Even though Israeli couple Elinoa and Yonah held their Jewish wedding during the pandemic, they were lucky enough not to have to make major changes to their plans. Sure, they changed venues two weeks(!) before the big day – but, happily, they made that change in order to be able to invite MORE guests (including Yona’s entire army unit), not because they had to cut their list down.
As always, we’re totally and completely blown away by the couple’s incredible wedding photos by Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Herschel Gutman. Like so many couples, Elinoa and Yonah knew they wanted him as their photographer before they were even engaged. In Elinoa’s words, “Herschel has this magical way of just capturing moments – being truly in them with you but also making you feel like it’s only the two of you. There was not a moment throughout the wedding where I noticed a camera on me or in my face and I think that’s a testament to the true skill Herschel has.”
There’s so much more to say about this gorgeous wedding – just for starters, we love that Elinoa designed all the wedding stationery herself! – but we’ll let the bride, who looked exquisitely elegant in Michal Taylor, fill you in on the rest…
How we met
Elinoa, the bride: We’ve both always sort of been in the background of each other’s lives. Our parents were all part of Bnei Akiva in England, which if you’re familiar with anyone who grew up in England and went to BA – everyone knows everyone. My father-in-law was a madrich to both my parents, Yonah’s uncle was my dad’s madrich & my mother in law was a good friend of my uncle through-out high school. The four of them made Aliyah around the same time & lived in the “merkaz klita” in Ra’anana. Our families both settled down in Ramat Beit Shemesh and we grew up always sort of aware of each other but were never necessarily friendly (although we have got a few pictures of us together from when we were little). Eventually my family moved to America and then to Ra’anana meaning the next time we crossed paths was when they would come to stay with us for Shabbat.
Yonah’s second cousins live in Raanana and they are good friends of ours so every time they had a simcha, Yonah’s family would stay with us. In August 2016 they came to stay with us and Yonah and I sort of caught each other’s attention. A few days later I noticed he had FB messaged me wishing me good luck in my year of sherut leumi in Jerusalem. Turns out he was just being nice and not flirting but I took it as flirting and told him to let me know next time he was in Jerusalem and we would hang out. 9 months later he texted me asking if I was free, May 26th 2017 we went on our first date and we’ve been together ever since. Our relationship has spanned 2 year of sherut leumi, Yonah’s army service (and subsequently many, many drives to his base), almost an entire degree, traveling, and much, much more.
Venue and wedding plans
We got married in Bezzela Ha Har in Machasiya, we actually changed venues about 2 weeks before the wedding so there wasn’t necessarily any sentimental significance, but it is about ten minutes away from where we both grew up which is pretty special. We ended up changing venues so that we could have more people, and this was 100% the right decision as it meant that aside from the extra people here and there, Yonah was able to invite his entire army unit which was super important to him. They ended up creating such an amazing atmosphere and really contributed to the overall energy on that day.
Seeing as we’ve been together for quite a few years, we had discussed our wedding before even getting engaged and before Corona was anything other than beer. The only way it was different to what we imagined was the people who were missing. Neither of us had any uncles or aunts there, I didn’t have any cousins with me, neither of my parent’s fathers were able to come & one of Yonah’s first cousins who is like a brother to him was not able to come. These were all people we never in a million years would have imagined getting married without.
The “potential” date for our wedding changed quite a few times but once we signed a contract (with the first venue) we stuck to that date. That being said, we had a range of about two months where we knew we would get married and remained firm in the decision that we would not get married past a specific date. At the end of the day, if you compare the wedding we ended up having, despite it being pulled together fairly last minute, it pretty accurately lines up with the many Pinterest boards I’ve curated over the years.
Theme
I suppose the overall theme of our wedding was colourful, inspired by nature, and as simple as possible. Yonah and I didn’t want our wedding to be over the top or ostentatious in any way. It was the same with the proposal, it was just me and him on a beach at sunrise in the dead sea – no balloons no sparklers no big sings, just us and the love we share. we wanted the wedding day to be the same, in my eyes If you go over the top it ceases to be about the two of you and the celebration of your love and can quickly become a celebration of materialism.
