We love a good boho festival Jewish wedding. And Alana and Adam’s is one of the best. These two worked hard to craft a day that was 100% them – filled with tons of DIY touches, from spray painting soup cans to turn them into flower vases, having the bride’s mother bake 500 brownies for the wedding dessert, and getting friends and family together to set up the venue – and they absolutely smashed it.
This wedding was full of so many exquisite details, from the gorgeous rustic turquoise stationery suite created by Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Liv & Luc, inspired by a favorite holiday snap from a trip to Italy to the way Alana and Adam crafted a personal ceremony highlighting their shared values of feminism and equality: they both smashed a glass, gave a speech, wrote vows, and circles each other under the chuppah.
And because you can’t have a festival without awesome music, the couple opted to bring in the big guns: Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor TOTEM, who Alana and Adam picked partly for their vast experience with Jewish weddings and wide repertoire of Israeli dancing songs, kept the guests on the dance floor all night long in their signature style. We can’t get over all the love and energy captured in the photos by Aaron Collett Photography and videographer James Alexander Chapman.
Before we turn you over to Alana, we’ve also got to mention her stunner of a gown by Maggie Sottero, which she found at the wonderful Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Morgan Davies Bridal. Alana was on the hunt for a boho style figure hugging lace gown, and did the team at Morgan Davies ever help her make the dream a reality!
HOW WE MET
Alana, the bride: We met at a mutual friend’s engagement party 6 years ago, pretty sure we were the only single ones left in the room and were introduced to each other in an awkward year 6 disco style way. He managed to convince me he was a bomb disposal expert (he’s not) and the rest is history.
A Countryside Wedding
We got married at Lattenbury Hill Weddings in Cambridgeshire. I am from Cambridge and am a huge lover of the outdoors, so I really wanted to get married somewhere with a beautiful outdoor space.
Although we now live in London, we both liked the idea of getting married in Cambridge as it was near enough for our guests to drive home after the wedding if they wanted/needed to, but also just far enough away that it made sense to stay in a hotel and make a weekend of it. We encouraged our guests to do just that, by making a small event back at the venue the day after.
We were looking for something quite specific when we started our venue search. We had already fallen in love with Papakata‘s amazing Sperry tents so we knew we wanted a blank canvas space, to allow us the freedom to put up the Sperry tent. We wanted to create a sort of shabby-chic festival vibe and have the opportunity to be free to do what we wanted.
There weren’t loads of venues that fitted our brief in the Cambridgeshire area and we quickly came across Lattenbury Hill Weddings. From the moment we set foot on Lattenbury Hill Farm, we knew it was the perfect venue – the pond, the corn fields, the huge trees, the lavender and colourful flower beds, the wonky barn (we christened it that, we’re not sure if the name has stuck or not) and manicured lawns, it was just so full of character and beauty, we were immediately sold.
On top of that, the 6 day hire period was more than we could have wished for – allowing us ample time to set up without having to rush. Harry and Iona run the business there, having only recently started to rent out the space for events. They were fantastic from the first introductions – they were so friendly and super flexible regarding the hire of their beautiful family farm.
DIY Touches
We wanted to create an intimate wedding that felt relaxed and personal, which is almost impossible when you’re having a big Jewish wedding with 250 guests. The way we managed to keep as close to this vision as possible, was to do as much as possible ourselves.
This meant we did things like: make the table plan, tie string around hundreds of glass jars, spray paint 100 Heinz soup tins gold and rose gold, to use as flower vases; ask our dads to build the gin bar, signage and chuppah; have my mum make 25 mosaic table numbers, and bake 500 brownies; and finally on the week of the wedding, we roped in as many friends and family as possible to help us set up and dress the huge site – it took the best part of 6 days!
As we were using a blank canvas venue, we had to decorate the space ourselves. I knew I wanted to hire some props for the day and came across The White Emporium when searching on google. Gemma was great, and it was really affordable to hire a load of lanterns, rugs, hoops and other items. She delivered and collected the items from the site, which was super helpful.
Luckily for us, my sister runs large scale charity events for a living, so she insisted she would be our event manager. She joined conference calls with our suppliers, developed the most detailed running order you can imagine, was the voice of contingency planning throughout and generally we wouldn’t have had the wedding that we had without her input.
Involving our friends and family in our big day was what made it so special and personal to us and we’ll be forever grateful to all those that played a part in it.
