Today’s Jewish wedding is so unbelievably, jaw-droppingly, breathtakingly gorgeous, it’s hard to believe it wasn’t the couple’s Plan A all along. But believe it or not, bride Ganga, whose work combines counseling, astrology, ritual, and ecological design to support clients through change and loss, and Seth, a strength and conditioning coach who draws on a similarly interdisciplinary background, pulled together this intimate, impromptu wedding in the bride’s mother’s back garden after their original plans were waylaid by coronavirus.
These two had a bigger wedding at an eco-retreat all lined up – and they still plan to hold that bash, with their original lineup of vendors, next year – but when the pandemic hit, they changed their plans to this pared-down backyard celebration with a focus on spirituality.
The couple, who are both training to be inter-spiritual ministers, poured themselves into developing a ceremony that felt deeply authentic to them both, from their circling around each other to the Adon Olam, to adapting the seven blessings to reflect poems and blessings from many traditions to reciting their own vows.
We also love the thought they put into selecting their gorgeous Gingko Spiral ketubah by Temma Gentles from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor ketubah.com: the ginkgo has been around for over 300 million years, meaning it’s a true adaptor and survivor – just what we all need to be in these uncertain times.
And would you believe these exquisite photos were shot by a first-time wedding photographer? Ganga’s bridesmaid – the only one who was able to make it in the end – just happens to be mega-talented photographer Thais Aquino, who’s clearly a natural at weddings!
Now over to Ganga, the bride…
How we met
Ganga, the bride: We met through my best friend who had been one of Seth’s students, on New Year’s Eve 2016. The first thing I remember asking Seth was what his intention for 2017 was, to which he replied, “just to be love.” That immediately told me we were on the same page in our approach to life, and within a few weeks we were learning how to be love, together.
A Backyard Wedding
We were going to get married at ChoZen, an Eco Retreat Sanctuary in Sebastian, Florida that I’ve been involved with since it opened. It’s an incredibly sacred property, and when we realized our plans would have to change dramatically due to the pandemic, they were still open to working with us to have a special small ceremony that day, but ultimately we decided to simplify and have the wedding in my mother’s garden, which is also a very magical place to Seth and I.
We’re still planning to have our ChoZen wedding with all of our guests, hopefully around our one year anniversary!
Spiritual Vibes
Our decor choices included a deep burgundy and gold color scheme, softened by dusty roses and muted shades of orange and apricot. Hexagons were a detail touch we were carrying through from our chuppah, to Seth’s shoes, my earrings, and table numbers.
We worked with the brilliant South Florida creative production team at Culture Climax to support the whole big day, from event coordination to DJing, but when our plans changed due to the pandemic, our focus moved inward to ask ourselves what was truly most important to us in this experience together.
Seth and I are both deeply passionate about religion and spirituality, so if anything, the unifying theme of our wedding was all that is sacred to us. Every decoration, every word, every single element of this wedding was chosen because it reminds us of the sacred nature of all things. Together, we’re completing an in-depth two year long training to be interspiritual ministers, to support people’s relationship with the sacred no matter what their background or beliefs.
Creating rituals is a big part of that training, so we really poured ourselves into developing a ceremony that felt deeply authentic to us both, and which would also be genuinely transformative for all of our loved ones attending.
We understand that a wedding isn’t just about the couple, it’s about the many different families and communities that come together to support the couple in these huge commitments we make. With the extremely condensed guest list, that experience of collective initiation was not lost; it was made stronger and more beautiful. I feel so much closer to everyone who attended, and truly feel that we are a family, closer than ever now.
An Etsy Dress
My dress was not a huge priority for me, and I wanted to put more of our budget toward food and flowers, so I decided to get creative and pull together a dress from separates on Etsy that felt authentic and comfortable for me, and which would allow me to rewear and repurpose some of the pieces for years to come. My skirt and dupatta (veil) were from different shops based in India, and my top was from SerenityWear, a silk atelier in Russia.
My veil was actually a dupatta from India which is a beautiful piece of fabric that can be worn in infinitely creative ways. This was important to me as I was raised on a Hindu Ashram, and having a veil that felt both immensely sacred, and which I could wear again and again in different kinds of ceremonies was important to me. The silk top is gorgeous and so comfortable, and I know I can wear it whenever I want to feel the magic of the wedding day again.
