We are seriously obsessed with the Art Deco style of today’s fabulous London Jewish wedding. Lara, who works in HR, and Dan, who plays guitar in the band London Grammar, drew inspiration from the architectural stylings of their venue, hidden gem Hackney Town Hall (seriously, check out their ceremony space — we’re in awe of all those glass walls, exposed brick, and high ceilings). We’re obsessed with Rebecca Goddard’s beautiful, natural captures of the day.
Lovely Lara continued the Art Deco theme with her gorgeous beaded gown from Rosa Clara, and Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Blue Sky Flowers made the duo’s dream florals a reality, adding a bit of a wild side and an element of contemporary chic to the day.
Lara reports that one of the couple’s most enjoyable wedding planning tasks consisted of meeting wonderful Liz of Blue Sky Flowers at New Covent Garden flower market and walking around with her to pick their preferred flowers!
We’ll hand you over to the bride in a sec, but not before we make sure you’re aware that these two had one of the cutest interactive dessert station ideas we’ve seen yet: a pick ‘n mix stand, inspired by Lara’s favorite cinema snack, where guests could help themselves to an assortment of 16 types of sweets!
How we met
Lara, the bride: Dan and I have been together for 10 years, we met at Nottingham University in 2009. For us this day felt so special as all our friends are so close to us both, so it felt like one big family in the room.
An Art Deco Venue
We got married in Hackney Town Hall. We had both the ceremony and party in the same venue. For us, the venue was really important, we wanted somewhere that felt fresh and interesting.
When we went to visit Hackney Town Hall, it ticked all the boxes, it had gone through a huge renovation and looked incredible. It has a ‘art deco’ feel throughout, and most exciting for us was the prospect of being the first Jewish wedding to use the new ‘atria’ space where we had our ceremony, so that felt very special.
The ceremony space was an incredible glass room (although raining on the day, the sound added to the intensity of walking down the aisle!) with exposed brick, it was really beautiful.
Planned by the Bride and Groom
It was important for both Dan and me for the wedding to feel completely about us. The two of us planned the whole wedding ourselves which I feel very proud of. I was clear on the look and feel I wanted, and my suppliers were really understanding of this. As the venue had art deco features (e.g., lighting), we used this throughout in our logo, invites, gold cutlery, menus.
Hannah Sweeney from the venue helped us through the planning period with any questions and was so helpful on the run up/on the day – we couldn’t have done it without her! We decided to have a wedding coordinator for the day as we had so many different suppliers and we wanted to be stress free, it was the best decision.
We used Katy Cresner. She was fantastic and we couldn’t recommend her enough! We met with Katy a couple of times on the lead up to confirm all our suppliers/what we had planned on the day so that Katy could pick up with suppliers on the lead up week on our behalf.
DIY Invitations
Dan and I designed our own invitations using Adobe and used Printed.com to print them. We also designed our logo which was art deco in style and was used throughout our wedding stationery. We kept the wedding stationery and invites pretty clean with cream card and gold embossing.
Hair + Makeup
I wanted a pretty natural look as Dan doesn’t like me caked in makeup so it was important to find a makeup artist that understood this. I loved my end look. Lauren was amazing, she put the best product on my face, made me glow and had a light smoky eye that made my eyes pop. I had ‘modesty’ MAC lipstick that Lauren gave to me so I could top up through the night.
Zara from Portraits Bridal gave me the hair of my dreams! I wanted a take on ‘vintage waves’ and the end result was perfect. Both Lauren and Zara were incredible on the day, calm throughout, and made all the bride squad look amazing.
A Rosa Clara dress
My dress was from Morgan Davies Bridal, it was a beaded ‘art deco’ gown from Spanish designer Rosa Clara. I made changes to the dress so that it was backless. The service at Morgan Davies was great, they recommended a particular seamstress, Dee, who was very experienced in beaded dresses and did a great job.
Inspired Accessories
I bought some hair pins from Etsy not knowing how I was going to use them on the day. However, when Zara from Portraits Bridal was doing my hair, she suggested to put them around my ear. The end result was incredible! It looked like an ear cuff and completely made my whole look.
I brought earrings from V Jewelry, I absolutely LOVE them, I came across V Jewelry when I went to The Wedding Gallery. I am now completely obsessed with all their jewelry.
Jimmy Choos
When I dreamed of getting married, it was in Jimmy Choos, so it had to be done!
The handsome groom
Dan looked so handsome! He had a Paul Smith dark navy blue suit, Eton shirt, Drake’s tie and Tods shoes. I bought him ‘The Noir 29’ by Le Labo for his wedding scent.
Bridesmaids in Blue
It was really important to me that my bridesmaids felt pretty, sexy, and not frumpy! I found it difficult finding the right bridesmaid dresses but when we came across these we knew they were the one! My four bridesmaids wore Vera Wang by David’s Bridal tight fitted dresses with a cut out back and blue velvet on the front. They all looked incredible!
Surprise Entrance
Rabbi Mariner (previously rabbi at my synagogue) married my parents 35 years ago. I asked him to marry us and he agreed, so for me it was extremely special!
My brother Joshua sang the Sheva Brachot, he then added a sentence after each one to explain their meaning. It was so incredibly special to have him as part of the service. My late grandpa’s tallit hung above us at the chuppah, which was a special added touch.
