We’re so excited to be featuring the Jewish wedding of our beautiful Brides Club member Jos today! As with so many couples over the past few years, Jos, who works for a tech company in product marketing, and Daniel, a lawyer, had lots of setbacks on the way to marital bliss – including THREE postponements and a change of venue – but the final outcome was more than worth the wait, as we’re sure you’ll agree if you scroll through the incredible photos by Rachel takes Pictures.
We so loved having Jos in Brides Club, where she made real-life friends she’s still connected with post-wedding and found some of her fabulous vendors, including their videographer Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Adrian Stone and planner Katy Cresner.
Speaking of Adrian Stone – The Dream Catchers – we can’t say it any better than Jos did herself: “When we received our Storybook film and highlights edit it was better than anything I could ever wish for. Adrian captured the spirit of the day and so many moments that would have been forgotten if we didn’t work with him.”
We’re also in awe of the couple’s florals by Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Blue Sky Flowers. Jos and Daniel chatted with founder Liz about their preferences and then left her to run the show… and they were absolutely blown away by the results, as are we! The duo also loved that Liz donates flowers leftover at the end of the night to Floral Angels, so that other people can enjoy them!
There were so many more wonderful personal touches to this day, but we’ll leave it to Jos, who looked stunning in Joyce Young, to tell you about all that…
How we Met
Jos, the bride: We met on a cold January evening at the Freemasons Arms pub in Hampstead, but originally we both swiped right on Tinder. Well he swiped for me, my friend swiped for him, but that’s another story.
We got engaged on the Greek island of Naxos, which is now our absolute favourite place on this planet. It was simple and quintessentially us, and we set about planning our wedding almost as soon as we got back.
We were originally meant to get married in June 2020 with 250 people at Hackney town Hall. We were one of many couples who had to cancel because of covid and we were a little optimistic with trying two more times in November 2020 and March 2021, both dates fell during national lockdowns and we pushed it to April 2022 and got on with our lives.
We bought a house and a dog like good covid millennials. I have to say, that I put wedding planning completely on the back burner. I found it really hard to get excited and I was super anxious about moving forward with a wedding date before 2022 because I was terrified that people would get sick. Being honest, I’m not sure if I saw how much limbo we were living in, it was an important event that we were very keen to have, but we were also totally paralysed by the events in the world.
In August 2021 my mum went on holiday with her cousin and called me from the beach declaring she thought it would be a great idea of we just got married in October. She wanted to be as early into Autumn as possible, in the hope that there were no covid restrictions. Initially she had suggested getting married in their garden, but that proved to be unworkable, so in 6 weeks we planned a cut down, but just as fabulous wedding, it was a whirlwind but one we couldn’t be more grateful we did when we did it.
A London Wedding
We got married at Dartmouth House. As I said, originally we had other plans but like many other covid brides, we had to adapt to the crazy times we’re living in. We were absolutely set about getting married in London. One of our top priorities for the wedding was that it was easily accessible for people, especially as we had a lot of people coming from out of town. I also had a bee in my bonnet about the weather, I didn’t want to be in a place that had beautiful grounds and spend a lot of time stressing about whether or not it would rain.
Our best friends Jen and Charlie had got married at Dartmouth House and it was one of our favourite weddings ever. In fact, when we were originally wedding planning, we spent a lot of time trying to find a venue that was exactly like Dartmouth House but bigger to accommodate our numbers. When we decided to move forward with a smaller wedding it was fate that Dartmouth House was available on our wedding date! I had fallen in love with the courtyard, at Jen and Charlie’s wedding it is a little oasis of calm in the middle of central London.
However, they got married on a hot summers day and we had chosen October, and as I said, I was always worried about the weather. So, we hired in a stretch tent from 9X16 that our wedding planner Katy Cresner helped us to secure. In the end, I felt vindicated after two years of weather induced anxiety as it rained just as we were driving to the venue, and the stretch meant that we could still enjoy the courtyard. I also loved that it made it feel like like a different space to Jen and Charlie’s wedding.
What ‘Smashing The Glass Brides Club’ Did For Us
I made some great friends in real life as part of Brides Club! We also found our videographer Adrian Stone through STG as well as our amazing wedding planner Katy Cresner.
