Dreaming of Italy but grounded by lockdown? Take some inspiration from Sarah-Jayne and Emile, who brought their love of the country to the UK in their (pre-COVID) interfaith Jewish wedding. Between their decision to wed at Poole’s The Italian Villa – a dead ringer for a Tuscan escape – adelectable Italian menu, and homemade limoncello favors, they truly created a little Italian oasis in Dorset!
We also love the way these two crafted a ceremony that was truly THEM. Their Jewish ceremony – officiated by Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Paul Glantz, The Wedding Rabbi (who they found via Smashing the Glass!) – featured plenty of egalitarian touches: instead of the bride circling the groom the traditional 7 times, Sarah-Jayne and Emile each circled each other 3.5 times and did a badeken where not only did the groom veil the bride but the bride gave the groom a kippah in return – the pair even wrote and delivered a speech together!
These two were also ultra-attentive to their guests’ comfort and enjoyment, going out of their way to include special touches like a board game area and personalized kids’ packs for each child in attendance, featuring toys, snacks, coloring, and treasure hunts! All the love and joy of the day – not just the couple’s, but everyone’s – comes through so strongly in the beautiful photos from Ben Minnaar Photography and video from Mulhern Media.
There’s so much more we could say about this wonderful wedding, but we’ll leave the rest to the bride, who looked lovely in Maggie Sottero…
How we met
Sarah-Jayne, the bride: We have been together ever since our winter ball in our first year of university. We were in the same halls and we had the most incredibly extravagant winter formal in a huge circus tent, complete with a fun fair, acrobats and real snow.
A rather drunk, but cute guy approached me (my now husband) and said he remembered me from a go-kart social months earlier and he had thought about me since as I had given off dream girl vibes, rather flattered I added him on social media and 10 years later (including 3 long distance) here we are. We got engaged in the Gili Islands on the beach at sunset, whilst visiting his brother and sister-in-law. We had a long engagement of 3 years to save up and we are so excited for everything to come in married life!
Italian Dreams
We fell in love with The Italian Villa on our first visit and booked it there and then. The acres of gardens are stunning and the fact that it was on the beach provided an opportunity to turn our wedding celebration into a weekend away with our family and friends. The area was meaningful to me as I spent holidays with my late Papa (Grandpa) as a kid.
The venue was amazing to work with, we had 3 separate rooms for different parts of the day, so no turn around and we were allocated a wedding planner, who I drove mad throughout the process. But nothing phased her, even when I asked where in their landscaped gardens, I could put a bouncy castle, luckily that idea never came to fruition.
Ticket to Tuscany
We had an Italian themed wedding due to our love of all things Italian, especially food and we went straight on our honeymoon to Tuscany afterwards! The venue set the tone and we went with an Italian theme from there.
Invitations
We decided to make all our own stationery for the wedding to keep costs down and keep it consistent. I knew exactly the look and feel we wanted so commissioned a friend whose work we love to draw up some watercolour floral designs and our venue. I then designed the invites myself using Canva (a free design tool), printed and put them together at home with the help of some amazing friends! We were really happy with the outcome and pretty proud that they look quite professional, if I can say so myself!
Hair + Make-up
A close friend of mine, Aurorelacotemua, is a make-up artist and blogger – she does these incredible bold looks. So I asked her if she would be interested in doing bridal make up and she was amazing, she took a bridal make up course, helped buy the right shades for my complexion and did a great job on the day. I don’t regret having one of my closest friends doing my wedding make up, it was a really special experience!
I had cancellation issues with my original wedding hairdresser, so approached a local hairdresser and went with something simple. The only thing I knew I wanted was lots of flowers in my hair, so I went for a half up half down and as you can see, ample flowers! My hair drops very quickly, but I like it curly, as my hair is naturally straight – in hindsight I should have stuck to something straight and it would have lasted longer!
