It’s no secret that it gets us pretty excited to hear how couples have used Smashing The Glass to help them plan their own Jewish (or Jew-ish weddings). So you can only imagine the warm and fuzzies it gave us to read these lovely words from today’s beautiful bride (and member of Smashing The Glass’ Brides Club!) Aimee:
“We really wouldn’t have known where to start planning our wedding without Karen and Smashing The Glass. We used lots of STG Recommended Vendors and they were all incredible!”
Aww, we think you’re incredible too, Aimee! She and Ross planned the most fantastic day, and we’re so touched to have been a part of it. From the bride’s totally exquisite lace Gemy Maalouf gown from much beloved STG Recommended Vendor Mirror Mirror London — it’s really unlike any other we’ve seen — to the lovely flowers (including succulents — how cool!) from STG Recommended Vendor The Country Flower Company to the elegant wedding stationery, complete with personalized wax seal, from STG Recommended Vendor Dimitria Jordan.
We’re always excited when a wedding with STG Recommended Vendor XS Showband crosses our path, and today’s is no exception. We’re delighted (but not surprised) to hear that they were incredibly helpful to Aimee and Ross throughout the planning, and we LOVE that the couple had one of the band members sing the prayers during their ceremony.
Even more STG-sourced vendors captured the day in all its glory: STG Recommended Vendor David Morgan took the coolest photos — we can’t get enough of his modern style — and STG Recommended Vendor Denee Motion’s wedding trailer is pure cinematic splendor, as always!
Okay, now we’ll hand you over to our new BFF Aimee…
How we met
Aimee, the bride: We first met on the same family holiday. We were both on the same cruise with our families and were introduced. However, I was quite shy and we didn’t talk too much!
Once back it turned out that I was joining Ross’ sixth form and we ended up in many of the same classes. In our second year we started dating and have been together ever since. 9 years later Ross proposed in our flat and here we are 11 months later… MARRIED!
A Regal London Wedding
We got married at Plaisterers’ Hall, One London Wall. When we first started planning our wedding, we were convinced that we (when I say we, I mean I) didn’t want to get married in London and had our hopes on a grand manor house in the country with beautiful gardens. However, when we began our search, all the manor houses we looked at just weren’t big enough for our size wedding and we (Aimee again) were against having a marquee.
Having dreamt about my wedding for as long as I can remember (as corny as that sounds), I always imagined it being very grand, hence our theme: regal. When I described my ideas to vendors they even described my vision as regal, totally unprompted!
Once we realized that having a gorgeous countryside wedding wasn’t going to be feasible we started looking at London venues. We then managed to narrow our search down to two very different venues and but Plaisterers’ Hall just fit our theme perfectly!
Pastels
As our venue fit our ‘regal’ theme so perfectly and due to finding my bridesmaid dresses so early on in my search, the pastel color scheme just seemed to naturally follow. We didn’t use a wedding planner but our venue coordinator and other vendors were really supportive in helping to coordinate everything.
What ‘Smashing The Glass’ Did For Us
We really wouldn’t have known where to start planning our wedding withoutSmashing The Glass (STG). We read a number of other couples blogs to hear about their journey and experiences, then explored and researched a variety of vendors because of the blogs. We used lots of STG Recommended Vendors and they were all incredible! Definitely recommend them all to others!
Wax Seal
We knew we wanted something simple, classic and elegant for our invitations and after looking at the vendors on your blog, Dimitria Jordan seemed perfect for us. I first contacted Dimitria via Facebook and she immediately replied. It was so easy to talk and design our invitations and wedding stationary with Dimitria as she was so patient and helpful – and the finished product couldn’t have been more perfect.
We added a special touch to all of our stationery by having a personalized wax seal made. It included our initials in a script font. We added this to our save the dates, invitations, and wedding day stationery. It connected everything together, and we had some lovely feedback from our guests about this special touch. The actual seal was created by hand by me, which made it even more special.
Hair + Makeup
I had never had my makeup done professionally before and didn’t really know how I wanted it. I’ve always been conscious about my skin, especially in recent years, so was quite anxious about this part of my day.
I found the wonderful Jaimie Attfield on Facebook and I couldn’t have found a better person. I arranged a makeup trial, for myself and my sister (maid of honor) and she made us feel at ease and we discussed what I wanted, which ended up being a light smokey eye. I then had her again to do my makeup the morning of my hen weekend just to ensure this is what I wanted.