Personal Touches
I was determined to make sure that our friends and family were as involved in the wedding as possible. For example, I had our cousins and aunts and uncles and sisters/in laws read the sheva brachot under the chuppah and both mine and Daniel’s fathers did a speech. I wanted people to feel like it was their wedding too. Given we had a really short amount of time we were so grateful for the work that our wedding planner Katy Cresner did. We would quite literally not have pulled it off without her.
We tried to keep the styling as elegant as possible, as the building itself is absolutely beautiful, but, we did try and add our own touches, for example, both Daniel and I are huge Eurovision fans, so we had all the tables named after our favourite Eurovision songs. My dad wrote out the escort cards so it was fun to make sure he spelled out some of the names correctly. We also got a neon sign with our hashtag on it which now hangs in our kitchen.
Invitations / stationery
As we organised the whole wedding in six weeks, so we didn’t have time to do paper invitations, so we chose a lovely design by paperless post. We then worked with the wonderful Lily Ross of Lilypad Creates to make sure that our on the day stationary and styling was all in keeping with the venue and our invitations. My favourite thing Lily did for us was creating an infographic order of service. We had a number of non-Jewish guests, so I wanted to make sure that the order of service was both informative and easy to read and she did a great job! A number of our non jewish guests mentioned that they were really grateful for how easy it was to understand all our customs and traditions and it made them feel really involved in the proceedings.
Hair + Make-up
I wanted to look like a better version of myself, and one of my bridesmaids recommended Sasha Keene for make up. All her brides on her IG looked very natural and glowy and I think she did that for me too. Sasha was so much fun to be around too, she fit in with my girls and made getting ready relaxed and enjoyable. For hair, I needed an expert to tame my mane and Zoe Norris was my only choice. She made my hair into loose curls which lasted all day. Zoe was amazing. She stayed with me all day right up until family photos were taken, and really supported me the whole day. I couldn’t have been more grateful for both of them.
A Joyce Young Dress
Due to the short turn around time, I didn’t have time to go dress shopping again and pick my dress. For our original wedding, I was working with a dressmaker to have something made bespoke, but given the change of scale and venue, that design didn’t feel right for this wedding. I was quite panicked about finding a dress, and we quickly worked out we had two options – either to get a sample and hope we’d find something we liked, or to have something made. The dress was a source of deep anxiety for me. I’m a curvy girl, and the shopping process can be a little stressful when you have lots of time, never mind when you have 8 weeks!
I was recommended to go to Joyce Young and I literally couldn’t have been happier. The team worked with me to bring together elements of dresses I’d tried on in 2019, as well as new things I’d seen I liked. I had four fittings and on the final fitting I realised that this was exactly what my dress was meant to be. I loved the team and how comfortable they made me feel. They never made me feel anything but beautiful, and for me, the end result was perfect. I genuinely miss the team and can’t wait to pop in and show them my photos over a cup of tea. I’d recommend them to anyone.
Accessories
I got my veil from Joyce Young, I wasn’t particularly picky about a veil as it’s worth for such a short amount of time but a lot of people said it tied in perfectly with my dress. I also wore my great grandma’s pearl earrings. It was important for me to have an element of my great grandma with me, and her earrings were a perfect way to ensure that. I got my hair pins from Make me Bridal and I loved them – I actually originally wanted a hair vine, but Zoe used the pins to make a defacto vine which was more substantial and suited my better.
Shoes
I have wide feet, never wear heels and am very clumsy and 18 months of pandemic has ensured that that hasn’t changed. I wore shoes by Charlotte Mills that were comfortable, but I changed into some plain white Supergas straight after the chuppah and it felt so good! Katy our planner recommended ibruprofen gel on the feet which definitely helped, but I was most proud that I didn’t fall over walking down the aisle.
The handsome groom
Daniel, wore a suit from Drakes that he’d had made bespoke, I loved the braces he wore under his jacket. We bought a tallis for him from Gabrieli in Jaffa on holiday in 2019.
Bridesmaids
I had four bridesmaids, I originally had five but one of them had had a baby shortly before the wedding. It was of utmost important to me that they all felt their absolute best, and so I asked them all to wear whatever dress they wanted, as long as it was long and navy. On the day, they chose how they wanted their hair and make up, and they all looked absolutely stunning. In the morning, I gave them all zip up hoodies with their names embroidered on them, as well as some hand embroidered hankies and gifts from Gigi and Olive.
