When Georgia, a Speech and Language Therapist for the NHS, and Joel, a Marketing and Communications Manager, set out to plan their ultra-personal London Jewish wedding, they knew they wanted to be able to enjoy the big day with their nearest and dearest stress-free.
And so they made what turned out to be one of their best wedding planning decisions: hiring with Victoria from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Linda Abrahams & Co for on-the-day coordination. Georgia and her mum planned most of the wedding themselves, and then, with 12 weeks to go, Victoria came on board. In Georgia’s words, she was “an absolute dream to work with” and took all the pressure off so the couple could enjoy the lead up to the wedding without worrying about logistics – not to mention the day itself!
And you can tell just what a wonderful time everyone had in the end from Smashing The Glass Recommended vendor Liam Smith’s wonderful documentary wedding photography. Georgia and Joel “have always felt that our favourite photos are the ones where we didn’t know they were being taken,” and Liam’s discreet style was the perfect fit, allowing him to capture ALL the love and emotion.
There’s so much more to say about this wonderful wedding, but we’ll let Georgia – who looked radiant in Stella York – take it from here…
How We Met
Georgia, the bride: We met on our first day of university when we moved into Hillel House in Birmingham (the Jewish halls of residence). Joel asked me out on a date a few weeks later and we’ve been together ever since! It is actually a family tradition to meet your wife in Birmingham – as all three of Joel’s older brothers started dating their wives while attending university in Birmingham!
The Perfect Venue
Finding a venue that met all of our requirements was one of the most challenging parts of wedding planning! We were looking for a venue where our friends and family could choose to travel by tube, park for free (and not pay congestion charge) or get a taxi that would not cost them a fortune. We also wanted to get married in a hotel as we had many family members travelling to London for the wedding and felt that it would be more relaxing for everyone. And of course it needed to be a beautiful venue! We got married at the Marriott at Regents Park and it really ticked all of the boxes!
On-the-Day Coordination
My mum was absolutely incredible at booking all of the vendors and organising our wedding – I could not have arranged it without her. We had so much fun planning the wedding together and I can never thank her enough for all of her help.
A few months into planning I started to wonder who would organise everything on the wedding day itself. I knew that after all these months of planning I did not want my mum to be running around on the day liaising with all of our vendors. We met with Victoria from Linda Abrahams & Co and instantly knew that we wanted to work with her. Victoria started working with us 12 weeks before our wedding and was an absolute dream to work with!
At least a few times a week mum and I would say to each other – thank goodness for Victoria! While we are both super organised we have never planned a wedding before and Victoria (kindly) made so many suggestions about potential logistical issues that we had never considered. My mum and I can honestly say that we did not feel stressed about the wedding thanks to Victoria and feel that we enjoyed the lead up and the morning of the wedding so much more as a result.
The theme for our wedding was that there was no mistaking that it was our wedding! We wanted all of our guests to walk in and know instantly whose wedding they were at. There was a very subtle travel theme as Joel and I love travelling the world!
Invitation
When it came to choosing invitations I started searching on all of the online invitation websites for the perfect design but I couldn’t find anything that felt like us. So I decided to design them myself through Canva! I then uploaded them to Paperless Post which was a really cost efficient and easy way to send out all of our invitations! I started designing all of the stationary myself, however about 8 weeks before the wedding I realised I needed some help to get it all ready on time!
I had already contacted Kellmatt about printing my designs and so when they offered to help with bringing my draft designs to life it was a no brainer! With the travel theme in mind we designed a Where on Earth am I Sitting? table plan with each table being themed around a different country/state in America that we have travelled to! Every table name had a watercolour map and pictures of us in each place. On each table we also had a table talker and place cards that matched my invitation design. In keeping with the travel theme, in the reception area we also had a Message in the Bottle guestbook where our guests could leave a note for our first wedding anniversary.
