We are totally and completely in awe of Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Claudine Hartzel’s exquisite photos from today’s gorgeous Jewish wedding. The way she captures the emotion, the details, and of course the Israeli dancing (there are some seriously unmissable action shots below!) – Claudine’s work never fails to bowl us over.
Another thing that consistently gives us the warm and fuzzies? When a couple prioritizes incorporating family into their big day. Danni, who works as a fundraiser for a Jewish charity, and Sam, an accountant, did just that, from having their parents help out with the planning to including as many family members as possible in their procession to the chuppah.
Both the bride and groom’s fathers drive black cabs in London, and in honour of their dads the pair opted to incorporate black cabs as a motif – love how they included a little black cab on their invitations!
And we love that Danni opted to pair her Stella York dress with her mum’s veil – which, with a few alterations, fit seamlessly into her bridal style. We’ll let her take things from here…
How we met
Danni, the bride: Before getting married we had been together for six and a half years. We met while at university, Sam came up to Leeds to surprise my housemate (and bridesmaid) and we got chatting… a few months later we met again and started going out. We’ve been together ever since.
A London Wedding
We got married at The Waldorf Hilton in Aldwych. We were engaged for just over a year and a half before getting married and we started looking at lots of different venues – both countryside and London.
We came across the Waldorf after a friend mentioned it as we hadn’t heard of it before. We went to view it and fell in love with the ‘Palm Court’ where we had our chuppah. We booked the venue a few weeks after that first viewing.
We didn’t have a wedding planner; alongside our parents we did it all ourselves.
Green and Rose
Our wedding didn’t have a theme as such, but we tried to make the groomsmen buttonholes match the bridesmaid flowers. Our colour scheme was a pale green with rose coloured and cream flowers.
Classic Invitations
We wanted something classic for our invites so they were an off-whiteish colour with a pearl effect. It was easy to read and didn’t have any extra/ unnecessary frills. The only kind of personal touch we added to our invite was a small taxi in the bottom corner as both of our dads are London black cab drivers and we wanted to acknowledge that.
Hair + Makeup
I wanted to look like me, but me on my wedding day. I went with people that were recommended and people I had seen at other weddings.
My makeup was quite natural and my hair was half up half down, I wanted extensions to help add volume to my hair. I had a trial for both hair and makeup and worked with my hairdresser for the best style and one that suited my dress. I also wanted to trust them as they are the experts!
A Stella York Dress
My dress was from Brides of Berkhamsted and was by Stella York. I went to about 9 different shops before going to this one after my mum’s colleague recommended it. I went with a completely open mind and tried on every possible style! I knew that my dress was the one when my mum cried (cheesy I know but it’s true). We went back with my mother in law and bought it there and then. I chose my dress a year to the day of our wedding.
Accessories
I bought my hair piece from Etsy, my mother in law bought me my earrings as a gift. Sam bought me a necklace as a gift and I was given it the morning of the wedding. It was three engraved rings. One saying ‘Sam’ one ‘Danni’ and one our wedding date ‘25/03/2018’.
I chose to wear my mum’s veil, she had kept it in the loft for over 25 years and after a deep clean, press and a few extra pieces sewn on it matched my dress perfectly.
Wedding Trainers
I had two pairs of shoes – heels and trainers, I wanted to be comfortable for the whole wedding. My heels were quite small (only around 3 inches) as I don’t often wear heels and Sam and I are similar height. After the ceremony I changed straight away into my trainers. They were from Dune, were plain white with a few red hearts stitched on. I customised them by adding white satin laces to make them more ‘bridal’.
The handsome groom
Sam’s suit was from John Lewis, he is quite smaller build and was very particular about getting a suit that fitted him perfectly. He has bought from John Lewis before and trusted their fittings. Sam and his groomsmen wore silvery white waistcoats from Impeccable. His shoes were also from Impeccable. He wore my favourite aftershave –Boss, Hugo Boss.