I didn’t necessarily have a colour scheme, but I knew I wanted all the men in our families to wear navy blue & brown shoes.
I started off with a colour scheme for my bridesmaids, each one chose a different colour as I knew they would never all be happy in the same colour. The colours ended up changing a bit, but they ended up going together perfectly and accidently ended up matching the flowers.
Invitations / stationery
I designed our invitations, welcome sign, benchers, place cards and all the other various little signs and such. The design was super simple and clean but featured olive branches which had a special significance. In the story of Noah and the flood, the dove brought an olive branch. This was a nod to Yonah, and his name (which means dove in Hebrew) and to the general theme that I choose to live by which is to choose peace, & seek peace. I even have a ring given to me by my in laws engraved with one of my favourite psukim:
״סור מרע ועשה טוב, בקש שלום ורדפהו״ which translates to “depart from evil, and do good, seek peace and pursue it”.
Our invites also featured the passuk “מים רבים לא יוכלו לכבות את האהבה ונהרות ישטפוה” which translates to “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it”.
This just felt like the perfect way of describing how we felt, nothing could come in the way of our love and our desire to get married.
Hair + Make-up
I knew for ages that I wanted Tiferet to do may hair and makeup & was so sad when she was busy on one of the dates we were originally thinking of going for. When we settled on April 12th and she was free I was over the moon. I just loved how all the brides on her page looked like themselves, she just focuses on highlighting and enhancing what’s already there.
She was honestly the most calming presence and I knew already from the trial that she would be amazing on the day. My hair honestly did not move an inch, nor did my makeup (tears and all) and I could not have been happier. When I asked Yonah what I should do for my makeup he just said – make sure they don’t cover up your freckles! So Tifret went as far as adding little freckles on for me which made the makeup look even more natural. I don’t think I could recommend her enough.
A Michal Taylor Dress
I don’t think I necessarily have a specific style but when I asked friends and family what they expected me to wear, they all knew I wouldn’t go for a princess ball gown & when they saw it they all said it was just 100% “me”.
My dress designer was Michal Taylor and was honestly truly amazing – she worked on this dress through pregnancy, pandemic, birth-leave etc. She was the first place I went to and I genuinely didn’t think I would end leaving with a dress as I was going just for fun. I tried on quite a few different styles and narrowed it down to two.
Throughout the next day I debated between the two and ended up settling on my dress because it was the one I felt most confident in, the more I went back to look at pictures the more I loved it – and I could just see that my posture and confidence was different in each dress, I was visibly more confident and comfortable in my dress. Michal is amazing at tailoring dresses perfectly to each body type and I could tell back then that it would just fit impeccably. The dress had different sleeves originally so Michal redid the top and sleeves from me, and added little pearls down the zip that looked like buttons. I love the dress so much I plan on putting it on every anniversary – because when and where else would I wear it?!
Accessories
I knew I wanted a really long veil as I didn’t have a train & I was so happy I ended up making this decision – Michal Taylor, my dress designer made it for me.
Because I had such beautiful beading on my dress I didn’t really feel the need for jewellery so all I wore was my engagement ring and these beautiful vintage-looking earrings that my parents got me as a gift for the wedding day. They were from the same place we got our wedding bands, “Yael” on Yafo right next to haturim light rail station in Jerusalem.
For my hair I had flowers that my florist set aside from me, I wanted to break up the “glam” and elegance of the dress and add something a little more whimsical and fun.