At my first make up trial, I discussed hair with Jaimie and she recommend Sarah Wade whom she had worked with before. I once again arranged a trial and fell in love with my hair! I couldn’t wait for my special day.
On the day Jaimie and Sarah were incredible! They went above and beyond with everything and even helped to put my shoes on.
A Gemy Maalouf Dress
I just couldn’t wait to try dresses on! We got engaged at the end of August, and by the middle of October I had already found and ordered my dress. I had been recommended a number of bridal boutiques and due to being a teacher decided to book as many dress appointments as I could over two days in October half term.I had my dream dress in mind and asked my mum, mother-in-law, and sister to join me in my quest.
The first shop we went to was Mirror Mirror London. I was recommended to this shop by a number of friends and I couldn’t hide my excitement. I tried on a number of dresses, but dress number two, a beautiful lace Gemy Maalouf design, stole my heart. It was what I had dreamt of, yet nothing like I had imagined. As I am a professional shopaholic and knew this would be the only time I could try wedding dresses on, I just couldn’t stop here… I wanted to try more dresses.
We continued to look, but nothing compared to dress number two. In the last shop, on the second day, I actually found the dress I had always imagined, an A-line dress with lace bodice and spaghetti straps, but I still couldn’t stop thinking about the other dress. I ended up going back to both shops and comparing the two the following week, but I knew dress two was the one!!! I had never heard of the designer before which made me even more excited as I knew I hadn’t seen anyone in anything similar.
My beautiful dress was truly regal and fit with my venue and theme. Once I had made the decision, my mum, mother-in-law and sister all agreed and told me they knew it was the one as soon as I tried it on but they wanted me to make my own decision.
Simple Accessories
I have never been a big jewelry person and due to my dress being very detailed, I kept my accessories very minimal. I had a long, plain veil with a small diamante hair piece bought from Jon Richard at John Lewis. I wanted this as I knew as soon as my veil came off I still wanted something in my hair to make me feel like a bride.
Jimmy Choo’s
Shoes are my absolute addiction, therefore who else could I have chosen apart from Jimmy Choo? I just had to say “I Do In Choo.” Everyone asked me if I was sure I wanted to spend that much on heels in case they hurt, and that no one could see them anyway. But due to having small feet (UK size 2) I knew I was going to have to spend the money to find a pair that would fit. And what better excuse than my wedding day?
Again, due to my dress being so detailed I just wanted a simple classic pair. I went for Lucy 100 in dusty rose and I love them! I am planning on wearing them on our first anniversary next year!
The handsome groom
This is one thing I trusted Ross to organize as he knew what he wanted. He first went with his parents to the West End and tried on different suits all day. None were quite right until he went to the last shop: Suit Supply, Vigo Street, London. A few weeks later, he invited me to have a look during his alterations and I can truly say he looked so smart!
We wanted him, our brothers and fathers to have the same waistcoat to link them, as they all had their own suits, and we decided upon a horeshoe design from Dobell. The bow ties, cuff links, and handkerchiefs were all from James Alexander and we went for a knitted theme, especially for the bow ties.
Bridesmaids in Lace
I had 3 bridesmaids (including my sister as maid of honor). They all wore lace Jarlo dresses, which I ordered from Asos the day I got engaged as I had seen them previously and knew I wanted them.
I also had 2 flower girls who wore similar lace dress in peach from River Island – they have some amazing evening clothes for children.
We also tried to incorporate the bridesmaid dress colors with the ushers’ bow ties. For these we went back to the website James Alexander, who have a great selection of colors.
A Modern Chuppah
As our ceremony room was so lavish we wanted a simple, elegant chuppah. We both have quite a modern style, hence we wanted to try and bring this element into our ceremony/venue and thought the chuppah would be the perfect opportunity. I had a lot of inspiration from Pinterest and discussions with Jemma (our florist) to create the design, and she just understood my image straight away.
Musical Prayers
Our favorite part of the ceremony was definitely our chazan from XS Showband. We knew we wanted someone to sing prayers during our ceremony after seeing it at a friend’s wedding – it made the ceremony even more special. We actually didn’t have an opportunity to hear him before our wedding day but we were totally blown away, as were our guests. He was incredible!
