We love it when a couple crafts a Jewish wedding that’s totally, 100% THEM – which is exactly what today’s duo, Carrie and Eran, did.
Carrie and Eran planned their wedding very intentionally, taking note of what spoke to them from other weddings they’d attended and making sure all decisions made were true to them. This led to not only a totally stunning day in the beautiful hot springs of Colorado (right where the pair had gotten engaged!), but also a very personal one full of so many meaningful touches.
One we especially love is that, under the chuppah, Carrie and Eran each shared a private moment with their own parents, and then switched and shared a private moment with their new in-laws. This was something they’d seen at a wedding they’d attended as guests, and it resonated with them so much they decided to make it part of their own day! Don’t miss this emotional moment – not to mention all the joy and love shining through the whole day – in the wonderful photos by Jennifer Lourie.
Another fun touch was the couple’s audio guest book! Instead of a standard paper guest book, Carrie and Eran opted for a “Fetephone,” a rental phone where the couple makes a custom outgoing message, and then guests leave a “voicemail” for the newlyweds.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg for this very special wedding, but we’ll leave it to Carrie and Eran to share the rest of the details…
How we Met
Carrie, the bride and Eran, the groom:We met through a mutual friend/ Carrie’s roommate. We were both newly out of college and living in Washington, DC at the time. Carrie and her new roommates threw a housewarming party that Eran attended. Eran was looking for a new job and Carrie had just started at a thriving, DC-based company called The Advisory Board. Eran was looking for jobs at The Advisory Board, and asked if Carrie could refer and help counsel him through the interview process. Carrie still has Eran’s first email to her “Eran’s resume!”, dated May, 2014.
A Colorado Wedding
We got married at Mt Princeton Hot Springs Resort. We chose this venue for many reasons, one of which being it is where we got engaged. We love exploring the beautiful hot springs of Colorado – one of our favorite vacation pastimes. We looked at many venues, and finally returned to Mt Princeton. During our initial meeting with the venue coordinator, Zelma, we felt Mt Princeton staff were true professionals in the wedding business.
She listened attentively to us, and described what was possible within our vision for our wedding. They were open to our ideas and pitched some great ideas of their own. The staff at Mt Princeton made us feel incredibly comfortable and taken care of, and ultimately worthy of our entrusting with this important life event.
Theme & Wedding Planner
We are both from the east coast originally, so getting married in the wide open space of Colorado was an amazing experience for us. We were able to make our own decisions according to our vision and let others in when we were ready. We were proud of how we went about making decisions and communicating them lovingly to relevant parties.
We spent a lot of time at others’ weddings leading up to ours, and after each, we’d talk to each other about how we felt. We noticed that we felt most comfortable and had the most fun when the bride and groom were extremely comfortable at their own wedding. So when it came to our wedding, it was all about reading each other in that process, and making decisions that were true to us. We could hold space for others’ feelings about those decisions, but we would not let it influence the direction we ultimately chose. And if someone did have an idea we liked, we were very open to that contribution.
We chose to have a full service wedding planner, Colorado Coordination Co. We felt it was important for us for all of the details to be managed so that we could fully relax at the wedding. It was also important for us to not ask friends or family members to be responsible for these elements. It was great to have someone who could coordinate between all of the vendors, our families, the wedding party, who knew our schedule front to back and could manage our decor wishes. We were very happy with this investment and its impact on our overall experience was extremely positive.
Hair + Make-up
We booked The Day on Location Colorado for both hair and makeup. We absolutely loved them! They were relaxed, efficient, professional and did a beautiful job.
Dress
I felt torn between a classic ballgown look, and a fit-and-flare. I ultimately decided to have both looks by wearing a ball-gown overskirt at my ceremony. It gave me 2 looks without 2 dresses! I knew the dress was “the one” when I walked out after the first time trying it on, and kept looking for it in other stores. I just kept thinking to myself “I feel like I just keep looking for that dress.” I had to go back and buy it!
I loved how the dress made me feel sexy and feminine, yet comfortable. The material was very stretchy and the dress fit me like a glove. I wanted to be able to move, dance, and sit down without feeling like I was pinched or uncomfortable in any way. It was a very simple, clean look that I could dress up in any way I wanted. I took the overskirt off after the ceremony and cocktail hour that followed, before the bridal party introductions at the reception.
