Picture you and the love of your life standing under an airy chuppah adorned with greenery, against the sparkling backdrop of the Miami skyline. Sound good? We thought so… and so did today’s couple, Mariana and Jonathan. Mariana, a digital project manager originally from Brazil, and Jonathan, a data analyst and South Florida native, live in Miami and wanted to showcase their city at its finest.
Their rooftop venue, Skybar, definitely did the trick! The pair wanted something outdoorsy, simple, and elegant, with urban chic flair and lots of greenery, and Skybar delivered. Plus, they were able to take advantage of the beautiful December weather and wed under the stars! Don’t miss the fab setup in the pics from Cortiella Photography.
Not only was this wedding ultra-stylish (how good did Mariana look in her gown from Grace Loves Lace?!), it was also a meaningful testament to how the couple has grown together Jewishly – read on for the full story in Mariana’s words…
How we Met
Mariana, the bride: Mariana and Jonathan met the modern way: by swiping right on Hinge in October 2020. They later found out that they had attended the same small party in honor of Israel’s 70th birthday in 2018, but they never saw each other there. Jonathan had a cat in 2018, and Mariana is deathly allergic to cats; Mariana was still converting to Judaism, meaning she wouldn’t be able to date Jonathan since she was undergoing an Orthodox conversion. Guess there’s nothing like good timing when it comes to a relationship.
Their first date was a success: Jonathan invited Mariana to join him for a private ballroom dance class, and after putting her dance skills to a test, they both headed out to a local hummus place for some dinner. Jonathan, a born athlete and dancer, believes if you can’t connect on the dance floor, it won’t be a good match. He forgot Mariana is Brazilian, and Brazilians know how to dance.
Jonathan knew Mariana was the one right away. It took Mariana a month to come to the same conclusion, but after some thinking she came to terms that Jonathan and Cocoa had been her final destination all along. Oh yes, there is a special third-wheel in this relationship, and he is the most adorable chocolate labradoodle there is: Cocoa, or as Mariana likes to call him Cocoa Remelento.
Jonathan proposed to Mariana late Summer of 2021. Jonathan took Mariana for a little weekend getaway, and popped the question with Mariana’s dream ring! He did forget however to ask Mariana if she would marry him, to which she answered after glimpsing at that beautiful ring: “But are you going to ask me to marry you?”. Guess emotions took over and Jonathan got a little forgetful!
A few of Mariana and Jonathan’s favorite memories together are taking Cocoa for walks in the Morningside Park, going to several performing arts shows, visiting different museums, exercising on a daily basis, Mariana having Jonathan try Brazilian food, and lots of quality time on Shabbat.
A Rooftop Venue
We got married on a rooftop venue, Skybar, in Miami, FL. When we started looking for venues the one thing we had agreed on was that we did not want to host our guests in a big opulent ballroom. It didn’t feel like us. We wanted the opposite: an outdoorsy, simple and elegant space. Our venue has this urban chic style as well as lots of greenery, highlighting the Miami skyline in the background.
It’s got a sophisticated vibe. We felt it would be perfect to have our florals done in a way where the space could be complimented. And we also wanted to take advantage of the beautiful weather in Miami during the month of December when we got married and be able to have our chuppah and dinner hosted under the stars!
Theme & Wedding Planner
We wanted a simple, elegant wedding. We did not have a bridal party, hence the simple: our closest friends were by our side and they knew exactly how special they are to us. We didn’t want to have to rank them in titles, such as maid of honor and best man. We felt it was unfair.
And we also wanted an elegant wedding: our florals were white with hints of blue and lots of greenery. We had an airy chuppah, with fresh greens, to tie with the venue’s style. We felt it was our way of showing that less can be more! When guests walked in they could grab their kippot and benchers from the welcome table. We ordered the kippot from Kippot World and the benchers from Vaad Printing.
We did our planning with the incredible Marite Copado, from EBJ Events. Marite was extremely knowledgeable, and had so many great suggestions. She literally held our hands for six months, and never missed a beat! We truly couldn’t have had the amazing day we had without her there. She helped us bring our vision to life.
Invitations / stationery
Our invitations were designed by the amazing Julie from Blueberry Invitations. She has fantastic tips and provides excellent customer service. Our invitations were classic and timeless, they were simply gorgeous! She is in Montreal, Canada, and took care of every single detail for us, always answering our emails in a timely manner. Our guests loved the invitations, and it is a beautiful keepsake of our wedding.
