There’s nothing we love like seeing a couple put their own totally unique stamp on their Jewish wedding – which is exactly what today’s couple, Candy and Sam, did! These two opted to get married on Halloween, and they let the date serve as inspiration for their gothic fairy tale-style day, low on pumpkins and skulls but high on haunted house vibes and tarot card styling.
Candy and Sam found the perfect partner to bring their vision to life in wedding planner Michelle Jacobs of Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Elegante by Michelle J. Michelle totally got their unique vision, and she introduced the pair to so many of their amazing suppliers – including Pippa Mackenzie Photography, who captured these incredible images. The duo can’t stop gushing about Michelle’s amazing service, throughout the planning process and on the day too.
The couple chose Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Rabbi Paul Glantz as their officiant, and they loved that he encouraged them to write their own personalized ketubah text – which they then read aloud from during the ceremony!
For entertainment, Candy and Sam chose Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Totem’s gospel choir and full live band, a choice that resulted in an awesome party. In Candy’s words, “The music was one of the huge successes of the night, during dinner we had a huge party break out and the band and guests went wild. People were dancing on chairs, people’s shoulders and even the windowsills. It was outrageous in the best way possible.”
Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Adam Nathan Catering provided the couple’s kosher-style catering, and he was incredibly flexible and easy to work with, despite having a lot of opinions to take into account! Candy and Sam loved the way he brought everyone’s ideas together to create a totally delicious meal.
There’s so much more to say, but we’ll leave the rest to the bride, who looked smashing in Sassi Holford…
How we Met
Candice, the bride: We met at The University of Leeds in our third year. Sam then moved down to London so that we could carry on seeing each other and we began our careers. Sam pursued a role in television and is now a TV Director launching a food and wine show whilst I am a Creative Director at a creative agency specialising in social media.
Venue
We picked St Pancras Renaissance Hotel London, because we loved the gothic feel and beautiful architecture inside and out. It made the perfect setting for our Halloween-inspired wedding.
Gothic Fairy Tale
From the get-go, we were keen to plan a wedding that felt unique and that would be a really fun party. We had a lot of friends getting married over the summer and so wanted to find a time that was slightly separate from that. When we saw Halloween was a Sunday we realised it was meant to be… growing up Halloween was a really big deal in our house with big parties every year and since getting together with Sam we had always made a thing of it.
Michelle Jacobs of Elegante by Michelle J, our wedding planner, totally got our vision, as soon as we explained it! No pumpkins or skulls, more of a gothic fairytale, drawing inspiration from haunted house and tarot card styling. Regularly working on art direction and mood boards for my own clients, I was so excited to bring the theme to life for our own wedding. Michelle and I found the right suppliers to make the vision possible, and honestly the final outcome was a dream come true.
Invitations / stationery
Upon choosing the Halloween inspired theme I was set on having stationary that tied it all together. From speaking to different illustrators in the wedding community we came across Suzanne Oddy Design who’s work and style was a match made in heaven for my ideas. Whilst the stationary drew on inspiration from tarot cards, and spell books, Suzanne was able to create something entirely bespoke.
Our order of service featured custom illustrations of the vintage cinema where we got engaged, our wedding venue and even our dog Penny. We also asked Suzanne to create bespoke tarot card table names and poison bottle labels for our favours. Our menus and name cards all worked alongside this, with cute added elements such as spooky brass keys and burgundy ribbons.
Hair + Make-up
My hair and makeup was done by the absolute dream team, Sarah-Louise Hair by Slo and Sophie Fleur Beauty! Not only did they make me look and feel amazing, but they were just the best to have with me on the morning of the wedding. Both of them were so incredibly calm but also made the atmosphere feel fun and laid back when it could have felt really stressful with 9 people getting ready in one room! The bridal party all looked gorgeous…I honestly don’t think I could have chosen anyone better.
A Sassi Holford Dress
My dress was from Sassi Holford, it was a mixture of the Vanessa and Verity styles with some bespoke tweaks to work with my shape. I am quite big on the top half and if I’m entirely honest I found dress shopping really stressful. As a size 12 it was difficult to find dresses that fit and so to choose something without trying on the finished product, I found it really difficult. Sanda at Sassi Holford was really great at helping me figure out what I needed and after what felt like a million visits to Fulham Road I finally had a dress that felt right for me!
Accessories
My maid of honour Sarah actually lent me her Sassi Holford Veil as my something borrowed which was super cute and Sam bought me matching Pearl earrings and a necklace from Lily and Roo.I was really keen to find something for my hair that played into the theme and ended up finding the most gorgeous moon and star hair clips on Etsy. I got so many comments on them as they were glittering away underneath my veil and everyone could see them whilst we were under the chuppah.
Shoes
My shoes were from Radley, they were gold block heels and were super comfy under my dress. I also had a pair of platform trainers from Daniel which I swapped the laces out for ribbons. I wore these later on so I could dance all evening without my dress dragging.