Invitation
We came across Liv & Luc when our friend’s wedding invitation came in the post to us, we loved their invite, it was beautiful and totally unique! We got in touch after this, and after a first meeting with them we knew we were in safe hands. We wanted something a bit different and to run through as a theme across all our stationary for the wedding.
A few years ago we were on holiday in Italy, and my sister managed to get a candid snap of us, sitting in front of a turquoise, wooden, rustic door. We’ve always loved the photo, and put it up in our flat, and since then have had so many positive comments on it, that we had the idea to incorporate it in some way.
Liv and Luc were able to use this as a jumping off point, and come up with some really creative ideas whilst keeping the turquoise door theme throughout the save the dates, invites, menus and service booklets.
Liv & Luc were fantastic to work with, they totally understood our concept and created our stunning pieces that all our guests commented on!
Hair + Make-up
I was quite nervous as I’m someone who wears the same makeup and hairstyle every day. I was particularly nervous about my hair as I have naturally curly hair and have always found it easier to style my hair myself, curly hair is notoriously unpredictable.
A friend recommended Make-up Artistry London and so I decided to go with them for both my hair and makeup. We had a trial a few months before the wedding and I was surprised by how great it went. Danielle did my airbrush makeup which was both flawless yet natural.
Bethany did my hair and to my surprise knew lots about curly hair which was a huge relief. They were both great on the day, managing to do my large bridal party with time to spare on the morning of the wedding and I felt sooooo happy with the finished look.
A Maggie Sottero DRESS
My dress was a Maggie Sottero design from Morgan Davies Bridal in Hitchin. I had found her online when I started my search and loved some of her boho styles. I was looking for a figure hugging lacy dress with a low back and saw many of her dresses online and spent a while ringing around different bridal shops trying to find the stores that sold her range.
I think I went to 5 different bridal shops before I found my dress in the last place I had booked an appointment. I had 2 other potential dresses but when I tried this one on which was called ‘The Caroline’ we all knew it was ‘the one’.
Accessories
I bought a simple veil from Morgan Davies Bridal where I also got my dress.
I wanted a necklace with a long drop at the back to accentuate the low back of the dress, and also something with a hamsa pendant. I always wear gold jewellery so I knew that was what I was looking for. I turned to Etsy for help as I couldn’t find anything right on the high street.
I found a lovely jeweller in Israel called Amitvtamar who was able to make it bespoke to my requirements for a really reasonable price. My earrings and hair piece were both from Accessorize.
Shoes
I found this really difficult. I wanted to wear something that felt like me and that I could wear again, ideally in gold/rose gold and with a chunky block heel – I can’t handle stilettos any more. I didn’t think that was going to be difficult to find, but it was.
I felt like all the bridal shops only had white fancy shoes and I didn’t want that. I ended up buying several pairs from high street shops and sending them back again until I ended up with 2 pairs of shoes on the wedding morning and decided when I was in the dress which one to go for.
They were a gold and canvas block heel strappy pair from River Island and cost £40 I think.
The handsome groom
Adam bought a two-piece blue suit from Suit Supply, which he matched up with a navy waistcoat from Charles Tyrwhitt. He wore a green tie and pocket square (that we’d found on a Lithuanian Etsy site), and a gold tie pin, with some brown double monk-strap shoes from Kurt Geiger.
We’d done this shopping together, so his outfit on the day wasn’t a surprise, but he looked extra handsome on the day!
Bridesmaids
I initially was set on the bridesmaids wearing floral dresses. I found an American company called Show Me Your Mumu, which I fell in love with but sadly it wasn’t easy sourcing them as they had to be shipped from LA without having the bridesmaids being able to try them on.
I couldn’t find any floral dresses in the UK that I liked so ended up giving up on this idea. That summer a good friend of mine got married and her bridesmaids were in these beautiful dresses all in different shapes but the same colour of marine (a sagey, greeny-blue colour) and that’s how I got introduced to ReWritten.
One evening me and my bridesmaids headed to their shop in Seven Sisters. I loved that they had lots of different shapes in each colour, meaning my bridesmaids could chose whichever shape they preferred.
I went for the marine colour which I was so pleased with on the day. It matched Adams and his ushers’ ties and pocket squares and beautifully complimented the pinky bouquets.
CEREMONY
We spent about 6 months planning the ceremony with our wonderful rabbi, Hannah. We really wanted to make it our own and so this involved lots of meetings, but Hannah made it clear that aside from one or two things, everything was negotiable.
