We see a lot of chuppah designs here at STG. But today’s Jew-ish wedding’s got one that’s totally new to us: a feather chuppah!
Jay, a fitness instructor and head trainer at F45 Camden (and one of our wonderful real blogging brides), and Tom, who works in recruitment at Facebook, wanted something their guests hadn’t seen before, and we’re pretty sure they succeeded. The wild feathered top paired with the clean translucent columns make for such a striking look.
The chic style – not to mention the emotion and fun of the day – was captured perfectly by Paul Toeman Photographers and Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Denee Motion on video. Watching their fab trailer makes us feel like we were right there in the thick of it.
And this is one wedding we truly do wish we could have attended. Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor the Function Band knows how to throw a party – the couple reports that guests packed the dancefloor all night, and that even months after the big day people are still telling them how awesome their band was. Bradley of the Function Band also served as the day-of coordinator, and managed the day so that Jay and Rom could sit back and relax.
Now over to the bride…
How we met
Jay, the bride: We met on Tinder just over 5 years ago, I don’t think either one of us thought that with the swipe of a finger you could find your soulmate but for us it worked. We are an amazing team, support each other through anything!
A London Wedding
We got married at The Hyatt Churchill Hotel in London. We looked at various different venues both in London and surrounding areas, not really sure what we wanted at first. When I visited the venue, the main ballroom just worked, I had a good feeling about it but didn’t want to say too much to Tom as I wanted to get his honest opinion – so we went back this time together and everything he had to say about the venue were the same thoughts running through my head – so a venue was agreed!
A Sophisticated Party
I wanted our wedding to be personal to us both, I wanted our wedding to be classy, elegant and sophisticated in style and the best party any of our friends and family had been to. We looked at event planners and event co-ordinators, but I am a bit of a perfectionist and wanted to be involved with the whole process. My mum is amazing too and was a real help.
We had an event co-ordinator on the day, Bradley from the Function Band – they did the production of the whole event and managed the whole day from start to finish, letting me sit back and relax and enjoy!
Elegant Invitations
I was very clear on things I did not like but really struggled to say what I wanted, we met with various invitation suppliers and I had spent many hours scrolling Pinterest and Instagram – my mum was starting to pull her hair out and saying I may need to compromise but I was determined to find an invitation that ticked all my boxes.
Michael from Simcha Invitations met my mum and me at my flat, lugged his two suitcases up my 3 flights of stairs and I thought please have something in there I like.
After looking through all his catalogues I still hadn’t found “the one” … I had the look across the table from my mum, Michael caught the look and honestly he must have had the patience of a saint! He asked me questions we looked at different fonts, cards, textures he managed to do it and helped me to create the perfect invitation, and when they were received by our guests everyone loved them and used the words sophisticated and elegant to describe them, which is exactly what I was hoping for!
What ‘Smashing The Glass’ did for us
STG was such a help in the planning, I had no idea where to even start when I first got engaged. It was great reading about other brides and their stories! The blog is great with heaps of videos, images for inspiration but I found the private Facebook group the biggest help. It was always the smaller things that you weren’t sure of there was always someone in the group there to help give advice or point you in the right direction, you really feel like a part of a community!
A Sharon Cunningham Dress
My dress was designed and made for me by the fabulous Sharon Cunningham. I visited a few bridal shops no idea where to start, I had seen a couple of dresses I liked but none that were ‘the one’.
One afternoon my mum rings me and says I have the contact details of a wedding dress designer, I was unsure whether I wanted to go down this route but kept an open mind, a couple of weeks later I visited Conde Nast Bridal Show with my mum and my mother in law, and by pure coincidence Sharon had a stand there. We started chatting and the connection was instant.
I knew I wanted Sharon to design my dress, I had my first appointment from her studio based in her home in London, I showed her various pictures of things I had tried on what I liked and disliked and within a couple of hours I was walking out with the biggest smile on my face, the dress of my dreams had been designed. It was a very clean cut dress, a fabulous collar, amazing hand beaded waist band and an A line skirt – everybody that knows me thought I was going for tight and fitted!
A Floor-length veil
I realised in the process of organising our wedding I had a lot more traditional values than I had originally thought, I wore a floor-length double veil – it was very plain, and the simplicity just worked perfectly with my dress.
