London couple Olivia, a perfumer, and Sam, a software engineer, always knew they wanted to hold their Jewish wedding in Israel. When the war broke out shortly before their original wedding date of October 24, 2023, a lot of people encouraged them to rethink their plans – but the couple stuck it out, and, with the help of their wedding planner, Victoria Rosen Events (who they found right here on STG!), were able to hold their dream wedding in their favorite place – albeit 8 months later than originally planned.
Olivia and Sam dreamed of getting married surrounded by nature, and Ahuza Beit Hanan was the perfect spot. The duo fell in love with the venue’s chuppah – covered in grapevines and big enough to fit the crowd of 27 who gathered under it! – and opted to embellish it with delicate hanging crystals with roses attached and sheets of white fabric which blew delicately in the wind.
When it came time to choose a photographer, only one person would do:
the absolutely incredible Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Ronen Boidek. Ronen not only brings his professionalism but also his warmth and joy to every occasion. He is known for his artistic shots but also for his amazing candids that make you feel like you’re really back in the moment. His style is sharp and clean but completely authentic at the same time.
Olivia and Sam couldn’t be any more glad they forged ahead with their wedding in Israel, despite all the uncertainty. In Olivia’s words, “Being in Israel and having our wedding there will always be the best decision we ever made.” We’ll let her fill you in on the rest!
How We Met
Olivia, the bride: We met at secondary school in English class, and after a few years of close friendship we developed feelings for each other and started dating! After 8 years together, Sam surprised me on the beach in Tobago with my whole family there and proposed… definitely worth the wait!
A Wedding in Israel
We got married at the beautiful Ahuza Beit Hanan. Thanks to the bride’s parents who went out to Israel to look at venues and report back their findings! Being surrounded by nature was important to us. The chuppah space was especially important and when we saw the aisle and the view over the moshav I could perfectly imagine walking down to meet Sam under the chuppah there. It is a naturally beautiful venue and the trees that grow inside the hall make it feel extra special and authentic.
Theme + Wedding Planner
After we got engaged, Sam and I discussed what we wanted our wedding to feel like. We decided that having a warm, family feeling with a touch of glamour was a happy midpoint. We are both Ashkenazi but our mothers bring a Sephardi influence and we wanted our wedding to show that blend too. We knew we would need a wedding planner as we both lived in London at the time. We actually found our incredible wedding planner Victoria Rosen Events, through the Smashing the Glass website! It was only after reaching out to Vicki that she was able to secure Ahuza as our venue – before we had even hired her!
Vicki immediately came across as genuine and warm and focussed on making the day exactly as we would want it to be. Nothing was ever too much and she was always available to answer our questions and help us navigate through all the many options and vendors available to us! Also, Vicki helped us organise our Henna party, a day of organised tours for our guests, and a Friday night dinner, on top of running the wedding day perfectly with her lovely husband Ben!
As we were originally due to get married on October 24th, 2023, our wedding was postponed due to the war and it is thanks to Vicki, her amazing relationship with our vendors, and her own personal positivity, patience and kindness that we were able to have the beautiful wedding we dreamed of in our favourite place 8 months later.
A special touch that I knew I wanted to include – as perfume is such a large part of my life – was to create bespoke fragrances for our guests to enjoy, but I didn’t know how I could do it as I wasn’t living in Israel! Luckily our amazing designer, Natalie Mann, knew of Idit at I.D. Perfumes who not only could help me create the perfumes but also provide a bespoke perfume stall for our guests to create their own blends during the reception! Also, later on in the evening, there was a cigar and whiskey bar: a special request from the men of the family! Getting married under the shadow of the war, we also felt it was important to provide yellow hostage pins for people to pick up as they entered.
Invitation + Stationery
We had beautiful video invitations made using Kingbee designs with backing music from Yossi Azulay’s album. As we had multiple events planned we wanted to have multiple ‘pages’ and the easiest way was to have a video invite. We has beautiful images added and music to help create the excitement for the day!
