Who could do with a day at the beach right about now? You too? Well, we’ve got the next best thing for you: the fabulous waterfront Jewish wedding of Boston couple Paige, who works for a non-profit, and Ross, in venture capital. These two held their Jewish wedding right on the water in beautiful Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Cape Cod is not only a totally idyllic spot for dreamy photos (see Rebecca Love Photography’s wonderful images for evidence), but also a great spot for a “local destination wedding” for New Englanders, a place you can gather your loved ones together for a full-on weekend away from it all without long-haul flights. Which is exactly what Paige and Ross did.
During her wedding planning, Paige was also a member of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club, and we love hearing how much she benefitted from not only the support and amazing ideas shared in the community, but also the help finding vendors! Paige and Ross found their ketubah designer, Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Melanie Dankowicz, through the group, and they adore both the finished product and the experience they had working with Melanie.
We could go on and on about this elegant wedding – like, how chic did Paige look in Sareh Nouri?! – but we’ll turn you over to the bride for the rest of the story…
How we Met
Paige, the bride: We met at work! We actually didn’t talk much until we were sent on a work trip to Austin, Texas. During that time, we were able to have conversations while walking and that was it.
A Cape Cod Wedding
Our venue was Wequassett Resort on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. We both grew up spending time on Cape Cod and the islands, we also have spent a good amount of time together on the Cape with our families. The Cape was the perfect place to bring our friends and family together for the weekend. We wanted to have everyone together as much as possible throughout the celebration.
What ‘Smashing The Glass Brides Club’ Did For Us
To have a community supporting us through the important traditions and small ways to include everyone in our wedding was so helpful. It was a priority to have tradition and Judaism as a focus of our wedding and ceremony since this is the beginning of our lives as a Jewish family.
In addition to the support and amazing ideas shared in the Facebook page we got a lot of our vendors from the club. It was so nice to have lists of vendors and a variety of options we could choose from. Sometimes there can be a lot of pressure to pick the most popular vendor or do something because everyone else is. Brides Club never felt like pressure and allowed us to build our dream team.
Our kippot came from Kippot World – Ross had a lot of opinions on the design and they made it so easy to customize the kippot. We also got inspiration from a Smashing The Glass blog post for what to have printed on the inside!
Perfectly Planned
We worked with Allison from Elegant Engagements Cape Cod. She was so supportive of our ideas and always had the answers we were looking for! She helped us pull everything together and was always a trusted resource throughout the planning process.
Invitations / stationery
Fete Collection is local to us in Boston and I had wanted to work with them for a long time. I’m obsessed with stationery, so this was an important detail! We picked a vintage map of Cape Cod to put as an insert in our envelopes which guests loved. We also sourced vintage stamps that made us think of the Cape.
For our escort cards we decided to hand write a note to each guest. It was a big undertaking with 170 guests but was such a fun way to remind ourselves of who we invited and why we love them. It was also a great way to make sure we were connecting with everyone during such a busy day.
Hair + Make-up
I found Jenny Luu on Instagram and knew this was the person I’d want helping her and her friends and family get ready. Jenny is a great listener, calming with her work and presence, and does a great job at making you feel beautiful and like yourself at the same time.
A Sareh Nouri Dress
I went into L’elite in Boston knowing there was one dress I wanted to try on, that dress would be the one. While it was fun to try on lots of dresses there was no better A-line dress that was classic and with a bow like Sareh Nouri’s Brooklyn dress. As a lover of a classic shift dress the high neck was a go to style and the low back with the bow added fun and elegance to the dress.
Accessories
Since my mom wasn’t with me when I first tried on the dress we met in New York City to look together. When trying on the dress we looked at several veils, one with pearls looked great with the color of the dress and continued to enhance that classic look. I wanted a veil so we could incorporate traditions from the badeken. I added two small pearls to my hair so I could continue the pearl theme throughout the evening.
Shoes
Cinderella was my favorite princess growing up so the shoes were an important part of my dress. I fell in love with the Manolo Blahnik Hangisi heels that were ivory with a blue buckle. The touch of color and ode to Cinderella was perfect.