It was an easy change and both the guests and my husband loved the surprise new look! The skirt was custom-made by Casablanca Bridal and the dress was made by a designer out of Chicago named Alyssa Kristin.
Accessories & Shoes
I wore pearl and diamond jewelry purchased from Na Hoku. My necklace is a pearl stranded mala from India. It was important to me to have real stones to evoke their auspicious power on the wedding day. I have scoliosis, so for shoes, comfort all day was first. I ended up finding a beautiful white loafer by Sam Edelman. They were perfect for me.
Bridesmaids
We each had 7 folks in our bridal party. I asked them to purchase a dress that made them feel comfortable, confident, and that they’d love to wear again. The dresses were either dusty rose or light blue. It ended up that my sister and sister-in-laws all picked blue, and my friends and cousin all picked pink! It was fun to see everyone express themselves uniquely in this way.
Ceremony and Chuppah
When Carrie converted to Judaism 2018, she chose the name Ruth. Unbeknownst to her, one of her great grandmother’s names was Ruth as well. Carrie’s mom had great grandma Ruth’s pewter cup that we used for kiddush and throughout the ceremony. Carrie’s mom also made 2 beautiful white macrame hangings for the chuppah. Overtop we had Eran’s grandpa’s tallit, which is a beautiful peach color and gave a lovely hue inside the chuppah.
The florist we chose had a very simple birch chuppah that they set up and broke down for us. This was a big reason we chose our florist. In the beginning, we were ambitiously thinking about building a chuppah ourselves. But when it came down to transporting it to the venue, assembly and breakdown, we decided to go in this direction. It took a lot of stress off!
Our favorite part of the ceremony was the birkat ha-cohanim. We had our rabbi step out of the chuppah, we wrapped ourselves in Eran’s tallit, and each of our parents joined us for the blessing. Eran’s parents’ hands were on him, and mine on me while our Rabbi chanted the prayers. She also instructed everyone in the audience to hold up the “spock” hand position, which we learned in preparation for the ceremony is a tradition that goes back many centuries. We hadn’t seen any of our friends or family do this, but it was really awesome.
After the prayer, we each shared a private moment with our own parents, and then switched and shared a private moment with our new in-laws. It was something we’d seen at another wedding that we loved. It was really special.
Ketubah
It just so happened that Carrie’s sister-in-law’s best friend, Annie Aqua is a ketubah designer & artist! We opted for a custom design with custom text. Our designer helped us uncover what images, symbols, places, and things that were important to us to represent in the ketubah. She also sent us several sample texts, which we formed together in a custom text. It is now framed and hangs proudly in our home.
Our Music Choice
We absolutely love music. We created a playlist that our DJ could pull from for inspiration. For our processional, we were inspired by Bridgerton to choose instrumental versions of songs we love. Eran, his parents and his wedding party all processed to a version of Taylor Swift’s ‘Wildest Dreams’ by Duomo. Carrie’s bridesmaids processed to ‘Girls Like You’ by Vitamin String Quartet, and Carrie processed to a version of Casey Musgraves’ ‘Rainbow’ by Allen & Bright. We recessed to ‘Gimme Love’ by Pacific.
For Carrie’s first dance with her dad, they chose ‘My Travelling Star’ by James Taylor. Eran and his mom danced to ‘Kol Mah Shetirzeh’ by Shlomo Atrzi.
We decided to take dance lessons leading up to the wedding at the Fred Astaire dance studio in Westminster, CO. We had a fully choreographed dance which we worked very hard on. We had dance practice almost every week for 3+ months leading up to the wedding. We loved performing our dance for our guests, and we will remember the moves for years to come! Our dance was to an instrumental version of ‘Despacito’.
Flowers
Lora from Petals Colorado did a great job with our wedding. We kept our flower arrangements simple and understated – included were white roses, ranunculus, israeli ruscus, amongst others. Mostly, we enjoyed the stunning natural beauty of springtime, with the breathtaking mountains of CO in the backdrop.
Photographer and videographer
We loved working with our photographer, Jennifer Lourie. We connected with her on Instagram and immediately fell in love with her images & style. As we did more research, we loved that she went to school for photojournalism and that her goal as a photographer was not to overproduce and make everything look “perfect”, but capture things exactly as they were, and tell a story through the photos.