The skirt I had custom made for me, with added layers of fabric, and I plan to deconstruct it, dye it with natural plant dyes, and create meaningful art with it over time. There’s a lot of fabric there, and I see it all as a beautiful blank canvas that I get to play on.
The handsome groom
In addition to a merlot suit, Seth wore his grandfather’s tallis, a beautiful gold kippah from DesignKippah based in Australia, and these absurdly amazing black velvet shoes with a gold hexagon pattern on them. I absolutely love hexagons, as they are symbolically connected with so many sacred geometric patterns that are important to us, including the merkabah, the flower of life, and of course, the superorganism intelligence of honeybee communities.
What made me most joyful, however, was the confidence and strength that I felt from him as he stood under the chuppah waiting for me. He has known since the moment we first met that he was here to support me with his quiet strength, and the moment I turned that corner in the garden and saw him standing there, I felt that strength with me more powerfully than ever.
Bridesmaid
The only bridesmaid that was able to make it was my amazing friend Thais. She’s a brilliant photographer from Brasil, and she had been travelling in India with her partner until just before the virus reached pandemic status. I had asked all of my bridesmaids to wear shades of dusty rose to muted gold to play off the warm colors of Seth’s suit, and so she had custom garments made for her by a tailor in India a few months back. She was absolutely gorgeous and added such a sweet feminine springtime feeling to the day.
Chuppah
The chuppah cloth was one of the first elements of our wedding that came together after we were engaged. We have a lifelong family friend, Rita Bernstein who is a masterful silk artist. Years ago she made a line of chuppah cloths for a synagogue in New England, and she kept her favorite one here in Florida, folded up in storage, waiting for the right moment to come out. She gifted it to me last fall, and the moment she handed it to me was the moment I began feeling like a bride.
I am fascinated by the symbolism of hexagons. They show up in amazing ways in nature and throughout human history as a structure that not only is stable and spacious on its own, but which can tessellate with so many others securely and without any wasted space, as in a beehive. Because a chuppah is meant to symbolize a home, and because we want to not only build a home for ourselves, but cultivate community for the sake of a more regenerative future, a hexagonal chuppah felt like a natural choice to us.
Ceremony
Every part of the ceremony was unique to us, from our circling around each other to the Adon Olam, to our adapting the seven blessings to reflect poems and blessings from many traditions sacred to us, to our developing our own vows for the exchanging of rings, in which we said,
“With this ring, I take you to be no other than yourself. In the eyes of all creation, and with the witnessing of our family here today, I consecrate this moment as the beginning of a marvelous adventure. I promise to care for you, body, mind, and spirit, no matter how hard life becomes. I promise to grow and evolve alongside you, and will always seek to find more ways to love you.”
Ketubah
Our ketubah is from ketubah.com, and is the Gingko Spiral in gold by Temma Gentles. We chose this ketubah by gathering all of the art that we’ve collected together over the years and finding a ketubah that felt harmonious with what we already have. We have many pieces with warm gold and metallics, and also a lot of mandalas and sacred geometry pieces, so this ketubah was an obvious pick.
The presence of the Gingko leaves in the design was an added bonus to me, as this ancient tree is a powerful holder of an ancient, primordial life force. There are fossils with this same leaf print from 300 million years ago, which means that these trees have demonstrated adaptation and strength through massive planetary changes.
At this time of tremendous collapse and regeneration, Gingko carries lessons and medicine that all of us can learn from as we create a more healed world. That is the essence of the intention with which Seth and I married one another, and every day when we look at the ketubah, we are reminded not only of our commitment to one another, but to Tikkun Olam at every scale.
Our music choice
For the processional, we played ‘I Love You’ by the Hanumen. It’s a love song to everything and everyone, and was a way to fold in the sacred names of Sita and Ram, to pull in the Hindu traditions that I was raised with.
When we did the seven circles, it was to the ‘Adon Olam’ by Moshav. Seth recites the Adon Olam countless times a day, and that version is just incredibly beautiful.
‘Love is My Religion’ by Ziggy Marley was our recessional because, well, love is at the heart of everything we do!
We’re planning to keep that formal ‘first dance’ moment until the big wedding re-do next year with all our friends and family attending, and the plan is to dance to ‘Tus Pies’ by Nahko Bear. The duet version with Ayla Nereo gives me chills every time, and maybe by then they’ll have recorded a studio version together we can dance to!