The handsome groom
Sam wore a tux from Reiss, which he looked super smart in! The jacket was velvet which really stood out against the groomsmens tuxes. He wore a burgundy pocket square to tie in with the flowers and bridesmaids dresses and his late grandfather’s cuff links.
Bridesmaids
I had six bridesmaids who each chose their own dress. I asked them to choose dresses in shades of burgundy that would work well together. Whilst there was a lot of black within the wedding colours I used burgundy in the flowers and stationary to add some colour, so the bridesmaids tied into this. We used moodboards and whatsapp to test the colours out but actually never saw them all together until the day! Luckily for me the girls absolutely nailed it and they looked amazing together.
Ceremony
The ceremony was actually our favourite part of the day. From the incredible chuppah to the music (Totem and the gospel choir) it was a dream come true. Walking into the room with my dad and seeing the stunning room, alongside the wonderful smiling faces and then Sam making his way down the aisle towards me was honestly the best moment of my life!
We were so excited to see each other that we couldn’t stop smiling and laughing during the ceremony, I think maybe we spoke a little too much because afterwards everyone asked what on earth we were talking about! Very us! But honestly we were just soaking it all in, the rabbi’s amazing words, the music, our family and friends and each other.
Ketubah
Rabbi Paul Glantz asked us to write our own words for the Ketubah and we were so glad we did. He helped put us in touch with the right people to translate our wording and then we sent it to a designer we found on Etsy. We read from our ketubah during the ceremony and it was a really special part of the ceremony.
Chuppah
Honestly, Jason at Artistically Twisted London is a creative genius. From the moment I met him and Alex I knew I could trust them. We spent time picking flowers and colours at the flower market and I gave them mood boards that showed the theme and style, but it was all them! I don’t think I could have imagined a more perfect Chuppah I had tried, I was blown away when I saw it for the first time walking into the ceremony room to get married.
Our Music Choice
We had Totem Choir and the Totem full live band, and it was just the most amazing party. We surprised Sam’s family with The gospel choir singing ‘You’ll never walk alone’ the Liverpool football anthem as they walked Sam down the aisle and it was a huge success (with them and the guests)! The bridal party then walked down the aisle to traditional Jewish songs and I walked down the aisle to ‘Boi Beshalom’ (my all-time favourite thing about Jewish weddings).
We made our entrance into the reception into Israeli dancing, which the band were phenomenal at. This was to make use of the time whilst the turnover was happening in the dining room and I’m so glad we did this as it set the party atmosphere for the rest of the evening.
We made a second entrance (extra I know) into dinner to ‘ain’t no mountain high enough’ and then had amazing gospel music from Sister Act throughout dinner. The music was one of the huge successes of the night, during dinner we had a huge party break out and the band and guests went wild. People were dancing on chairs, people’s shoulders and even the windowsills. It was outrageous in the best way possible. After dinner we did our first dance to ‘This will be’ by Natalie Cole and then Totem kept the party going all night!
Flowers
Artistically Twisted London brought the whole theme to life with the most incredible flowers. We had dark flowers such as chocolate cosmos and black dahlia paired with lighter colours such as nude roses and cafe au lait dahlias. It was honestly all stunning and so unique, I’ve never seen flowers like it.
My bouquet and the bridesmaid’s flowers were incredibly different which made them even more stunning! I had grey and nude roses with white anemones and chocolate cosmos. The girls had a hydrangea with gorgeous stems coming out of the top. (You need a picture to imagine it) The buttonholes were also super unique, with grass and herbs, paired with a single floret of hydrangea. Just amazing!
In regards to the tables, the detail that went into these also played a huge part in the theme. I decided I wanted to have black tables, using gold and reds along with our amazing flowers, candles and illustrated stationery to bring it all together.
Michelle found the linens from 88 Events in Scotland, cutlery from Duchess & Butler and the rest of the tableware from Options Great Hire who had also supplied our chairs and tables. Together we worked with Artistically Twisted to plan the exact look and feel of the tables beforehand and Michelle coordinated it all perfectly on the day.
Photographer
From the get-go photography and videography were very important to us – it was essential that we found talented people to document our day in a way that felt natural and candid but still with a beautiful and stylish treatment. Michelle, our planner, introduced us to Pippa Mackenzie Photography who we absolutely loved at the first meeting.
Pippa’s energy was exactly what we are looking for, her calm and positive vibe filled us with confidence, alongside her stunning work of course. It was Pippa’s incredibly unique “Life Book” offering that made the choice even easier. After the wedding, Pippa and her husband Ian create the most amazing album, which includes all of the little details (there were lots of details at our wedding) and documents the journey of the day from beginning to end.
The Life Book is unlike other albums, with all of the illustrations from our stationary woven throughout and big full-bleed images in a coffee-table style book that will honestly fill us with joy for years to come.