ASOS Shoes
Shoes – this was the one thing I really struggled with! I wanted a chunky block open toe heel which I thought wouldn’t be too difficult to find. I am a fitness instructor and spend my life in trainers so I wanted a pair of shoes that were comfy but also looked good. Nor did I want to spend a fortune as I just don’t wear heels very often! I found a pair from ASOS in the end, they were everything I was looking for – and as it turned out you couldn’t even see my shoes anyway!
Hair + Makeup
Tom, my now husband (still not used to saying that!), doesn’t like me in too much make up or my hair ‘different’ as he calls it, i.e. my full head of curls. I wanted to still look and feel like me and I also wanted Tom to still recognise me when I walked down the aisle.
A school friend is a makeup artist and she knows me, I had a trial with her and she just got it spot on. I didn’t even have to say what I wanted!
My hair was done by Sarah-Louise Okin of Hair by Slo, I had seen her name come up on other STG blog posts and Instagram and liked her work, for me I also wanted the people working with us on the whole wedding were people I wanted to be around on our special day, when I met Sarah for my trial we chatted away like old friends. I had my hair half up half down, with extensions, I love big hair and lots of volume and just felt like a more glamours me!
The handsome groom
I always wanted Tom to wear a velvet jacket so he could stand out a little from our black tie dress code, he was so against it at first but we got there in the end and he had his suit tailor made for him at Anthony Formal Wear, a gorgeous navy velvet jacket with a dinner shirt, trousers and bow tie. I went with him to all his fittings, he couldn’t be trusted without me on this one and we had our initials and wedding date embroidered on the inside. He looked truly handsome!
Bridesmaid in Navy
I had just one bridesmaid, my sister – I wouldn’t say we had a theme but we started to bring the colour navy into the neutral and metallics colour scheme for our winter wedding. I wanted Annie to wear navy to match Tom, she had a beautiful navy lace cap sleeve floor length dress with button detail running down the back, she looked truly elegant, we all call her Pips after Pippa Middleton with her beautiful updo and floor length dress, she did not disappoint – just stunning.
A Feather Chuppah
All I wanted was wow, I wanted our guests to walk into our ceremony and see something they hadn’t really seen before. I am not a very floral kind of girl and after spending hours trawling the internet I came across some ideas with feathers, working with Liz from Funky Flowers brought my vision to life, I wanted the top of the chuppah to be a little over the top and big and I wanted the 4 sides to be kept simple and chic!
A Jew-ish Wedding
With Tom not being Jewish but us having a Jewish ceremony we spent a lot of time with our rabbi, Rabbi Warren Elf, in the run up so it made the ceremony so much more personal on the day.
I wanted to make the day very personalised to us, I also wanted the guests to have everything they may need on the evening available on hand. For the ceremony we had an order of service that explained our whole ceremony – we had many guests who were not Jewish nor had attended a Jewish wedding so wanted everyone to have an understanding of what was happening.
Bridal Mashup
Choosing our songs was one of the last things we finalised, I wanted them to be just right so we spent many hours listening to various things!
I walked down the aisle to Ed Sheeran/Dodi, I wanted to walk down to something in Hebrew, there is something so special when you hear that sound, however, not being overly religious I wanted it to be something that didn’t feel false, so having a mix with a song which I loved, when I heard the mash up, it made the hairs on my arms stand up, I knew that was the song!
We exited the ceremony to ‘Happy’ by Pharrell, I wanted it to feel like a party straight away, the band popped up after the big ‘Mazel Tov’ and the guests were all up on their feet dancing. We entered dinner to ‘Crazy in Love’ by Beyonce, I have always been a huge B fan so it was only right to come in ready to party, even breaking out to a solo booty popping performance (I felt that look from my girlfriends, as if to say you have been doing this your whole life – you have to break out the dance now – so that is what I did!).
When it came to our first dance, we really did not know where to start – we came across a version on youtube of ‘Is This Love’ originally by Bob Marley and both fell in love with the song, the words and how it sounded so different to the original!