I have to say the morning before the chuppah was one of my favourite parts of the day. It was super chilled, my mum organised bagels from Platters in temple fortune, one of my bridesmaids sorted out a playlist on Spotify and we all just hung out. I had my sisters in law, cousins and aunt there too, and it just felt like a really fun girls night in. It’s a testament to my bridesmaids and how great they all are that they kept me so calm on the day and they really did look amazing.
Ceremony
The ceremony was the most important part of the whole day for me. Before we decided to get married in October, people would say to me ‘why wouldn’t you just get married legally and then have a wedding when you can’, and the chuppah and ceremony was what stopped me from doing that. I’m so relieved that it lived up to all my expectations. We got married under my grandpa’s tallis. I was so sad he wouldn’t be able to make it to the wedding from Israel, so it felt special to get married underneath his tallis.
JJ Hodari was our chuppah singer and he was amazing. So many people asked me for his details afterwards, he has an incredible voice. The first thing we’d done was pick the chuppah songs, even before we had our original venue. It was truly magical to walk down the aisle after all this time and hear those songs.
During the chuppah, we various family members to read the sheva brachot and English interpretations we’d chosen with our Rabbi. We really wanted everyone to feel included and for it to feel intimate and personal. But the highlight of the whole chuppah for me was our Rabbi, Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet of St Albans Masorti shul. Adam has an innate way of making everyone feel at ease.
We had some tech problems during the chuppah in that the lights kept going out. Adam and seamlessly wove jokes about this into his speech. He struck a balance between relaxed, humorous and spiritual and made everyone, especially us feel calm and reassured. We were initially going to join the community for the wedding, but we’ve decided to stay on as members of SAMS because of the amazing leadership of Adam.
Ketubah
Our rabbi designed our ketubah! He had studied graphic design and did a great job!
Chuppah
We loved the copper chuppah that Jen and Charlie had, so it felt nice to have something similar. We had been playing around with a lot of ideas with what the roof of the chuppah should be made of, including my great grandma’s veil, that she had hand beaded, but that turned out to be too delicate. In the end, my aunt brought my papa’s tallis over from Israel with her, and whilst I was truly heartbroken he couldn’t be with us, it was comforting to know we had a part of him with us on the day.
Our Music Choice
The music was one of the things we were most invested in. We had JJ Hodari accompanied by an acoustic guitar to give an unplugged atmosphere to the chuppah. Daniel walked into ‘Katonti’ which he has been singing ever since, and I walked into ‘Boiee b’shalom’ – I’d seen so many of my friends walk into it and it had always been my dream.
We worked very closely with Jon Stone and his band Stylus Live to make sure the music was perfect. I was blown a way on the day how much Jon listened to us. We were always going to work with Jon and have Stylus Live at the wedding so he had been on this epic long wedding journey with us and we’d had multiple meet ups with him. I made a flippant comment about how Daniel loved to sing ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ by Wheatus in Karaoke, and when they played it at the wedding I couldn’t believe Jon had remembered that.
We also tried to weave in more Eurovision so did our first dance to ‘Amar Pelos Dois’ by Salvador Sobral. It was the winning Eurovision entry the first year we were together so it felt fitting. We also made sure we had lots of Israeli music to reflect Daniel’s Israeli heritage and of course a UK Garage set to reflect mine!
Flowers
We trusted our florist Liz at Blue Sky Flowers wholeheartedly, I told her my style and she delivered it and we were truly blown away with how she got us in such a short amount of time. I really really loved the choice of flowers, especially my bouquet and my bridesmaids bouquets that took my breath away when they were delivered. I also love that Liz donates flowers that are not claimed on the night to Floral Angels, so that other people can enjoy them. We did however take a few home and I’ve sent them off to Louise – the Ceramic Botanist to be preserved into something beautiful that we can use again and again, I can’t wait to see the results!
Photographer and videographer
Our photographer was one of the first people we booked. Rachel of Rachel takes Pictures has a relaxed and unposed style that made me feel confident that I would be feel comfortable and not too posed and awkward. Her photos were more editorial and in the moment, which was definitely more appealing to us as a couple and the result, for me, was dreamy.