Hair + Makeup
Marina Achari and Kristina Ayberman – the dream team! I found them on Instagram and absolutely loved their style, they are good friends so it was really amazing seeing how they work and collaborate together to bring the finished look together. Marina stayed with me until after the chuppah to do touch-ups but my make up didn’t move all night! Kristina created a beautiful floral headpiece for my hair and it was the best I have ever looked in my life!
Dress
I wore 2 dresses at my wedding. The main dress was from Pronovias and it was the 2nd dress I tried at the second shop I went to. It was a beautiful princess cut dress in ivory satin and was the only dress I tried where I really felt like a bride. I kept the long train, which in hindsight was not the best decision and actually meant I was looking for a second dress up until a few days before the wedding! I found it in a beautiful boutique in Neveh Tzedek, Rosabella, and the dress was exactly what I wanted – romantic, light, elegant with a fun rose detailing and perfect for dancing! For the chuppah I had a cover up made as I had a specific idea for what I wanted. With the help of Tatiana Porembova in her beautiful studio she made me the high neck lace coverup of my dreams!
Ceremony & Chuppah
The chuppah was the most important part of the wedding for us. The location of the chuppah was also important, as we wanted to be surrounded by nature and for the ceremony to be just before sunset. The chuppah at Achuza is absolutely gorgeous all on its own, covered in grapevines and it is also the biggest chuppah we have ever seen! This was perfect for us as Sam’s family have a tradition that all the siblings (and children) stand under the chuppah, not just the parents, so both families embraced this tradition and we all stood under the chuppah together: all 27 of us, plus 2 rabbis!
We asked our fathers and brothers to sing the Sheva brachot, and Sam’s brother-in-law, Hertzel – with his angelic voice – sang the ketubah reading in Aramaic, and it was a particularly special moment for everyone! The chuppah design was very important to me, as I absolutely love flowers but didn’t want to hide the natural beauty of the greenery already on the chuppah. I also wanted to incorporate some of my family’s Indian heritage as I always loved the Indian wedding alters.
I worked with Natalie Mann to create delicate hanging crystals with roses attached, and sheets of white fabric which blew delicately in the wind. It was so magical, and when I took a moment by myself before the wedding to stand under the chuppah alone I felt a huge sense of peace. This was exactly what I had dreamed of and Natalie transformed it into a reality. For our ketubah, we went through the wedding agency Tzohar to get our marriage certificate in Israel and got our ketubah done directly with them!
Our music choice
Music and dancing is one of our favourite parts of a wedding so we spent a lot of time choosing our musicians. Our number one selection for our chuppah singer was Yossi Azulay. Thanks to my parents, I grew up listening to his CDs every day, and when I introduced his music to Sam early on in our relationship, he also became a huge fan. When we finally got to meet him it was a dream come true! For our band we looked at all our options, but ultimately fell in love with the energy that Kolot Band bring and their absolutely incredible voices! We knew we had to have them for the Israeli dancing.
But Achuza has a strict live music policy, only permitting a DJ allowed after 9pm! Thanks to Vicki and the team at Kolot Band, we were able to negotiate 2 sets of live music and everyone was on their feet the whole time! They brought so much happiness, energy and fun to the wedding we couldn’t have been happier! Finally, we had the amazing DJ Adam Lev from Caliente. As soon as we met him we loved his humility and how much attention he pays to the audience to make sure they’re having fun, as well as shared music tastes. So many people complimented the music and DJ-ing, and we had people of all ages dancing up until the last song! We also had an incredible “live-on-DJ” saxophonist join us and it really elevated the music to another level! The team at Caliente were so professional and helpful throughout!
Flowers
All the table decorations were the brain child of our incredible designer Natalie Mann, who worked on my sisters wedding 10 years prior, and is still one of the most creative and unique designers I have ever met! Every table was decorated to perfection with different designs for different table shapes so it felt more natural and like a cosy fairytale more than a formal dinner. Each name place was hand written by my mother onto coloured crystal geodes sourced by my sister!