The feminist in both of us wanted our wedding to be as equal as possible, so when Adam smashed a glass in the ceremony, so did I. When Adam started writing his speech, so did I and when the conversations began about what our surname would be, we quickly decided we wanted to double barrel our names and both take each other’s surnames.
We decided that we would both circle each other at the beginning of the ceremony, write our own ketubah text, write our own vows, and have friends and family create their own blessings for the Sheva Brachot.
We also knew from very early on that we wanted the London Sound Project – the choir I sing in – to sing throughout the ceremony, which we knew would be unique and really special.
Later on in the planning process we decided to give our guests the lyrics to the song that they would be singing whilst we signed our ketubah. The song was ‘Everywhere’ by Fleetwood Mac. This was such a memorable moment.
For the ketubah, my lovely cousin Gail translated it into Hebrew for us, and I found a company in Israel who made beautiful ketubahs called Ketubata. They allow you to upload your own text and ship it to you when it’s complete.
Adam’s sister also found a really lovely company that make kippot out of seeds – Circles of Life – so you can take them home and plant them after the wedding.
I think my favourite part of the ceremony was when Adam read his vows to me and I realised we had basically written the same things. I looked at our rabbi, who had read both of our vows to check them over for us, and we shared a big giggle.
One of our flower girls – my cousin’s 18-month-old twins – also made a very welcomed special moment during the ceremony, when she decided she wanted to get in on the action.
She wriggled out of her seat and walked over to my dad under the chuppah. My dad picked her up and she watched on intently from a much better vantage point.
There are just too many great moments from the ceremony to mention them all, it was definitely both our favourite part of the day!
Chuppah
We wanted something wooden and rustic so initially I looked into hiring one, but quickly realised this was quite expensive. So then I looked into buying and building our own, which my dad and a friend were keen to help out with.
I found a website called Decorative Birch where we bought the ready to assemble chuppah from. Luckily, because we were hiring a blank canvas venue we had access to the site for 5 days prior to the wedding to set up, so we had plenty of time to get it built.
We wanted to use 2 of our grandpas tallits for the canopy above as sadly they had both passed away recently and this worked really well.
Our music choice
We chose ‘Toothpaste kisses’ by the Maccabees for Adam and then the bridal party to walk down the aisle to, and then ‘Beyond’ by Leon Bridges for me to walk down the aisle to.
The amazing musical director of the London Sound Project, Sam Sommerfeld created brand new arrangements for us, and the choir learnt them brilliantly in time for our big day.
We left the ceremony to the choir singing ‘Signed, Sealed Delivered’ by Stevie Wonder.
Our first dance was ‘God only knows’ by the Beach Boys, just because we love that song.
The music on the dance floor was mainly Mo-town and soul focused, although we probably would have liked a bit more rock n’ roll thrown in there.
Flowers
My dad found our florist for us, she did the flowers at an event he went to and he loved the wildness of her table displays so much that he found her details and introduced us.
Bridget of Wild Rosamund was just amazing, her flowers were unique in her wild style in which she would forage in her local area for the seasonal flowers matching your theme/colour scheme. She completely understood my brief of pink, corals and blush colours of peonies and gyp with lots of green foliage and a rustic look rather than something neat and formal.
When I got nervous about what I’d chosen 2 weeks before the wedding she organised a mock bouquet for me and completely settled my pre-wedding nerves. She also decorated the chuppah with the same theme, large hoops around the centre poles of the sperry tent and several other bits, every bit of it was just stunning!
Photographer
Our photographer was Aaron Collett Photography. His photos stood out from the crowd as being exactly what we were looking for. His photos are all so bright and colourful, and where he really excels is in getting those interesting and funny candid shots.
He was a pleasure to deal with, and despite not having captured many Jewish weddings before, he got completely stuck in to everything, including the Israeli dancing and got some incredible shots of Adam flying through the air with the incredible sperry tent backdrop.
Our videographer was our friend James Alexander Chapman. We were initially unsure as to whether we wanted a videographer, but several friends who had recently got married recommended to get one, and it’s an understatement to say we’re pleased we did!
James created a 6-minute highlights video and then a longer 30 minute one for us, both of which we watch way more regularly than we thought we would, and that’s because they’re both so damn good!
He did something very unique and special in the videos, which was to create a story running through the video using our speeches from the day and music from the choir. When we shared the highlights video with friends and family, the response was amazing, everyone commented on how different and beautiful it was at capturing the essence of the day!