Shoes
Seeing as the build-up to our wedding was met with lockdowns and Covid restrictions I ended up ordering my shoes off of ASOS. I made a point of not spending much on wedding shoes as no one sees them or notices them and you only wear them for a few hours. I got a pair of white satin heels from the “be mine bridal” line, they were so cheap but were actually beautiful. After the chuppah I changed into white high top platform converse (Yonah and I had matching shoes for dancing). My advice to any bride/groom thinking of doing this – break them in!!! we both got horrific blisters from them & I ended up spending most of the night in my socks (not that anyone could tell).
The handsome groom
Although I was the one to say that all the men where to wear navy blue suits and brown shoes, I think Yonah would have chosen that anyway. I didn’t actually see the suit until the bedekken but it was honestly perfect. I know that Yonah had always pictured himself getting a suit in England in some ted baker type shop but given the travel ban he had to “settle” on getting one here. He ended up waiting until probably a month or so before the wedding which severely stressed me out, but found “the one” at a store called Lebos in Bet Shemesh.
He also spent the week leading up to the wedding searching for a pocket square and tie and ended up going with a maroon tie the day of the wedding. If I’m not mistaken, his shoes shirt and tie were from next. Although Yonah didn’t find a pocket square he did wear a boutonniere with I think really tied his whole look together.
Bridesmaids
My bridesmaids all wore different colours, which started off being inspired by a specific colour scheme and ended up quite different but totally worked. Their dresses ended up matching the flowers which was totally unplanned but a very happy accident. My MOH wore this stunning dress that was this sort of blue-teal chrome colour, and the rest wore pink, sage green, rust orange and purple. as I told the florist, the theme of the wedding was just “colourful and happy” so they definitely lived up to that.
Ceremony
The rabbi who married us was the rabbi of Yonah’s community, the community which I actually grew up in too and that my parents were a part of when we lived in Ramat Beit Shemesh. We got to sit down with him before the wedding, catch up and go over the day. It was so helpful to get on the same page and set expectations for how the ceremony would play out.
We also had a few elements we wanted to add so that was our chance to bring it up and see how it would fit in. It was so special having someone who has known both of our families for years, marry us. One request we had was that the “c” word not be mentioned in speeches and during the chuppah. Our lives had been so overshadowed by the pandemic that we didn’t feel the need to bring it up (this was totally the right decision).
Our brothers were quite a big part of the chuppah as Yonah’s brother was MC, his other brother read our ketubah & his youngest brother and my brother each said one of the sheva brachot. Yonah and I also chose to say shehecheyanu together – I on my dress/ring and he on his tallit. It was super powerful to be standing there together and recognizing the absolute miracle ensuing, that we were finally getting married after almost four years together and a less than ideal engagement period.
Some couples choose to have all of their immediate family under the chuppah with them, but we were actually really happy with our decision to have only our parents with us. There was something really poetic about it in my eyes – the four people who brought us into this world and shaped our lives, seeing us off into our new shared life together.
Ketubah
Our ketubah is just a generic one that we received from Tzohar as we didn’t (and don’t) plan on displaying it. We did however receive a home blessing from The Delicate Brush – her work is incredible and If we were to have had one made I would have wanted to purchase one from Rachelle or from Malka Klein who’s also a super talented artist.
Chuppah
I always loved the look of bamboo chuppahs – and I was so set on having one that the venue brought in a crane to remove the one they originally had. My florist had a PDF with examples of all sorts of arrangement and placement options that helped me select the design I wanted.
Although I didn’t go crazy with flowers and get the biggest package, they 100% stole the show and were the perfect accent.
Our Music Choice
I chose “בואי כלה ” to the tune of hallelujah for my walk down the aisle – it’s one of my mum’s favourite songs (Leonard Cohen’s version of hallelujah) so I knew it would be special and sentimental.