A Maggie Sottero Dress
It feels like I had tried on over a hundred wedding dresses before I finally found my dress. I had no idea what I wanted at the beginning and what I thought I would like didn’t suit me. Eventually I found a dress by Maggie Sottero which I fell in love with, I tried it on with a friend and took my mum back the next day to see it again. The shape was just right, it had beautiful floral and leaf lace work over the bust, back and trim. My mum insisted I buy it there and then.
Accessories
I tailored my own veil and flats. I bought a simple, plain veil and white pumps and added the lace from my dress post-alterations – this meant that everything matched and had a personal touch. I also borrowed some traditional white silk heels from a friend for the ceremony. My bracelet was my something new, a gift from my husband.
My something borrowed, old and blue was a garter that has been worn my all the women in my family: my mum, aunts and cousins have all worn it, so it was an honour to be part of this on my special day.
The handsome groom
When I first met Emile at our halls formal, he was wearing a tux and he looked great! So, he wanted to go for a tux again, but as it seemed a bit formal, he went for a midnight blue tuxedo. We are not big brand people, but went for Marks and Spencer‘s range for quality. When I first saw him at the chuppah all smiley and scrubbed up, I felt butterflies.
I love maps and studied geography, so thought map cufflinks would be apt and meaningful gift. One was the location we met with the date engraved on the back and the other our wedding venue and date. I had my Papa’s image on my bouquet charm and wanted Emile to have some way to page homage to his late grandfather, so I made him a brooch of his late grandfather’s families tartan. This was attached to his boutonniere and he wore it alongside his grandfather’s watch.
Bridesmaids
My sister was my maid of honour and I had 5 bridesmaids who are my favourite people from different parts of my life. They all wore blush pink Chi Chi London dresses, had matching flowers in the hair and our nails were Essie’s ballet pink to match. I also gifted them a pair of earrings the morning of the wedding which had dried flowers from my bouquet inside to wear on the day. They were wonderful throughout the planning process spending many days and nights crafting and planning the most incredible hen!
Ceremony
We had two ceremonies over the weekend. The first a legal ceremony at Guildhall, Poole with our families and two best friends as witnesses. We then all headed to Canford Cliffs beach for a picnic and swim. It was the most perfect day, both sides of the family enjoying each other’s company and as the day went on more friends and family arrived to join us. The night before the wedding we had a party at our hotel – we hired out tiki huts and had canapés and drinks for all our guests. This really set the tone for the weekend, as everyone had met before the wedding and spirits were high!
Emile is not Jewish, but completely embraced a Jew-ish wedding with Rabbi Paul Glantz officiating. We created a full ceremony guide on our wedding website and a printed on-the-day version, to ensure everyone understood and feel completely included (it was half the guests’ first Jew-ish wedding). We used the Smashing the Glass resources to help write the copy.
We also had our seven siblings read the seven humanist blessings which we edited to be more in line with our beliefs and aspirations. This was really special and meant that we could involve them all in some way.
Ketubah
We knew we wanted something simple and fitting with our theme. We found a papercut leaf design by The Portland Co on Etsy. We wrote our own ketubah and sent it over to be made and were thrilled with the results. It now hangs in a glass frame in our hall and looks is the perfect reminder of our wedding and the vows we made to one another.
Chuppah
This was one of the first decorative pieces we decided on, I saw this beautiful wedding arch on Pinterest and our florist said they could design our chuppah with similar with blush tulle and roses with Italian ruscus. We found it difficult sourcing a chuppah locally that could fit everyone under, so we sat our parents either side, where they would traditionally stand.
Music Choice
We had a harpist for our ceremony and reception and we spent hours listening to harpists on YouTube trying to decide on what to choose as it all sounds so magical. In the end we went with some of our favourites, Emile chose ‘Comptine d’un autre été’ by Yans Tiersen, from Amélie for himself. The procession to walk into and for my entrance with my parents, ‘Arrival of the Birds’ by The Cinematic Orchestra was played.