Flowers
I have a deep passion for flowers and was always planning to do them myself. When we do the big ceremony next year, I’ll go all out with my original plan of magical hanging floral installations throughout the property and on the chuppah. For this version, I cancelled most of those orders and kept the small order from fabulousflorals.com, which included gorgeous combo roses, white ranunculus, white and blush anemone’s, light pink tulips, peach sweet peas, styphia, snapdragons, and burgundy hellebores.
My mother’s garden is bursting with beautiful plants, so I mixed the purchased blooms with foraged foliage to create a wild style that felt so authentic and natural to me I could hardly believe it!
I spent the whole day before the ceremony arranging my flowers while taking a workshop on zoom with my mentor Mirabai Starr who infused the day with the wisdom of so many female mystics and prayers to the Shekinah, and I felt that the flowers carried the essence of those prayers with them through the whole ceremony.
Photographer
Our original photographers Next Best Men are amazing, but we decided to postpone our contract with them to the big wedding next year, and we were blessed to have my bridesmaid Thais Aquino with us who is one of the most exceptional photographers I know. She and I have created a lot of art together, and so even though this was the first wedding she’s ever shot, I completely trusted her to just be in a creative flow for the ceremony, and we were absolutely blown away by the magic she created!
Food and cake
Our caterer was Sun Market Sauce Co. in Vero Beach, and even with personal and global circumstances changing wildly every day, they came through with exactly what we needed for our small family brunch just after the ceremony. Most important to me was having tiramisu as our afternoon pick me up ‘cake’ and I don’t know if it was just because I was so happy, or if it was the love poured into the mascarpone, but it was the best tiramisu I’ve ever had in my life.
Four-legged friends and Baby News
It was very important to us to have our schnauzer daughter, Rebbe, with us on that day, and she was perfect the whole time! My mother’s dog Simbha was also with us, as the garden is his domain, and it was so sweet to have our four legged family with us.
The day was blessed in another interesting way- three different family members or friends of ours discovered they were pregnant on the morning of our wedding! That news just kept adding a sense of magic, healing, and beautiful possibility to a time in which it’s easy to slip into fear and constriction. I can’t wait to meet those little beings when they come earthside, and I will always remember that it was on our wedding day that their existence came into our awareness!
Honeymoon
A few years ago we led a retreat at Playa Viva, a regenerative resort in Mexico that gives back more than it takes from the local ecology, economy, and culture. We absolutely fell in love with Playa Viva while we were there, so when it’s safe to travel again, we’re going to head back to rest, explore, and cool down with an endless supply of mango paletas. Then we’ll go on a textile, chocolate, and mezcal tour of Oaxaca where a family friend has a home and close relationships with local artisans.
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
As you prepare for your wedding, allow this time to really be a sacred time of personal development. Check in every day with your inner child self, and ask her what she needs to feel safe and seen and loved. There were a lot of frustrating moments and disappointments on the path to this wedding, and sometimes I felt angry, disempowered, dishonored, and really hurt.
When I located the sources of those feelings inside of myself as feelings I felt as a little girl, I was able to send love and gentle support to that part of me, which allowed me to access the strength and wisdom of who I am now. Whenever I did that, I was able to see the blessing and the lesson in whatever it was that was frustrating me, and eventually I would return to love.
Know that every challenge is an opportunity to determine how you will handle difficulties in your marriage for the rest of your life. Talk to your partner, make choices together, express your fears and insecurities, really use this as a time to really level up in how you show up to support and empower one another.
If you feel exhausted, burnt out, or overwhelmed, that is really understandable. The expectations placed on brides can be absurdly stressful, and even professional event producers can feel overworked by planning their own wedding. Turn to your community. Express how you’re feeling, ask for help.
This is a time in which you are undoubtedly the leader, but healthy leadership involves delegating. Know what aspects of wedding planning will bring you joy, and ask for support in every other area. You’re not in this alone, you have people who love you, ask them to step in!
GANGA & SETH’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography – Thais Aquino
Ketubah – ketubah.com {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Bride’s dress – Etsy
Bride’s accessories – Etsy
Groom’s kippah – DesignKippah
Flowers – fabulousflorals.com
Catering – Sun Market Sauce Co.
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