I had another pair of heels I planned to change into for the ceremony since it was on grass. But when getting ready I realized the thin heel on my original shoe wasn’t practical at all so I wore the blue Loeffler Randall shoes all evening!
The handsome groom
Ross had a custom tuxedo from 9 Tailors. He did a great job designing his own outfit and it was fun to see his personality come through in the details like the lining he picked for the inside of his jacket. Ross was thoughtful with each part of his wedding day outfit, especially when he chose bunny cufflinks. I love bunnies and early on Ross would send a picture of one when he saw one.
Bridesmaids
I had 7 friends and family in my blue crew. Since our wedding was black tie, I went with black as the dress/tuxedo color. Everyone was able to pick the dress or tuxedo they felt best in from any store. It was easy to have variety of styles, and everyone looked so beautiful with the flowers as a pop of color!
Ceremony
Since a good portion of our guests aren’t Jewish and had never been to a Jewish wedding it was important to us to be able to share the meaning behind our ceremony with them. Thanks to a great resource from the Brides Club with templates for ceremony books and descriptions of the traditions I modified this into language that matched what we were incorporating into our ceremony.
My friend Bailey helped bring the ceremony books to life with her paintings. She took the floral design from our Ketubah and made it into a border for our initials and the books pages. She also took some of the Jewish traditions like the 7 circles and painted little motifs we were able to add to the ceremony book. We loved being able to curate such a special piece of the ceremony.
Ketubah
We used Melanie Dankowicz for our ketubah. From a first glance of the website, we knew we loved her work and personal touches. It was a great experience to communicate over email with Melanie while we picked our text and finalized the design.
Chuppah
We wanted our flowers and chuppah to reflect where we were so we had a lot of local flowers and a mix of white and blue for color. We used Beach Plum Floral and they did a great job hearing all of our ideas and brining it to life. They also had some smart ideas for how to reuse flowers from the chuppah at other parts of the wedding, it was nice to see the flowers continue to shine throughout the wedding.
Our Music Choice
Ross and I both love Les Misérables. We each have special memories of the music with our families and it was the first show we saw together. We chose a few songs from the score for our ceremony music. Because all of the songs were from the one production everything flowed well and created a special moment.
Photographer
From early on in our wedding planning process we knew we’d love to work with Rebecca and Jon from Rebecca Love Photography. They are a married couple who take the most beautiful photos. Not only were we obsessed with their work, but we really liked them and their energy. We knew they were the people we’d want by our sides taking pictures during the big day.
Throughout the planning they were helpful with ideas and embraced all the ideas for photos we had including doing less photos with our bridal party as one group and rather taking a photo with each member of the bridal party plus their significant other. This helped us make sure we’d get those special photos early in the day.
Favors
Ross’s birthday was the day after the wedding so I wanted to do something special to celebrate him during the wedding. Ross didn’t want a cake, fireworks, or anything that would put too much attention on him. After thinking about it I decided that a cigar and candy table was the perfect way to add a birthday celebration and give our guests a way to keep the party going.
Ross’s grandpa had a candy and tobacco shop growing up and he has memories of picking a full size candy bar off the counter. I worked with my friend Bailey to paint the front of the store so we could always keep that memory.
PAIGE & ROSS’ LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography – Rebecca Love Photography
Ketubah – Melanie Dankowicz {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Wedding planner – Elegant Engagements Cape Cod
Venue – Wequassett Resort
Bride’s dress – Sareh Nouri found at L’elite
Bride’s shoes – Loeffler Randall
Groom’s attire – 9 Tailors
Hair + Makeup – Jenny Luu
Flowers – Beach Plum Floral
Band & Quartet Wilson Stevens
Catering – Wequassett Resort
Cake – Konditor Meister
Stationery/Invitation – Fete Collection
Day of printing – The Pink Polka Dot
Ceremony Book – Bailey Campbell Art
Kippot – Kippot World
Rabbi – Liza Stern
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.