For our video we used Adrian Stone – The Dream Catchers as we loved his documentary style! Adrian was super responsive to us, and so patient with all of our changes and even sent us our chuppah and speeches just a week after the event so we (and my mum!) could relive it over and over again. When we received our Storybook film and highlights edit it was better than anything I could ever wish for. Adrian captured the spirit of the day and so many moments that would have been forgotten if we didn’t work with him.
Food and Cake
For our food we used the inhouse caterer at Dartmouth House and did an ‘inoffensive’ menu. The team at Dartmouth House were incredibly accommodating. They asked us for deep feedback about every single thing we tasted and genuinely acted on it on the day. We’ve had so many people rave about how good the food was. Because the chuppah was later than normal (6pm) we wanted to ensure that we didn’t have people sitting for the majority of the wedding, and we had enough time to have a standing reception, so we did canapes and bowl food for starters as well as a smoked salmon station for good measure.
We then had one seated course, and dessert canapes circulated on the dance floor. We also did Hamotzi to include some of my cousins on the day and got the most beautiful challah from Karma Bread in Hampstead. I caught one of our guests sneaking towards the challah after it had been served to get more! We got our cake from Cutter and Squidge, which is one of my favourite bakeries. It was simple and beautiful and we were happy.
Entertainment
Our guests have literally not stopped raving about the music. We asked Jon to put on a roaming band during the dinner acapella and they didn’t disappoint. At one point, I turned around and the other half of the room had erupted – singing along and dancing to Britney Spears and dancing with the singer who was standing on a chair. It was so good and exactly the atmosphere we wanted to create.
Favours
We had personalised cocktails by Strongman Tipple. Daniel thinks himself a bit of a mixologist so he was very excited by this specific detail.
Extra details
It was really important to me that everything possible was sustainable and reusable. I was struck by the amount of waste that a wedding could generate, so for example, I got my bridesmaids tops with their names on them -as I was unsure when they’d use something again that said ‘bridesmaid’ and we donated a lot of our flowers.
It was also very important to me that all my people were heavily involved in the day. My brothers, Daniel’s sister and all their partners walked down the aisle before me, our cousins, aunts, uncle and Daniel’s sister and dad did one of the sheva brachot under the chuppah and my brothers were MCs- Daniel’s best man actually referred to them as ‘Ant and Dec’ in his speech which may or may not have stuck!
I also felt strongly that it shouldn’t only be men doing speeches, and chose to do one too! But my favourite detail had to be the Eurovision themed table names. I thoroughly enjoyed sitting with my siblings and their partners and daniel’s sister and her partner and my Maid of Honour and Daniel’s best man at the ‘Heroes’ table, and I also really enjoyed surprising one of my guests by naming her table after her favourite ever Eurovision song!
Honeymoon
We’re planning that next year!
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
I have a lot of advice because I planned so many different weddings! The first piece of advice is to throw yourself into the things that really matter to you, and don’t sweat the rest of it. For example, I knew that the cake was a formality that didn’t mean as much to me as other things, so I tried not to drive myself mad to find the perfect cake, and frankly, we didn’t put the budget into it that we put into other things.
This meant truly letting go of that specific detail, and my mum took over – she had free reign and did a great job. I also relied heavily on google docs so I didn’t have to have the same conversations about budgets, details and to do lists with everyone which was helpful.
JOS & DANIEL’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography – Rachel takes Pictures
Videography – Adrian Stone – The Dream Catchers {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Flowers – Blue Sky Flowers {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Wedding planner – Katy Cresner
Venue – Dartmouth House
Bride’s dress – Joyce Young
Bride’s shoes – Charlotte Mills
Bride’s accessories – Make me Bridal
Groom’s attire – Drakes
Hair + Makeup – Zoe Norris Hair , Sasha Keene MUA
Band – Stylus Live JJ Hodari
Catering – Dartmouth House
Cake – Cutter and Squidge
Stationery/Invitation – Lilypad Creates & Paperless Post
Rabbi – Rabbi Adam Zagoria Moffet
Tallit – Gabrieli Tallit
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.