Our flower girl walked down the aisle to אשירה’ by Yonatan Razel as her name is Ashira
Our first dance was to ‘You’ll never walk alone’ – Elvis Presley version. Aside from it being a beautiful song it’s the LFC (Liverpool Football Club) anthem, Yonah’s family are huge Liverpool supporters and this song means a lot to them. As we danced everyone sang along at the top of their lungs, waving Liverpool scarves and wearing Liverpool “kits” (tops) – us included. Over the years I’ve become as involved as I can with this love for football and Liverpool, I’ve watched matches with them from home and gone to Liverpool meets to watch big matches, and have come to admire their passion. It ended up being a truly beautiful emotional moment.
My dad and I had a father daughter dance to ‘That’s Amore’ by Dean Martin. It’s a super special song to us and to our family, I used to dance on my dad’s feet to it when I was little. It was also a song that my Great Grandpa loved and would sing to us a lot, he was a huge part of our lives and was around until I was 18. He always talked about being at my wedding & hearing this song on my wedding day was a lovely way to remember him too.
Flowers
I found my florist sort of by accident, I had a few florists in mind that I had been following on Instagram for a while but knew I wanted to have little plants that people could take home as centrepieces. Once I got in contact with Reut from Tenne Flowers, she sent me a PDF that included all of her services other than the centrepieces and I absolutely loved her style and ended up going with her for all of the flowers. She did the centrepieces, my bouquet, flowers from my hair, the chuppah, kisse kallah, boutonnieres and even the petals for our flower girl.
All I did was send Reut some Pinterest inspo, I told her I love peonies & daisies, told her I didn’t want red roses and that overall I just love colour. She took all that and just completely exceeded my expectations. I’d seen brides bouquets wilt by the end of the night and worried that that would be my fate too, but they truly looked perfect all day.
I ended up drying my bouquet and Yonah’s boutonniere & pressing some of the flowers so that I could keep them forever. The plants that we chose for the centrepieces were all herbs i.e. rosemary, mint basil sage etc and they had sweet little notes attached saying “take me home”. All our guests were so excited about taking these home and not a single plant was left behind.
Photographer and videographer
Yonah’s family has known Herschel for years, he was their cricket coach & has photographed quite a few of their smachot. Seeing as my mum is a photographer, she too has known Herschel for quite a while and he photographed my sisters bat-mitzvah. My mum told me way before Yonah and I were even dating that he would be the photographer at my wedding. It was never a question for me & Yonah, we both knew Herschel would be our photographer and probably would have even worked the wedding date around his availability if need be.
Herschel has this magical way of just capturing moments – being truly in them with you but also making you feel like it’s only the two of you. There was not a moment throughout the wedding where I noticed a camera on me or in my face (barring the posed portraits) and I think that’s a testament to the true skill Herschel has.
Similarly, Yossi Shaked our videographer also had a wonderful ease to him, we hardly felt that we were being filmed and can’t wait to get our videos back.
Seeing as we had loads of family that couldn’t come we had a livestream going for about 5 hrs. our original streamer actually cancelled just a few days before the wedding and we had to scramble to find someone else. It all worked out though as the live-streamer was wonderful and we got to basically watch our entire wedding the next day.
Food and Cake
Our hall catered and full disclosure we ended up deciding on the menu the week before in quite a hurry so I don’t remember much of it. We did request to have sushi in our yichud room which was a great idea because other than that the only thing I ended up eating was a chocolate truffle and a piece of watermelon (yes I was very brave eating watermelon in a bridal dress).
Entertainment
I think there were a bunch of things planned but to be honest everyone just got so into the dancing that there wasn’t even time for any extras, we all just had a blast and didn’t really need any entertainment beyond music and dancing.
Favours
We really loved that our centrepieces were effectively favours, as it meant that nothing was thrown away or wasted. As I mentioned, everyone was truly so excited about them and as they are plants – if they are taken care of, they will be a constant reminder of our big day to our family and friends.