For the ceremony, I came down in the lift, which no one was expecting to happen! On leaving the ceremony, the lift was waiting for us as we walked down the aisle, we got in the lift and waved down to our guests!
Married Life
We had City String Ensemble string quartet for our ceremony, they played us down the aisle and throughout the service. Dan walked down the aisle to ‘Married Life‘ which was the theme tune to ‘Up’, I walked down to ‘Here Comes The Sun’ by the Beatles. We had our string quartet play ‘Eshet Chayil’ and ‘Im Eshkachech’. Our first dance was to ‘Real Love Baby’ by Father John Misty, a song that Dan and I love! Our last song was ‘Come On Eileen’ in honour of our little French bulldog Eileen!
Blue Sky Flowers
I wanted my bouquet to feel loose, wild with some beautiful colours entwined. I had my heart set on having anemones and I was in luck as it was the right season.
Two weeks before the wedding, we met Liz of Blue Sky Flowers at the her studio based at New Covent Garden flower market. Together with our mums we walked round and picked the colours/types of flowers we wanted. It was an incredible experience and I learnt so much about flowers at the same time!
The flowers we choose were wild, loose style with roses, narcissi, anemones, ranunculus, hellebores and other seasonal flowers with lots of trailing jasmine and eucalyptus foliage. For the tables, we had a mixture of high and low displays with mixed foliage and flowers.
Liz was amazing, she was so calm, no question was ever too much, she was flexible and completely understood the look and feel we went for. I knew that I could fully trust Liz to deliver what we wanted.
Photographer
We were recommended many photographers but none that would capture the vibe we were after. We wanted the imagery to feel natural and un-staged. I found Rebecca Goddard on Instagram, and she met all expectations. All our pictures look so natural and beautifully lit, and all the best moments were captured. We were really happy with how they came out.
Videographer
We used Ayla from Wagtail Productions for our video. I came across Ayla on a blog and again, it was a risk as it was not a personal recommendation but when we met with Ayla she understood the look and feel we were after. Both Ayla and Beccy were amazing on the day and I can’t recommend them enough!
Pick ‘n Mix
We didn’t have a cake, but we had a pick ‘n mix station! We had a pick ‘n mix stand like from the cinema. I love sweets so we had a full stand which had 16 different types of sweets and a scoop to help yourself! We branded it “Rothman’s Pick ‘n’ Mix”.
DJ Live
We decided not to go for a band. Dan is a musician and for him he didn’t want to be cringing at any point during the night (!).
We were in safe hands with Wedding Smashers, they were incredible. We had a DJ called Dan and met with him before. We provided a Spotify playlist with the type of music we like, alot of funk, motown, old school pop.
The music was great the whole night, we were worried people wouldn’t dance without a band, however, with our incredible friends, everyone was on the dance floor the whole night! We also had Sally Potterton, Electric Violinist, as a ‘DJ Live’ set which really added to the music through the night and especially during the Israeli dancing.
Dreamy Tablescapes
We used Kalm Kitchen as our caterers. They were AMAZING! They make the most incredible food and presented in the most incredible way. I can’t recommend them enough. They layed the tables and ordered all our crockery etc, we went for gold cutlery, gold beaded charger plates, gold vintage style glasses, the tables all looked as I dreamed them!
For our dessert, we wanted to have something a little bit different so we had a sharing dessert! We added a fun element, by placing a golden ticket under one person’s chair from each table. My brother David, our incredible toast master, told everyone to look under their chair for the golden ticket. The lucky person then went to the end of the room, was given a branded ‘Rothman’s Kitchen’ apron, a chef’s hat and the sharing dessert for the table.
Whilst this was going on, ‘Pure Imagination’ by Gene Wilder from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was being played. It was absolutely hilarious and our favourite moment of the wedding to watch everyone’s faces!
Bride’s speech
Being with Dan for a decade, I couldn’t leave without a speech, I felt I had so much to say, I didn’t have any notes but spoke from the heart like I was ‘Marvelous Mrs Maisel’ and loved it.
Photobot
We had a photobooth called Photobot, it was slightly different to the norm. It was similar to the game ‘headsup’, when you went to the booth 4 different actions came up that you had to act out, it then created ‘GIFs’ at the end that people could download, it was so much fun looking through them the day after!
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
Plan the wedding you want and forget everyone else’s expectations. Make sure that you and your fiancà© are on the same page then nothing else matters. Try not to stress in the lead up, everyone commented on how relaxed I seemed, but if you know you’ve planned as much as you can, then you know you’ve done you’re best.
Lara & Dan’s little white book
Photography – Rebecca Goddard
Flowers – Blue Sky Flowers {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Bride’s accessories – Etsy and V Jewelry purchased at The Wedding Gallery {waives appointment fee to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Videography – Wagtail Productions
Wedding planner – Katy Cresner
Venue – Hackney Town Hall
Bride’s dress – Rosa Clara found and fitted at Morgan Davies Bridal
Bride’s shoes – Jimmy Choo
Groom’s attire – Paul Smith, Eton shirt, Drake’s, Tods and Le Labo
Hair + Makeup – Portraits Bridal
Bridesmaids – Vera Wang by David’s Bridal
String quarter – City String Ensemble
DJ – Wedding Smashers
Electric violinist – Sally Potterton
Caterer – Kalm Kitchen
Invitation – Printed.com
Thanks for sharing Karen! Lara & Dan planned the perfect celebration, so much fun!