Our ketubah was something we were going back and forth over for a while. We just couldn’t decide if we were going to order a special one. In the end we decided that it would mean a lot to be able to display it somewhere in our home. We ordered it from KetubahLA on Etsy and it came within a few weeks, which we were very relieved about as we had left it to the last minute.
An Amazing Band
This probably took us the most time to choose. We had some ideas but found it difficult to imagine them together. Luckily, we had the support of Francesca and her team from XS Showband to help us.
We decided to have not only our bridesmaids walk down the aisle but also our ushers. Our procession therefore began with Ross and his parents, our 2 flower girls and pageboy, bridesmaid with 2 ushers, another bridesmaid with 2 ushers, and then maid of honor with 2 ushers, as well as my mum and brother – they all came down to lyrics of Boi Veshalom to the melody of You and Me by Lifehouse. I then walked down to Perfect by Ed Sheeran sung in Hebrew (which we also chose as our first dance song).
During the ceremony while I circled Ross, the song was the instrumental of Colors of the Wind from Pocahontas and the rest we left to XS Showband. It was lovely to hear everything together, and seeing our guests’ smiles when they recognized the music.
We first chose Perfect as our first dance song a year before the wedding whilst it was still an album song thinking no one would know it and it would be a nice surprise when played. By the time our wedding came about it had been released 3 times over and was being used for weddings every week! After speaking with Francesca we decided to stop overthinking the choice and to keep the song, as the lyrics were special to us.
Pastels and Succulents
I found our florist, Jemma from The Country Flower Company, on Smashing The Glass. I’ve always loved flowers but never known much about them, so Jemma was very helpful.
I created a Pinterest board of arrangements and ideas; these consisted of mostly pastel colors. As I am not great at looking after flowers, Ross had previously bought me a succulent (as they are easy to look after) and therefore wanted this to be incorporated in my bouquet and the families’ button holes. I was so overwhelmed when I first saw my flowers and I definitely got emotional seeing them – which I didn’t expect!
Photographer and Videographer
We didn’t really know where to start with photographers and videographers therefore searched for a while until we came across both David Morgan and Denee Motion on Smashing The Glass. We looked at their portfolios and straight away connected with their great styles and arranged phone calls with both of them.
Their styles were both very modern and captured certain special moments of special days in a great way. They all made us feel so at ease (certainly for me – I hate having my photo taken) and we just love how everything came out.
More than a Band
We had the wonderful XS Showband who made our day so special. We had them during our ceremony and they set the scene for the rest of the day. We could not have asked for more, they supported us throughout all stages of our planning and even helped us to sort the timetable of the day… And most importantly they are an amazing band! We wanted as much dancing as possible throughout the day and they delivered big time. We had so many compliments about our entertainment and know a few of our friends have now also booked them for their wedding! We can’t recommend them enough.
Fan Favors
As our wedding day was at the end of July, we were planning on the weather being hot and as our ceremony was inside we wanted to give our guests fans. They were very simple (white and grey) with a thank you message from the both of us. We also made sure cold towels were handed around during the dancing.
Mykonos
We found this harder than the wedding to organize. As we were very busy concentrating on the wedding, we ended up leaving it to last minute. Although we had always planned to go long haul we just didn’t have time to plan it so we decided to go to Mykonos for a restful break and hope to go further afield next year.
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
During planning, I was so obsessed with all the details. Ultimately on the day, I didn’t notice many of the details, and all that mattered was everyone enjoying themselves and the amount of love in the room. We had lots of advice before our wedding but the best is to try and take a step back and take everything in as the wedding day really does go by so fast.
Aimee & Ross’ little white book
Photography – David Morgan
Videography – Denee Motion
Bride’s dress – Gemy Maalouf found and fitted at Mirror Mirror London
Flowers – The Country Flower Company
Band – XS Showband
Stationery – Dimitria Jordan
Venue – Plaisterers’ Hall
Bride’s shoes – Jimmy Choo
Bride’s accessories – Jon Richard at John Lewis
Groom’s attire – Suit Supply, Dobell and James Alexander
Bridesmaids – Asos and River Island
Hair + Makeup – Sarah Wade and Jaimie Attfield
Catering – Create
Toastmaster – Neil Hunt
Chuppah – The Chuppah Company
Ketubah – KetubahLA purchased on Etsy
Awesome wedding pictures. The pictures are telling the story. It seems the band has done great work. I can see the people enjoying.