Extra details
Yonah and I chose to follow the custom where we don’t see each-other during the week leading up to the wedding. My 23rd birthday was actually exactly a week before the wedding so we spent the day together and then said goodbye. It was so emotional saying goodbye knowing the next time I saw him would be at the bedekken before he was to become my husband. It really made the bedekken one of the most incredible & emotional moments I think I’ll ever experience. Over the years I’ve always joked to Yonah that he *has* to cry at our wedding but I never actually expected him to. The moment we saw each-other we both just completely lost it and it was so sweet to see Yonah get so emotional throughout the bedekken and chuppah.
Yonah’s grandparents all moved heaven and earth to be here but his dad’s parents specifically did absolutely everything they could, and made it here at the very last possible second. Having them there and having his grandpa say a sheva brachot – not only made everyone cry again but was honestly special beyond words.
This moment was heavily documented so I’m sure it will appear in the highlight reel of images. The story behind it is that Yonah has got two first cousins who are both his age who he’s got an incredibly special bond with. One of them was able to make it here as he has Israeli citizenship but the other unfortunately could not. After the chuppah, someone brought over a phone open on a facetime call with his cousin. Once Yonah saw him he just sort of burst into tears. It was a super raw and beautiful moment and just showed how much the three of them adore each other
Our siblings did a flash-mob for us and sent it round to friends and family so they could all join in. It was so sweet to see our siblings dance together and meant so much to us.
We had two slideshows, one my mum put together which was a slideshow of all our big and small moments through the years. The second was a slideshow that Yonah’s cousin put together. He had all of our family and friends that couldn’t make it create a video holding up a mazal tov sign and stitched it together made it look like each person was passing it to the next. It was so special to be able to see all the people we loved who couldn’t be there.
We planned on making a speech but it never saw the light of day as things just ran late, but my parents gave a beautiful speech together & Yonah’s grandmother got up and said a sweet little poem for us
We sent out little packages to our family who couldn’t be with us on the day, cupcakes champagne etc. we even managed to get something delivered to my cousins in Norway. It was really important to us that our loved ones knew we were thinking of them & that they felt like they were part of our celebration.
Honeymoon
We would love to go on a honeymoon eventually to somewhere tropical, Maldives, Seychelles, Zanzibar Bali.
We did however stay in an incredible hotel after the wedding. We spent two nights in Cramim which is just outside Jerusalem, It was super quiet & relaxed and just honestly stunning. The food there is incredible and although we didn’t go for any spa treatments I know those are amazing too. We would 100% recommend going there and would recommend going for at least two nights.
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
- Choose your battles. Find your balance between standing up for yourself and for the things that are important to you and on the other hand, know when to compromise and let go. some things are just not worth creating a lifetime feud over.
- As hard as it is, try to believe that everything will fall into place and that even If it doesn’t you’ll be so happy you probably won’t notice. There were so many things that went wrong on the day that I was completely oblivious to because I was just on a high. My father in law breaking his foot the night before couldn’t even ruin my bliss. It all truly works out in the end, even if it only falls into place the day of.
- If you’re an anxiety prone individual don’t have too many people with you when you’re getting ready. Having a quiet morning really helped put me in the right mindset and meant that I arrived at the venue so calm. Put your mental state first, you don’t need to constantly be “switched on” for everyone all the time.
- And a practical piece of advice – for Israeli brides, book in for misrad hapnim in advance (for a status change, name change etc) it’s so hard to get appointments and it’s something you just sort of want to get done and out of the way.
Elinoa & Yonah’s little white book
Photography – Herschel Gutman Photography {offers 10% discount off any package to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Videography – Yossi Shaked
Venue & catering – Bezzela Ha Har
Bride’s dress – Michal Taylor
Bride’s shoes – ASOS
Bride’s accessories – Yael Jewelry
Groom’s attire – Next
Bridesmaids – ASOS
Hair + Makeup – Makeup & Hair by Tiferet
Flowers – Tenne Flowers
Band/DJ/Singer/Quartet – Tuxedos Band
Ketubah – Tzohar
Stationery/Invitation – Canva & Paperless Post