Flowers
As I mentioned previously, flowers were not really my thing but I still wanted something amazing. We incorporated the feathers into our table designs and bouquets. The table centre pieces, were a mix of tall clear glass cylinders with feathers and sprayed gold palm leaves with a band of hydrangeas around the base and we had a lower design filled with floating candles to alternate thought the tables. Our bouquets were a big bunch of hydrangeas with small white feathers all the way round. Liz from Funky Flowers got my idea from the get go, kept it elegant and classy!
Photographer and videographer
I cannot quite recall how I came across Paul Toeman Photographers work, but when I saw some of his images I knew he was the guy I wanted. I loved how he always captured the fun, the ‘other’ moments from the day and he was an absolute dream to work with and made us feel so relaxed on the day.
Paul works closely with Denee Motion, we trusted Paul with our photography and trusted his recommendation for capturing the day on video. Denis and his team were amazing, I didn’t even notice them on the day but they were there right in the thick of it all capturing those special moments!
No Cake, No Problem
We decided against a cake, to be honest I just wasn’t that fussed about having that cutting the cake moment and photo – it wasn’t until afterwards our friends were like we just realised you didn’t have a cake, hoping that was a sign they were having too much fun to notice it on the night! The venue catered our wedding, the food was exceptional. We went for a non offensive menu. The food tasting was probably one of the highlights of wedding planning!
Function Band
We used the Function Band – when I met with Dan and Bradley the relationship was instant and we just clicked, they got my vision, they understood I wanted the best party our friends and family had ever been to and they delivered. I had every bit of trust in them on the day! They also ran the whole production of the night – this took a big pressure of us.
Our guests were on their feet the whole evening, from before I walked down the aisle to the early hours of the morning. We wanted a feel good environment, everyone sang and danced the night away. I also had personalised slippers with our initials come out later on in the evening, so us ladies could continue to party without the sore feet.
Still months on, people come up to me who have seen clips from the wedding and say the band you had looked amazing – and they truly were. We had a meeting and said some of our likes and dislikes but the rest we left to Dan and his team, and they absolutely smashed it!
For your happy tears
On arrival we also had personalised packs of tissues that were handed that were personalised with ‘These are for your happy tears, Love Jay & Tom x’. The bathrooms were stocked with deodorants, plasters, gum, hair clips, hairspray, safety pins etc. Also we had personalised with our initials drink napkins and stirrers – just to add that little extra touch.
Bride’s speech
It wasn’t a speech as such, nor was I planning on saying a few words, however once a microphone was in my hand it was rude not too. I said a few words at the very end of the night just thanking everyone for sharing the best night of our lives with us, I had my husband by my side and it was the perfect end to the night!
Honeymoon in Asia
Just after Christmas we went on our honeymoon, about 4 weeks after our wedding. We did a three week trip around Asia. We started in Hong Kong, then to Vietnam starting in the North in Hanoi then heading South to Ho Chi Minh, flying onto Thailand with one night in Bangkok then heading to the sun and sea in Phuket, staying on the island then heading out to a tiny island called Koh Yau Noi before heading home!
It was such an amazing adventure filled with so many great memories. We planned the whole trip ourselves, we both love to travel and are both big fans of Asia. I used to live in Hong Kong and have always been keen to go back and show Tom so this was the perfect time to do it. Tom is amazing at planning holidays, we had some unforgettable experiences but one of my biggest highlights was seeing Ho Chi Minh on the back of a Vespa! A trip of a lifetime that I will never forget.
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
My biggest piece of advice is enjoy the day, I can honestly say hand on my heart I loved every second of my wedding. I spent the time in the lead time planning the day of our dreams quite meticulously, I had an 18 month engagement so I wasn’t under any immediate time pressures so I could enjoy the process step by step which then meant on the day I could just be present in the moment and soak every little thing in!
Jay & Tom’s little white book
Photography – Paul Toeman Photographers
Videography – Denee Motion {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Band – Function Band
Venue — The Hyatt Churchill Hotel
Bride’s dress – Sharon Cunningham
Bride’s shoes – ASOS
Groom’s attire – Anthony Formal Wear and Reiss
Hair – Hair by Slo
Flowers — Funky Flowers
Invitation – Simcha Invitations
Rings – Regency Jewellers
Decor –The Perfect Wedding Shop
Thank you for sharing our video guys. Amazing wedding and images! Denis and team x