Bridesmaids in Mint
I had three bridesmaids, my sister in law and my two best friends. They wore mint green fitted maxi dresses from TFNC and we added some pearls to the neckline. I was quite lucky as my girls are similar sizes and heights and the dress looked beautiful on all of them. Their outfits were complimented perfectly with rose pink, blush and cream flowers. I had bought them a rose gold bracelet that they all wore on the day too.
A Meaningful Ceremony
Sam and I are not fussy people and we like to keep things simple. We knew that we didn’t want tonnes of flowers and massive elaborate designs for our chuppah so we decided on a simple white canopy with rose pink, blush and cream flower bouquets in each top corner.
We wanted to incorporate as many family members as we could into our wedding so our procession coming into the chuppah was quite long! Sam has a large family and we had lots of small kids as part of our procession.
I think my favourite touch was wearing my mum’s veil as that was so special and something I will always remember.
Sam’s auntie bought us a personalised pouch to keep our chuppah glass in which was also a very cute touch.
Our music choice
Our processional and recessional songs were traditional Hebrew wedding music including Boi Kallah etc. our first dance song was Seal’s ‘Kiss from a Rose’. We don’t have that special song that a lot of other couples do, but this song is the only song with a shred of meaning to us. To celebrate out first six months together, Sam made me a video of photos to the song and from then we associated it with our relationship.
Flowers
We chose ‘Miss Piggy Roses’ for our button holes and the whole grooms’ party had this buttonhole (all 20 of them) as they perfectly matched the bridesmaid bouquets. My bouquet was cream roses with a few diamantes inside and our three flower girls had a smaller version of my bouquet.
The ballroom at the Waldorf Hilton has a very high ceiling (great for Israeli dancing) so we wanted our centrepieces to have a lot of height. Our tables had alternating centre pieces, we chose 80cm vases and filled them with large bouquets similar to the bridesmaid bouquets for half and for the other half we chose tall cylinder vases filled with water and flowers and had a floating candle at the top. Both centrepieces sat on top of a mirror board and had tea light candles around them.
Photographer and videographer
We used the fabulous Claudine Hartzel! Following recommendations from Sam’s cousin who had Claudine photograph their wedding. Claudine was 100% the right choice for our wedding and captured everything perfectly. We have had so many comments on our photos. We also used a videographer called Harish Patel (again based on recommendations) but we are waiting on our highlights video.
Pick ‘n’ Mix
Our caterer was Itzik and we chose them following recommendations. Our caterer added a few little touches to help personalise our wedding such as our initials on one of our mini dessert trios and a pick ‘n’ mix board that was long enough to do the limbo under!
A Fab Band
We chose the band Pure Orange and booked them straight after a friend’s wedding. We were really happy with everything they did for us on the night and we worked closely with the lead singer in putting together our schedule for the day. I would recommend them to anyone planning a wedding.
Mint to Be
We gave all our guests an individually wrapped polo with the caption ‘mint to be’ and then Danni & Sam 25/03/2018.
Black taxis
We tried to incorporate black taxis into the weddings because of our dads. Our friends and family played a huge part in our day. All of my close girls were in the bedeken room and our family did all sheva bracot and toasts.
Witty Speeches
Sam’s speech was very witty and (I might be biased) kept everyone laughing. I said a few unplanned words at the end and right at the end we had a photo on stage with our band which was very cool.
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
Take a step back and remember it is only a day! It is so easy to get completely encompassed by the whole magnitude of the whole thing. It’s good and healthy to take a step back from the whole ‘wedding chat’ and talk about the rest of what’s going on in life. Often Sam and I banned wedding chat from the dinner table.
At the wedding I took a few moments away from everything and tried to take everything that was going on in as everyone says it and its 100% true – it goes by in a flash.
Danni & Sam’s little white book
Photography – Claudine Hartzel {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Videography – Harish Patel
Venue – The Waldorf Hilton
Production – Just Smile Events
Bride’s dress – Stella York found and fitted at Brides of Berkhamsted
Bride’s shoes – Dune
Bride’s accessories – Etsy
Groom’s attire – John Lewis and Hugo Boss
Bridesmaids – TFNC
Hair – Hair by Slo
Flowers- Flowers by Alina
Band – Pure Orange
Caterer – Itzik Caterers
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