So many people told me how it was the most beautiful wedding decor they had ever seen, with each detail thought out thoroughly and an emphasis on light with the crystal candelabras and chandeliers over the dance floor, all to complement the naturally growing trees in Achuza. My bouquet was extra special and was a surprise for me: Natalie heard my ideas and created a gorgeous fragrant bouquet with lavender flowers and as it is one of my favourite scents and always relaxes me it was the perfect final touch to bring all my dreams together!
Photographer and videographer
Our photographer was the absolutely incredible Ronen Boidek. My sister hired him for her wedding 10 years prior and we have still never seen another photographer make such beautiful images. Ronen not only brings his professionalism but also his warmth and joy to every occasion. He is known for his artistic shots but also for his amazing candids that make you feel like you’re really back in the moment. He captured every moment we wanted and the emotions of everyone. His style is sharp and clean but completely authentic at the same time. We also did an after-wedding desert photoshoot a few days later and it was one of the most fun days we’ve ever had! Ronen is more like a family friend and has been an absolute delight to work with.
Our videographer was also found on STG! Nir Tenebaum is incredibly kind, discreet, and managed to capture all our favourite moments while still feeling organic. He gave us a beautiful short highlight clip just a few days after the wedding, and later on a longer highlights clip, before we received the full video. We also had a terrific magnet photographer from Trend54 (found by Vicki, of course) producing amazing shots of all our family and friends throughout the night, which were printed onto magnets that guests could immediately go and collect. We’d seen this before at previous weddings and really loved this at is gives guests instant mementos of the night that they can stick on their fridge.
Extra Details
A very special feature of our day was that Sam actually made our wedding bands himself! He learnt how to do it from his best friend that makes jewellery who showed him the process of carving and sizing before having them cast in a foundry. I will always cherish the extra thought he put in to make our ring exchange even more special. Dani boy cocktails created stunning and delicious cocktails for us and our guests to enjoy able to make espresso martinis, margaritas, lychee martinis and a selection of other drinks for our guests!
During the Israeli dancing Natalie and Vicki helped us find huge Israeli flags to wave as well as schtick to dance with! It really made everything so fun! We also has Achuza do an after-party schwarma stand which were a HUGE hit! It was the only food I managed to eat the whole night and was the perfect energy booster to keep us dancing a few extra hours! As mentioned earlier I created 3 bespoke perfumes for our guests to enjoy. A masculine, feminine and unisex scent! They were kept at the perfume stand for people to take as gifts. As I work as a perfumer it was something I wanted to do to thank all of our guests for making the effort to join us on our special day!
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
If there is something that means a lot to you and your husband then don’t let others influence that. We always knew we wanted to get married in Israel and when the war broke out we were told by many people that we shouldn’t do it. Being in Israel and having our wedding there will always be the best decision we ever made.
We consider ourselves incredibly lucky to have had the wedding of our dreams and will always be grateful for our vendors who made us top priority and made our day so special. It was not an easy decision but now we look back with gratitude for the choices we made. Your wedding is yours, forever, so make sure the important things don’t get lost in all the stress of planning!
OLIVIA & SAM’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography – Ronen Boidek
Videography – Nir Tenenbaum
Venue – Ahuza Beit Hanan
Planner – Victoria Rosen Events
Bride’s dress – Pronovias
Bride’s second dress – Rosabella
Bridal Alterations – Tatiana Porembova
Hair + Makeup – Marina Achari, Kristina Ayberman
DJ – DJ Adam Lev – Caliente
Band – Kolot Band
Chuppah Singer – Yossi Azulay
Cocktails – Dani boy cocktails
Stationery/Invitation – Kingbee designs
Designer – Natalie Mann
Magnets – Trend54
Bespoke Perfumes – I.D. Perfumes
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.