When the photos were ready we were invited to Pippa and Ian’s home for a really special viewing session, where we went through all the photos and choose what would go into our book. Unlike other photographers, Pippa gave us unlimited rounds of amends on the book before sending it off to print, which to me is incredibly important and meant we are over the moon with the final design.
Food and Cake
Michelle introduced us to Adam Nathan Catering who we chose to do the catering for us. We were keen to find someone who could create Jewish wedding style catering without needing the food to be kosher and Adam’s offering was very unique in this respect. Meeting Adam, we all got on incredibly well and we knew he would be a delight to work with. We had a delicious tasting where we made the decision to go ahead and then went on to choose our menus together. Our cake was by Tamo’s Treats.
Everyone in the family wanted a say on food, and Adam made it really easy to take everyone’s opinion into account. He was super flexible, bringing lots of ideas together to create the perfect menu. From Italian and Asian through to Israeli style food, we literally had something for everyone. And it was all DELICIOUS.
Entertainment
As well as the Totem full live band and their Gospel choir, we wanted to add a couple of things that would make the event feel really different. In line with the Halloween theme, we added an amazing makeup and face painting artist called Roseanna Velin. I gave her a mood board of ideas for Halloween makeup and she was able to transform all of our guest’s faces throughout the night turning our black-tie wedding into something truly spectacular. During dinner, she and her team painted the faces of all the band members, the bar staff and even our wedding planner, Michelle, really adding to the atmosphere of the evening.
It was always our intention to have a massive party after dinner and we were recommended to a great bar company called Jonny Cocktail Bar & Events that would run our bar and join in, to get the party started. Jonny’s bar staff are like no other, they get completely involved in the party, dancing along with the band both during dinner and then throughout the night behind the bar. They created incredible cocktails for us too, using dry-ice to add to the theme and really create a show for our guests.
Favours
Adding to the theme and the table design we decided to create little poison bottles for the tables. Suzanne, our stationery designer, made stickers for bottles which I filled with shots of a red cherry sour to really set the scene. These were placed on the tables for our guests to drink and were a little bit of fun for everyone to try.
We also had kippot for the male guests made by Hebrewear, which we put our names and wedding date inside.
Extra details
We added in lots of details and creative touches to our day to make it very personal to us but also great fun for our family and friends. We wanted to have a beautiful and emotional ceremony followed by one big party and that’s exactly what we got. Each of our carefully chosen suppliers and little details came together to make the event and I can genuinely say none of the thoughts went unnoticed.
We decided fairly early on, having booked the St Pancras Renaissance, that actually we did not want to use the big Hansom Hall as it felt very big and lacked the character we felt our theme needed. What we had fallen in love with, were the two smaller rooms upstairs, The Gallery and Ladies Smoking Room, that originally were intended just for our ceremony and drinks reception.
Together with Michelle, we came up with a plan to use just those two rooms for our wedding and it was the best decision. The ceremony was in the Gallery as always intended, and the drinks reception in the Ladies Smoking Room. But during the drinks reception, Adam Nathan’s team and Michelle’s team worked with the florists and Powerhouse Hire, our production company to transform the Gallery and set it up for dinner with long tables, florals, and beautiful linens, tableware and glassware.
Then after dinner, we headed back into the Ladies’ Smoking room where we partied with the band until the end. Using the smaller spaces made our wedding feel incredibly warm and loving, with a smaller group than originally intended (we had 119 instead of 250) due to capacity, we had only our very closest friends and family and it was perfect. My parents were worried some of the older guests would find the move from dining to dancing difficult but there wasn’t one guest who stayed sat down after dinner. Even our grandmas, danced the night away joining in with the party.
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
If you can afford a wedding planner, you should definitely consider booking one but make sure it is someone who gets you and your vision and you feel comfortable with as you spend a lot of time together. Michelle introduced us to so many amazing suppliers and totally bought into my vision. She had a team with her on the day who were all amazing and made sure everything happened as planned and that we were all looked after from first thing when hair and make up started, all the way through to the end.
CANDICE & SAM’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography – Pippa Mackenzie Photography
Wedding planner – Elegante by Michelle J {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Catering – Adam Nathan Catering
Band & Gospel Choir – Totem {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Rabbi – Rabbi Paul Glantz
Venue – St Pancras Renaissance Hotel London
Bride’s dress – Sassi Holford
Bride’s shoes – Radley
Bride’s accessories – Lily and Roo, Etsy
Groom’s attire – Reiss
Hair + Makeup – Hair by Slo , Sophie Fleur Beauty
Flowers – Artistically Twisted London
Drinks – Jonny Cocktail Bar & Events
Cake – Tamo’s Treats
Stationery/Invitation – Suzanne Oddy Design
Kippot – Hebrewear
Face Paint artist – Roseanna Velin
Production – Powerhouse Hire
Rentals & Décor – 88 Events, Duchess & Butler, Options Great Hire
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.