When we first started going out 10 years ago, I was listening to music on Emile’s phone and came across a song I knew and loved, but none of friends and family had heard of – ‘Somerset’ by Zero 7. It is a really sweet and romantic song and it quickly became our song. We chose this for our first dance and it made an already special song, even more meaningful.
Flowers
Flowers and greenery were a big part of our vision for the wedding and our florist, Simply Flower, executed it perfectly! They were amazing, helping us work out where we could reuse pieces, so we could stretch our budget further and have more of an impact in each room. The foundation for our scheme was sweet avalanche rose, astilbe, ivory freesias and gip to pad it all out, with lots of ruscus foliage.
This was used in my bouquet, hair, the groom and groomsmens buttonholes, the flower girls crown, as well as décor for the our chuppah, chair ends, table centres, the chandeliers and signage. The florist also lent us the mirrors for our floor plan and signage, as well as doing the calligraphy for us, we couldn’t recommend them more.
Photographer and videographer
Emile’s sister in law came across our photographer, Ben Minnaar Photography, online. They were getting married 3 months after us and when they showed us Ben’s natural and joyous style we loved it and decided to share a photographer. It meant that we really got to know him as a family and it was nice to see him again at their wedding and truly thank him once we had our beautiful photos. Ben was a pleasure to be around on the day, a calming and reassuring presence and a true professional. As you can see the photos turned out to be everything we wanted and more!
I fell in love with a friend of mine’s wedding video and approached her videographer Ryan Mulhern from Mulhern Media. Ryan and his assistant did an excellent job at capturing the atmosphere on the day and made us a feature length and highlights video that we are completely and utterly thrilled with it.
Food and Cake
Food is a big deal in our household, we worked together at a gourmet food company after university and this really diversified our pallet and gave us a new appreciation for fine food. In other words, we are food snobs!
With this in mind we chose to go with the venues catering, Beales Gourmet. Having been to a couple of open days we knew the food was delicious, filling and sourced locally. We decided on our starter and desert at our tasting. We went with a burrata and tomato salad as our starter, something light and summery and a beautiful berry meringue with edible flowers as our dessert.
For our mains we requested two Italian mains that are our favourites, but the caterers had not done before. This meant there was an element of risk, but it paid off being absolutely delicious! Guest were given the option of Osso Bucco with Gremolata and Risotto alla Milanese or Melanzane alla Parmagiana (Aubergine Gratin). We brought our own Italian wine to pair with these and Bon Appétit!
Our cake was kindly made by Emile’s Mum and they designed it together. Emile wanted fondant icing and they chose a simple floral design with 3 tiers. Each tier could be taken apart and was a different flavour: the biggest tier was limoncello (made with our wedding batch), the middle tier salted caramel and the small tier white chocolate. We made boxes for guests to take cake and evening buffet food home and we know a number of guests took these for late-night picnics on the beach after the wedding.
Entertainment
As well as a harpist for the ceremony and reception, we had Motown Band and with DJ live in the evening. Motown nights were always our favourite at University and these classic soul songs played a part in a lot of memorable nights with many of our guests, so we started searching.
When we came across the OJ’s Soul Band we were blown away by their online portfolio and their repertoire was perfect! They brought so much energy and talent to the evening and were the heart and soul of our wedding! Guest were raving about them and we still do too!
Limoncello Favours
We made homemade limoncello as our favours, it seemed like the perfect favour: delicious, alcoholic and authentically Italian. We made a practise batch as Christmakah gifts the year before and were really happy with how it went, even if the bottling was a messy process. We bought what we needed to scale up from 20 bottles to 120 and started brewing it in early April.
We bought little bottles, made our own labels and decorated them the day before the wedding with our wedding party. They seemed to go down well, we got lots of compliments on the day and made big bottles as thank you’s to people. Kids had mini San Pellegrino Limonatas.