We chose an all day coverage package so that she could be onsite, well, all day! She even shot a few photos the next morning. She and her team were flawless and handled moments like family formals perfectly. She is so stealthy, we barely noticed she was there! We never felt like we couldn’t be in the moment because we had to pose for a picture. She really went above and beyond and we were ecstatic with how the final gallery turned out.
We did decide to have a videographer as well. This was another decision we were thrilled about. The folks from Wedding Videos Colorado were also outstanding. They were fun and relaxed. They got along with the photo staff very well which was a huge bonus and made everything super relaxed!
We loved having all of the content afterward – not only was it fun to open and look through when we returned from the honeymoon, but the photos and video footage are memories we will cherish for years to come! In additional to the edited footage and highlight reels, they were also game to send us all of our raw footage. This was also a huge plus for us and not something every video vendor was open to.
Food and Cake
Instead of a cake, we decided on an ice cream truck. It was a fun touch, loved by kids and adults alike! The ice cream was from High Point Creamery – the local ice cream shop in our neighborhood! Our catering was done by Mt Princeton.
Honeymoon
We went to Mexico – we were looking for a place that provided activities, but nothing strenuous or stressful. As the pandemic was waning but not completely gone, we also wanted to go somewhere we could easily fly directly to and from. We ultimately selected a beautiful resort, Palmaia, in Playa del Carmen.
They had lots of great food- and you could eat completely plant based if you desired. We keep kosher-style so this was important to us. You could relax all day at the beach, or participate in their numerous yoga and spiritual offerings throughout the day. The staff were amazing and well taken care of. We still haven’t run out of good things to say about that week!
Advice to other couples planning their wedding
One thing we did that was kinda fun was having a “Fetephone” instead of a regular guest book. This is a rental phone where you make a custom outgoing message, and then your guests leave you a “voicemail”. You receive all of the voicemails as an mp3 following the wedding. It was a fun way to hear from our guests and another piece of memorabilia that we will cherish for many years to come.
Ultimately, we chose vendors that we felt delivered a great product, were trustworthy, and were people we’d enjoy hanging out with. In particular, video, photo and planning – these are folks you end up spending so much of your day with, and it’s nice to feel relaxed and comfortable. We were open and clear with everyone about what we wanted, and we felt we chose the right coverage packages for each. We had a great experience and were so thrilled with not only the experience, but the documentation of the journey as well.
Ultimately, it’s truly your day, and you get to decide how you want to go through it and enter your marriage. One thing Eran and I promised each other was that we would not bring any ill-will or unresolved feelings to the chuppah. We promised that once we met under that canopy, that we would be as pure as we could possibly be in that moment. At times, that required difficult and at times uncomfortable conversations with people that we love. But it was so worth it in making all of the difference entering our symbolic “home”.
We also really enjoyed including many folks from our community in our ceremony. For example, we had family members read both the english and hebrew versions of the sheva brachot.
Finally, since we had roughly equal amounts of Jewish and non-Jewish attendees, we created a program that briefly explained each element of the ceremony and its meaning. This allowed people to feel very empowered throughout the ceremony to understand what was going on at any given moment.
One thing we also did right at the beginning of the process was set up a wedding email address where all of our invites and communication came from. Many guests were able to ask us questions and get in touch this way as well. It was a great way to centralize all of the wedding related emails and work!
A few random tips for brides…
- When you pee, turn forward so you can lift your dress up and it doesn’t get caught in the toilet. Then you can pee without necessarily needing someone to help you.
- Ask your officiant to move out of the way when you have your first kiss (for pictures!)
- If you are getting married outside and your dress is floor length, it will get dirty. Let it.
CARRIE & ERAN’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography – Jennifer Lourie
Videography – Wedding Videos Colorado
Wedding planner – Colorado Coordination Co.
Venue – Mt Princeton Hot Springs Resort
Bride’s dress – Alyssa Kristin found at Emma & Grace Bridal
Bride’s skirt – Casablanca Bridal fund at Blue Bridal
Bride’s shoes – Sam Edelman
Bride’s accessories – Na Hoku
Hair + Makeup – The Day on Location Colorado
Flowers – Petals Colorado
DJ + Music Production – Colorado Wedding Productions
Catering – Mt Princeton Hot Springs Resort
Ice Cream – High Point Creamery
Ketubah – Annie Aqua
Stationery/Invitation – Paperless Post
Gift registry – Zola
Honeymoon – Palmaia
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.
