountains and feeling completely defeated… my MOH/BFF/SIL Willow remembered the Pomeroy Kananaskis, a lovely mountain hotel nestled in a secluded valley an hour from where we live. The Pomeroy had everything we wanted and more; a gorgeous outdoor ceremony location, dog friendly, a lovely reception room with a massive attached patio, great food, and they were willing to let us party till 12:30 then move our group to a pub nearby where we could keep dancing for as long as we wanted.
Theme
I made our wedding about me and Jakob by very simply doing exactly what we wanted to do. I wanted a dark theme for our wedding: my goal was Addams Family chic; so dark colors but not full gothic. Elegant darkness. Me and my BFF/MOH/SIL were my wedding planners, I did hire a wedding decorator/coordinator.
What ‘Smashing The Glass’ Brides Club‘ Did For Us
Having discovered Smashing The Glass when I did 100% made my wedding planning so much easier and honestly more fun! Brides Club is a great group to be apart of. Having the support and unbiased opinion of other brides, and Karen plus team was incredibly helpful in my planning journey.
I wish I had discovered Smashing the Glass back in 2015 when I was MOH at my brother and his wife’s wedding! We were googling and going to our JCC library trying to ace all the Jewish wedding traditions on our own, growing up not so religious and then trying to plan the first Jewish family wedding of our generation was very stressful. It was comforting to me to be able to chat with other ladies and get knowledge from the ones that know more about our traditions. And at the same time see other Jewish brides also not know the same things I didn’t know.
Invitation
Our invitations were simple – double sided, one side a collage of me Jakob and our dogs. On the other side a silly bit about how our parents and our dogs are inviting you to come to our big day. They were cute I loved them, but I printed wayyyyy too damn much I ordered 130 for our 155 guests and have at least 80 left over that I need to find a way to re-use.
Hair + Makeup
On your wedding day, the way you look is so incredibly crucial to how you’re going to feel and how confident you’re going to be. I took choosing my glam squad very seriously. Only pick a glam squad that will make your trial a priority! I chose a very talented hairdresser who also happened to be a friend of mine from high school. She did my hair in our other friend’s wedding where I was a bridesmaid. Her work spoke for itself, I booked her to do my bridal hair that day (almost a full year before my wedding).
Courtney Dendy would send me snaps of the hair style I chose while she would practise the vintage curls I wanted. I loved my hair on the day!
Sarah Stokes was recommended to me via my photographer. She offered to do my makeup trial for my boudoir shoot (yes, I did! It was super fun I left the shoot feeling so confident, and my hubby was stoked when I gave him the pictures the morning of our wedding day). Sarah was great! Very professional, she even arranged bring a second makeup artist Jessica Mercury with her on my wedding day to get bridesmaids makeup done efficiently. These ladies were lovely upbeat and quick, we were super on schedule for getting ready, and all the girls were happy with their hair and makeup.
Dress
My dress is a Galia Lahav, the Gia dress. It’s a sheer strapless champagne ball gown with a pleated silk tulle skirt, white beaded and crystal floral embroidery on the corset down the waist. My dress is stunning, it was the first dress I tried on and my mom and Willow instantly cried, I tried on a few more but the “one” was obvious. I honestly really liked it but my selling factor was my mom and Willow, I trusted their opinion and it wasn’t till a year later when we flew back to Israel, and I tried it on again that I was like .yesses thank gosh I got this dress!”.
I wore my mother’s Tiffany diamond tennis necklace and a Galia Lahav veil. I kept my hair and jewelry simple: small crystal hoop earrings, no bracelets. My mom had lent her necklace to both my sister in laws on their wedding day to my brothers. I thought she should wear it for once, but she insisted that it was exactly what my look needed, and she was very correct. Mothers know best… and Jewish mothers never let you forget that.
Shoes
I knew from the get-go when I was looking for a dress that I wanted a dress that would hide my feet so I could rock Chuck Taylors. I’m average tall, 5 foot 8, I decided it would be a treat to be comfy at on my big day and it would be a nice treat to have my girls be my height or taller. The shoes I ended up wearing, (again shout out) Willow bought for me as a surprise. They arrived just in time for my fitting and they are amazing! She ordered them off Etsy from The Queen Of Bling.
They are Converse All-Star Blank Canvas Chucks, that The Queen of Bling bejewels so sweetly. They’re finished off with white ribbon laces, and my husbands last name Strasser embroidered on the back.
The handsome groom
My husband wore navy suit pants, with navy suspenders and vest. He wore a white shirt, black dress shoes, and no tie… he insisted. His looked excellent!
Bridesmaids
I had seven bridesmaids. They all wore mismatched jumpsuits, their outfits all looked great.
Chuppah
Choosing our chuppah involved a simple chat with me showing Jakob some pictures and us both having similar taste. We decided on birch trees, with white and dark flowers and a black striped tallit on the top. My father-in-law and step mother-in-law googled ‘chuppah traditions’ and got excited to build it for us.
Ceremony
I think our dogs were really the only individualized thing we planned in our ceremony. Jakob and I are obsessed with our dogs so naturally they had to be there.
My favorite part of my ceremony was Jakob. I planned our wedding day so well and things still went wrong, our rabbi missed entire parts of our ceremony, his parents missed the ketubah signing, my parents were an hour late for the ketubah signing, and all the other silly things that went completely wrong. I was so happy to just be up there with my beloved.
The balagan is here to stay probably but at least I get him next to me to roll our eyes together at our insane families. (TIP when things aren’t going as planned or other people are holding you up just use that time on the fly to take more pictures, some of my best wedding pics were taken when we were waiting).