Hair + Makeup
I really wanted to look myself on my wedding day – well my best self! I had my hair and makeup trial and dress fitting in the same day – which I would highly recommend to ensure that it all works together and so you’re not left guessing what you will look like on your wedding day! Jessica Schochet and Avigail Felman were the absolute dream team!! They have worked together many times and both helped to make my wedding morning so unbelievably calm. My hair and makeup looked the same from the moment I walked down the aisle to the end of the night.
A Stella York Dress
I chose a Stella York blush ball gown with an ivory tulle from Forever Bridal in Barnet. It was the first dress I tried on and it just felt like me. I have followed in my mum’s footsteps as she also bought the first dress she tried on! My mum, mother in law, auntie and sister were there and luckily everyone agreed that it was definitely “the one”! It was so special to have so many people I love with me and share this incredible moment together.
Accessories & Shoes
I bought a rose gold floral hair clip and veil from Ivory and Co and this really finished the look off! I wore my diamond necklace and earrings that my parents and auntie and uncle bought me as a Bat Mitzvah gift. Joel gifted me a gorgeous diamond bracelet which Belmont Jewellers sourced for me. I wore Steve Madden sandals with a block heel for the ceremony and then changed into Tommy Hilfiger flatform trainers for the party. I made sure that the height of my trainers was the same as my sandals so that my dress looked just as good once I had changed shoes.
The handsome groom
For Joel’s suit we went to Moss Bros and bought a gorgeous Ted Baker 3-piece dinner suit. I gifted Joel engraved cufflinks from Belmont Jewellers with our initials and wedding date.
Bridesmaids
My sister was the only adult bridesmaid so I let her choose whichever bridesmaid dress she wanted! She chose a Jenny Yoo fuchsia V neck satin slip dress from Nabbd. She altered the dress herself and despite only finishing the dress two days before the wedding she looked absolutely incredible. Joel’s seven nieces and nephews were our gorgeous bridesmaids and page boys. Their outfits were from Next.
Ceremony & Chuppah
Due to my in-law’s rabbi leaving their shul and my parent’s shul not currently having a rabbi in post the search was on for a rabbi who could marry us! My in-law’s suggested Rabbi Alby Chait MBE as he had grown up in Liverpool (where Joel is from) and they felt he would be perfect for us. Before the wedding we spent lots of time with Alby; he really got to know us as a couple and helped us to create a really personalised ceremony.
Alby even sung the last sheva bracha to the tune of our first dance song, Your Song by Elton John. Our friend and incredible pianist Josh Nesbitt performed during the ceremony. Josh made sure that the whole ceremony smoothly transitioned from one part to the next even in those quieter moments; like when our parents were giving the wine to us Josh tinkled away so there were no awkward silences. Alby and Josh worked together seamlessly and I stood there under the chuppah feeling like I was in a West End production.
Our music choice
For our music, we chose The Sparkle Band. We knew we wanted to have a band that none of our friends or family had seen before and that was a little different! Their sparkly instruments really made the ballroom look even more special! I genuinely have never seen a dancefloor as packed as at our wedding – we have had so many comments about how everyone loved the band. Adam was so easy to work with and flexible and he helped me devise a great surprise for Joel for our first dance!
Joel is a massive Liverpool football club fan and had asked a few times if ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ (the Liverpool FC anthem) could be played when he walked down the aisle or for our first dance. Knowing that I would never agree to this Joel gave up on his dream and we picked Elton John’s ‘Your Song’. I even organised a dance lesson to really help Joel believe that this would be our first dance song. On the night, the Sparkle Band began to play the first few lines of ‘Your Song’ and then Adam stopped the band while apologising that he’d made a mistake. Adam then announced that I had a surprise for Joel and began playing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.
I will never forget the initial horror and disappointment in Joel’s face which then quickly turned into complete exhilaration. What I hadn’t anticipated was how so many of our guests would get just as excited as Joel and within seconds guests were rushing towards the dancefloor – holding up their napkins as if they were scarves and singing along. It was the perfect way to start our English dance set and I’m so pleased I managed to keep this surprise under wraps for so many months!