Hair + Make-Up
We had our hair and make up done by Zunia from Styled N Pretty. She and her team did my hair and makeup, as well as my mother and sister, and Jonathan’s mother. She is a rockstar! She came into our hotel room with great energy, put on Marc Anthony songs for us to listen to and did our makeup flawlessly. She definitely is a master of her craft!
Grace Loves Lace
I wore two dresses on our wedding day. One for the Kabbalat Panim and the chuppah, and a second dress during the reception. When I was looking for dresses I fell in love with the design of Orla, from Grace Loves Lace. I wanted something that was both form-fitting and lace. I had visited several bridal boutiques in Miami but everything was too revealing, or too fluffy, which does not fit my style at all. When I found Grace Loves Lace’s website, I knew I had found the one. It was just a matter of trying it on, but I knew it! Lucky for me, GLL does have a showroom at Wynwood in Miami. I visited their showroom twice.
During my first appointment I tried the Orla gown as well as other styles they had, and then I came back three months later to try it again, and say yes to my dress! Orla was form fitting and had the most comfortable fabric, no zippers, no buttons or anything that would make me feel uncomfortable. It felt right. While I had my gown on, I tried on some different veils they had. I was adamant on having a veil that could cover my face during the ceremony. Grace Loves Lace was about to discontinue the veil I bought, and luckily I was able to secure it just before they did. I felt beautiful in it!
Although I do love my chuppah dress and I was in love with the look, I knew I would want to dance and have fun after dinner and specially change into sneakers later on in the day. I am a white sneakers type of gal. My reception dress was bought online at Revolve, and I paired it with a jacket from RoseGoldRebel, an Etsy shop where I was able to personalize it with a “Mrs. Mastin” embroider. Everybody loved my second outfit, and I received several compliments on the jacket!
Ceremony and Chuppah
Jonathan grew up Jewish, and he was raised in a Conservative household, celebrating all chagim and going to temple on Shabbat mornings. I grew up Catholic in a small town in the countryside of Brazil, but when I moved to Miami I felt a deep connection to Judaism, and decided to go through an Orthodox conversion. My conversion process lasted about two years, and Jonathan and I met a year and half after my mikvah.
When we met Jonathan expressed his desire of having a partner to go to Shabbat services with, and I expressed how important adopting Orthodox practices were to me. A year into our relationship we finally tuned into what we wanted our lives to look like and how our Judaism would fit into it. By then, we were already part of a community and we were going to shul together as a couple as well as celebrating all holidays.
We had an Orthodox chuppah. Our rabbi, Yisroel Brusowankin from Chabad of Waterways did an excellent job: he conducted the ceremony beautifully, had a touching speech prepared where he talked about the two of us and how our relationship made us grow, and he made sure our close friends were able to drink some of the wine after the Shevah Brachot had been recited.
Since he knew I wasn’t born Jewish and some of my guests were not Jewish either (including my immediate family), he did an amazing job conducting the ceremony in a way where all of our guests would understand the meaningful events that take place during a Jewish wedding. I circled Jonathan seven times, he broke the glass, it was perfect for us!
Our chuppah was designed by our florist Teresa, from Posh Petals Miami. We had a small canopy, where my husband’s tallit that he was gifted on his bar mitzvah was placed. Fun fact: my husband was planning on wearing his grandfather’s tallit during the ceremony to honor his memory, since his own would be our canopy. And most of us know how wedding days are: hectic! In the midst of going from the hotel to the venue, his grandfather’s tallit was unfortunately left behind, and we only realized it minutes before walking down the aisle.
Ketubah
We bought our ketubah from Ketubata’s Etsy shop. We wanted the ketubah to be designed just like our wedding: simple, chic and elegant. And when we saw their white laser cut ketubah, we knew it was the design we had been looking for. And it went perfectly with our decor as well.
The Ketubata team was extremely helpful and patient. We put our rabbi in touch with them since he wanted to have the text in Aramaic and make sure wording was correct, and they accommodated every change in the text that was needed. They shipped it from Israel to Miami, and their customer service was seamless. During the ceremony, we had a rabbi whose family Mariana was very close with during her conversion process read the ketubah.
Our Music Choice
For the chuppah, we had one of Jonathan’s childhood friend, Aaron Merritt, play the cello alongside a violinist, and it was magical. Aaron is a well-known cello player in South Florida, and our guests were in awe of his performance. Aaron playing was actually one of his wedding gifts to us. While the guests were seated he played ‘Yerushalayim Shel Zahav’, and we both walked down the aisle with our mothers while ‘Erev Shel Shoshanim’ was being played. It was extremely touching.