Ketubah
I got my ketubah from Ketubah.com. It’s a lace papercut by Enya Keshet. We chose it because I loved the incorporation of the 15th century Lisbon ketubah cut out. The white cut out looks divine on the moon glass background we selected. Shout out STG for the awesome discount!
Our music choice
The songs played at our wedding were:
Jakob’s mother picked the song he and his parents walked to which was Van Morrison ‘These Are The Days’.
The bridal party danced down together to ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.
Me and my parents walked to an instrumental version of ‘Yerushalym Shel Zahav’, is a very special song a) because it’s beautiful and I had to acknowledge my first love Israel, and b) it was one of my bubby’s favorite songs. And after the glass broke Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Big Love’ started.
Our first dance was ‘I Can’t Tell You Why By’ the Eagles. We chose this song because we felt it portrayed our relationship well, not flawless but just crazy in love and drawn to each other.
My father and daughter dance was to Alan Jackson Daddy ‘Let Me Drive’. This song is deeply significant to me and my family, because my parents raised us on a farm and my father used to own a trucking company, and as a family we spent countless hours driving. Me and my brothers’ most treasured memories with our dad was all the times growing up he would let us drive his truck, or a big truck, a tractor, his boat – anything my dad taught us how to drive everything; dirt bikes, speed boats, fishing boats, even heavy equipment.
Even though most of the song is about a boy and his father I relate to it. I was the only girl in our family and my dad always treated me the same as my brothers, I’ll always be grateful to him for that. Also, my dad taught me how to two-step (country dance) so we rocked our dance it was awesome! Last year my father was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease, so the past year has been a very painful, stressful, and emotional time for our family. My dance with my father meant a lot to me and my father and may other loved ones in the room.
Flowers
For our flowers I simply picked all the white flowers I liked, and anemones because they were one of few black flowers I could get my hands on.
Photography
My photographer was a very easy choice for me because I picked a very talented photographer who also happens to be a dear friend of mine. Danielle Anderson of Abbey Raine is not only my lady love, she is also an incredibly ambitious and passionate professional. Danielle has taken my engagement pictures, and done a boudoir shoot for me. I am so obsessed with every picture this girl takes, her love for what she does shines through in every picture she snaps.
Food
Our venue did our catering, we picked a basic yet delicious meal and had midnight snacks. Our cake was from a lovely local lady, she made us a beautiful three tiered semi naked dark chocolate cake with vanilla butter cream icing and dulce de leche filling, with gold flakes, blueberries, blackberries, and a dark chocolate drip down the sides. We loved our cake so much for future events I am 100% using Pam at Black and White Bakeshop.
Entertainment
We had a DJ service do our entertainment for the evening we hired the same DJ that DJed my bat mitzvah, that we didn’t realize till after I booked them. I ended up getting a double mitzvah discount, haha. My DJs were fantastic, our dance floor was hopping all night. We also had the pleasure of having a couple of our talented friends perform a couple songs for us, Our dear friend James played electric guitar along with our first dance song and then him and my bridesmaid Sarah did a cover of Etta James song ‘At Last’.
Honeymoon
My husband and I are going on our honeymoon in December to Mexico! Because our dear friends are getting married there and we chose to make that our honeymoon.
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
My advice for future brides is really make sure you slow down and enjoy the day. Somewhere after our ceremony ended right up till after dinner I got crazy nauseous and was struggling to breathe so bad that I sat at our head table with a fake smile trying not to vomit. In retrospect I think the residual anxiety of the day from waiting on family that was late or had messed up my extremely well-planned timeline hit me all at once.
I had my husband loosen the zipper on my dress so I could breath, I danced my first dance and my father daughter dance with my dress opened slightly so I wouldn’t faint… gotta love corsets! I realize now I should have taken some more time to breathe between my ceremony and reception and been more selfish on the day instead of caring so much about my guests’ enjoyment.
My other piece of advice is bring a second outfit to change into even if your goal is to wear your dress all night. I had brought 3 outfits for my wedding one for the rehearsal, my Galia, and a white sun dress for the next day. Thank goodness I was too lazy and stressed the night before to get dolled up, because when 11:30 rolled around on the night of I had to get outta my stunning yet suffocating dress!
In fact, you might not realize how painful beading can be till you’ve been in the dress moving around for several hours. After our ceremony I had to put band-aids all around my titties because my bodice was rubbing me raw! Thank goodness my makeup artist was beyond prepared. As the saying goes pain is beauty, but its always good to have an out. I changed into white palazzo pants and a white lacy crop top and a leather jacket, and I was sooo happy to have something soft and sexy to dance the night away in!!
My wedding day as a type A was stressful because my family was all over the place late and just confused (even though I typed up detailed schedules and went over the schedules with everyone individually, most of them were still late and confused.) There wasn’t much I could do to mitigate that, so I just rolled with it. Take any extra waiting time to take more pictures and do what you must do to keep yourself happy and hydrated!
Rebekkah & Jakob’s little white book
Photography – Abbey Raine Photography
Videography – Red Finch Studios
Ketubah – Ketubah.com {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Venue – The Pomeroy Kananaskis Mountain Lodge
Bride’s dress and veil – Galia Lahav
Bride’s shoes – Converse personalised by The Queen Of Bling
Hair + Makeup – Courtney Dendy, Sarah Stokes and Jessica Mercury
Cake – Black and White Bakeshop
Invitations – Emerson and Clarke Printing
Love the outdoorsy vibe of this day!