Extra details
We decided to write and do our speech together, we do everything together, so it only seemed appropriate. Also, as a big feminist I don’t see why the men should be taking all the leading roles on our big day! This was definitely one of the most challenging elements of the wedding prep though and we put it off until the day before. We were having so much fun that day and eventually did it before our pre-wedding party, only to forget to print it! One of our groomsmen ran back to the hotel and printed it for us in the nick of time.
We wanted to our wedding to be representative of our egalitarian beliefs, so opened out traditionally female elements of the wedding to everyone, such as the bouquet toss, as part of our ceremony we both completed x3.5 circles around each other and had a bedeken exchange (where I gave him his kippah) and had communal Jewish dancing and a speech from the best man and maid of honour.
We wanted to make our wedding as easy and enjoyable as possible for everyone and having quite a few children at the wedding, felt we needed something to keep them occupied. So I created kids packs for each child, according to their age and interests. These included: dot to dots, treasure hunts, colouring in, snacks and Lego or Duplo. The praise we received from the parents in the room made it so worth it!
We both love board games and understand that dancing isn’t everyone’s thing and our older guests they might not be able to dance all night long. So, we made a games area with lots of comfy seating and games where speaking isn’t necessary (it was pretty loud). We came up with a huge list and brought games for all ages like jenga, scrabble, hungry hippos and so on. People loved it and the dance floor was still full, some took breaks when they needed and it brought people together who hasn’t previously met.
We wanted to honour those we wished were there on our special day but had unfortunately passed. So, we created a memorial area with photos and candles in the main room, next to our family’s tables. It was nice knowing that they had a presence on the day and we both took a moment to pay our respects before the reception.
Honeymoon
Sticking to our Italian theme we decided to visit Tuscany for our honeymoon. Neither of us had been before and we were so excited. 2 days after our wedding, we flew into Pisa for some sightseeing. We then travelled to Florence for some amazing food and cookery school.
Next, we hired a castle in the Tuscan hills and lived like royalty – this was the highlight of our trip – in the middle of nowhere we had this castle with acres of olive groves, a private pool and homemade food left for us. The scenery and sunsets were out of this world. We then headed further south to stay in a vineyard and hit up Siena. Lastly, we headed back to Florence again to end our amazing trip.
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
Plan, plan, plan! As an event planner I really appreciate a good spreadsheet, making a proper budget, timeline and on the day event plan can make your life SO much easier. Ask friends or family who have planned a similar wedding for their plans, so you can check you aren’t missing anything important and you are in the right price range. Also, if you are doing a lot of DIY start early and tick things off month by month, crafting can be done at anytime and will make it seem more real and exciting earlier!
What ‘Smashing The Glass’ Did For Us
I have always loved browsing Smashing the Glass and seeing the personal and creative flair that people put on the day. I first came across the site years ago when working on a wedding that was featured. Seeing it live on the day and so perfectly captured on the site, made it a firm favourite and when we got engaged it was my first stop online. We found our Rabbi, The Wedding Rabbi, via Smashing the Glass and then approached friends and acquaintances who has used him before to find out more.
SARAH-JAYNE & EMILE’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography – Ben Minnaar Photography
Videography – Mulhern Media
Rabbi – The Wedding Rabbi
Wedding planner – The Italian Villa
Venue – The Italian Villa
Bride’s dress – Maggie Sottero
Bride’s shoes and veil – Homemade by Bride
Bride’s jewellery – Swarovski
Groom’s attire – Marks and Spencer
Bridesmaids – Chi Chi London
Hair + Makeup – Aurorelacotemua
Flowers – Simply Flower
Band & DJ Live – Motown Band
Harpist – Emily Rowell
Catering – Beales Gourmet
Cake – Homemade by Groom’s Mum, Camilla Jackson
Ketubah – The Portland Co via Etsy
Stationery/Invitation – Home made by Bride and Groom
Artwork – Joanne Baker Art
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.