We also had the amazing DJ Dudu play at our wedding. Dudu is from Israel, and he just understands Jewish weddings. Plus he has a great energy and knows how to get the party started. We couldn’t be happier with him! He was extremely helpful from the beginning, and understanding. He played during our Kabbalat Panim, the Hora, and some of the dinner. During the Hora, he had all the traditional Jewish songs played, and it was a lot of fun.
For the reception we had a local Miami band, Bop Shop Brass, do the honors. We knew our guests would enjoy themselves to their music style, which is a mix of funk, pop, second-line jazz and Nola-style brass music, and it matched the vibe perfectly.
Flowers
Our florist was the fabulous Teresa from Posh Petals Miami. She is extremely talented and sweet, and she was recommended by our wedding planner. We were blown away when we saw her magic done at our venue! Our guests were also impressed and kept complimenting her job for days after the wedding. My bouquet was everything I had dreamed of, and it matched my dress and our ketubah perfectly. And Jonathan had a beautifully done boutonniere, that was the exact match to his personality.
Photographer and videographer
My husband and I found Jennifer from Cortiella Photography accidentally just by scrolling on Instagram. We were not even engaged yet but we were eyeing some wedding venues and some of our favorite photos were taken by her and that’s how we met her. And we are so glad we did! My husband first got in touch with her so she could shoot him proposing to me. It was so magical and when Jennifer sent us our proposal photos in August 2021, I was sold. I knew she was going to have to photograph our wedding.
Jennifer and her team are extremely detailed, she delivered our whole wedding gallery just a month past our wedding day and we got it all: photos of our venue and the decor, our guests during Kabbalat Panim and the Hora, invitations, chuppah/reception, and the most gorgeous photos of the two of us. We wanted candids and Jennifer did a great job capturing pictures where people are naturally enjoying themselves, as she shot those awesome portraits of us and our loved ones.
It was through Jennifer’s recommendation that we met our videographers Osiris and Michele, the team behind Modern Love Productions, and they were as sweet. They made us feel very comfortable on camera and kept reassuring us they were getting the most incredible shots of the day. They also are exceptionally creative and they were unobtrusive the day of, making sure we stayed true to ourselves.
Food
Our food was catered by Sterling Kosher Catering, and it was delicious. It can be really tough to find good quality kosher food, but luckily for us Miami is a kosher heaven, and most of our guests complimented their meals. Neither one of us really like cakes, so we did not have one or a traditional cake cutting. Instead we served our guests both apple pie and a flourless chocolate cake as desserts.
Extra details
My immediate family (mom, sister and brother-in-law) came from Brazil to Miami to attend our wedding. It was the first time my mother had ever left Brazil, so it was a big deal. Since they only speak Portuguese and don’t understand much English, we decided that only my husband and I would do thank you speeches. We did not want to have my family feel left out since most of our guests spoke English. This way we were able to thank all of them in both Portuguese and English, without hurting anyone’s feelings on such a magical day.
Other than that, we had friends from all over the globe attending: Jonathan’s brother and his family from London, his best friend flew all the way from Bangkok to celebrate with us, as well as some friends from both sides of the coast: California and New York. We felt very very loved and we are very appreciative of our people!
Advice to other couples planning their wedding
On our wedding day I was on a high! Literally from happiness. I didn’t drink a sip of alcohol, yet I can’t remember anything. I guess my happiness and the outpouring love from both my husband and guests just took over me, and left me on cloud nine! Yet, I can’t stress enough how important it is to enjoy it. It goes by so fast, and you can’t sweat the little things. Some details might go wrong but the most important piece of advice I can give is: have fun, enjoy your husband and have an awesome team taking care of the little details for you!
Also, this is something I said in my Thank You speech during dinner, and I think it is so important: it is not very often that you get to have your loved ones all in one room celebrating you. Your friends and family put an effort to be there for you during your special day. Take advantage of it, dance with them, hug them, take pictures. Those will be the best memories from your wedding day!
MARIANA & JONATHAN’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography – Cortiella Photography
Videography – Modern Love Productions
Wedding planner – Marite Copado, EBJ Events
Venue – Skybar
Bride’s dress – Grace Loves Lace
Hair + Makeup – Styled N Pretty
Flowers – Posh Petals Miami
Band – Bop Shop Brass
DJ – DJ Dudu
Catering – Sterling Kosher Catering
Ketubah – Ketubata
Stationery/Invitation – Blueberry Invitations
Rabbi – Rabbi Yisroel Brusowankin from Chabad of Waterways
Kippot – Kippot World
Benchers – Vaad Printing
Smash The Glass Pouch – Smashing The Glass Etsy Shop {or join Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club and get one for free!}
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.