Food and cake
This was a very easy decision, which was a rare thing for me during this whole process. When I was younger, I worked in a local pub, sometime later my boss there started his own catering company in Cambridge, so it was a no brainer that I wanted Simon’s company, The Cambridge Dining Company to cater for us.
Once we started planning the wedding I got in touch with Simon and that was it. We were quickly introduced to our amazing event manager, Lauren, and from our first chat about our shared love for Ottolenghi style food, I knew we were in safe hands.
Lauren took on the role of event managing the whole day, as well as doing the incredible food. We wanted sharing food with an Israeli/middle Eastern vibe and they developed the most fantastic menu and food for the day.
They created an amazing olive bar to accommodate my olive addiction/obsession and went above and beyond in so many aspects. Our guests absolutely loved the food and I will forever recommend them.
We didn’t want a formal cake but we did get a cake tower from Cheese Plus which was quickly demolished on the night.
My mum is renowned across Cambridgeshire and beyond for her incredible chocolate brownies, so for dessert she offered to bake brownies for the entire wedding. She spent months trialling recipes that would work when frozen and defrosted.
On the day, we had over 500 brownies in several different flavours. She even made gluten free and lactose free options! Needless to say, they went down an absolute treat.
Entertainment
We wanted a live band who knew the Jewish wedding format and could do Israeli dancing songs. We’d seen TOTEM at other weddings and they’d always impressed. They were great on the day and some of their musicians even joined the London Sound Project in the ceremony to add some live music to the voices, which was so great.
All the musicians were incredible and I will always remember the moment they got all our guests up on their chairs singing ‘Stand by me’ .
Favours
We decided not to have wedding favours as such, although I guess you could say that our kippot were sort of like wedding favours, as lots of our guests took these home and planted them in their gardens.
GIN & GAMES
We both love gin, so we wanted to have a bar dedicated to just that. Adam’s dad built the bar from pallets, sanded it down and painted it white, and it looked brilliant.
Our friend Kate from The Mixing Class is a bartender, mixologist, drink educator and all-round legend, who very generously helped us make a menu for the gin bar, with different recipes made up from all the different gins, tonics, fruit and garnishes we had stocked the bar with.
We also both love games, so we hired some table footballs, table tennis, giant jenga and croquet for on the lawns around the sperry tents from a company called ES Promotions.
These went down a treat during the canapé reception but then also the next day when we returned to the venue for an after party with food vans and more partying.
Adam’s family are friends with the owners of Joe and Seph’s popcorn so we were lucky enough to have a popcorn bar at the wedding too. We had a large selection of flavours, so we had the savoury ones out during the canapé reception, and then whipped out the sweet flavours for the evening party.
Honeymoon
We went to South America – Ecuador, the Galapagos islands and Colombia, for 5 weeks. We travelled around a lot and visited too many incredible places to mention them all here, but the Galapagos Islands stand out as the highlight – we urge everyone to go there at some point in their lives!
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
Agonise less on the finer details and be more decisive because at the end of the day no one else will know the 300 other options you agonised over and you’ll enjoy yourself no matter what.
What ‘Smashing The Glass’ Did For Us
I loved reading other couples wedding blogs, this gave me inspiration and pointed me in the direction of many vendors to research.
ALANA & ADAM’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography – Aaron Collett Photography
Videography – James Alexander Chapman
Band – TOTEM {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club based on booking a 10 piece band at full rate}
Stationery – Liv & Luc
Bride’s dress – Maggie Sottero found and fitted at Morgan Davies Bridal
Venue – Lattenbury Hill Weddings
Bride’s shoes – River Island
Bride’s accessories – Amitvtamar, Accessorize
Groom’s attire – Suit Supply, Kurt Geiger, Charles Tyrwhitt
Bridesmaids – ReWritten
Hair + Makeup – Make-up Artistry London
Flowers – Wild Rosamund
Catering – The Cambridge Dining Company
Chuppah – Decorative Birch
Ketubah – Ketubata
Kippot – Circles of Life
Cocktail Kate – Gin bar – The Mixing Class
Popcorn – Joe and Seph’s popcorn
Choir – London Sound Project
Games hire – ES Promotions
Papakata – Papakata
Prop Hire – The White Emporium
Rabbi – Hannah from Aylth Synagogue
Smash The Glass Pouch – Smashing The Glass Etsy Shop {or join Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club and get one for free!}
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