Flowers
For our flowers, we worked with Flowers By Alina. We chose different shades of pink and cream flowers, as this gave us more flexibility with the rest of our colour scheme across our wedding. For my bouquet I desperately wanted pink peonies, unfortunately some of the peonies did not bloom as fully as I wanted on the day. On our wedding day, Alina was brilliant and came up to my hotel room so we could create the bouquet together with flowers she had available and I was really happy with the end result.
During our meeting with Alina mum said that she didn’t wish for any of the flowers to go to waste and how it’s such a shame for the chuppah flowers not to be reused; as we were not having a long top table. Together we came up with the ingenious idea of putting the flowers from the chuppah against the front of the stage.
This elevated the beauty of the ballroom to another level and I could not believe how incredible it looked when we walked into the ballroom. We were slightly concerned that during the Israeli dancing they would get knocked about but luckily this didn’t happen and they looked great right up until the end of the evening.
Photographer
Joel and I have always felt that our favourite photos are the ones where we didn’t know they were being taken! So we knew we wanted to work with a documentary style photographer. I watched a slideshow of photos from a wedding that Liam Smith photographed and I felt like I had actually been at the wedding. We had a zoom meeting with him and loved his relaxed style.
On our wedding day I always knew Liam was there taking photos but at the same time I didn’t notice him at all. I am in love with our wedding photos they capture all the emotions from our wedding day perfectly. We also wanted a way to receive all of the amazing photos that our guests took. Guestpix is a great private sharing platform that did not require our guests to download an app. We received over 700 photos and 90 videos which were great to look at while we waited for our professional photos.
Food
Mark Clyne from Celia Clyne did the catering for our wedding. We wanted traditional food that everyone knows and loves! We had so many compliments that everyone loved the food and that it was piping hot (something that rarely happens at a wedding!) We had His, Hers and Ours cocktails as we wanted everything to reflect our personalities – cocktails included!
Honeymoon
We went on a minimoon to Italy for 5 nights – we spent 3 nights at Hotel Mioni Pezzato in Abano, a gorgeous thermal spa hotel, it was the perfect place to relax and recharge. We then went to Venice for the weekend! My next project is to book our honeymoon which hopefully we will go on later in 2023.
Extra Details
Joel’s parents have the most gorgeous miniature dachshund called Honey, for a number of reasons we were unable to have her at the wedding. So I asked Kellmatt to design a cut out of her to surprise Joel (and his family!) and I brought her onto the dancefloor later in the evening. Joel was super surprised and the kids loved dancing with her! She’s now in our living room and regularly gives me a fright as the cut out is so life like!
After finding out that our wedding date was the same as my great grandparents it got me thinking about the strong marriages Joel and I have in our families. In honour of this we displayed the wedding photos of our parents, grandparents and great grandparents (Joel even had one of his great-great grandparents wedding photo) in the reception area.
Under each photo we explained who was in each photo, as well as where and when their wedding took place. It was incredibly emotional to see the photos on our wedding day and the photo of us standing next to all the photos is something we will treasure forever.
Wedding Registry
We set up registries with The Wedding Shop and China Presentations. We did an engagement list with The Wedding Shop and found them easy to work with and loved their great selection of gifts. Beverly from China Presentations patiently helped us pick out all of our china, she was great at helping us think about the future and how many people we might entertain round our dining table!
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
Where to begin! My top 3 tips are:
1) Book an On the Day wedding co-ordinator! It’s highly likely that you’re looking at spending a lot of money on your dream wedding – let yourself fully enjoy it and allow someone to take care of the final details!
2) Before our wedding Alby said to us – ultimately you can spend money on an expensive venue, flowers, dress but no money in the world can buy you atmosphere. We were so fortunate that our families spent time together both before and after we got engaged. This resulted in our wedding not feeling like there was a bride’s and groom’s side but just one big family celebrating our wedding. If you are able to get your families together before the wedding I would highly recommend it.
3) Do your wedding your way! Just because you’re having a traditional Jewish wedding doesn’t mean you can’t add small personal touches that make your wedding unique. I can honestly say that our wedding was everything we could have ever wanted and so much more!
GEORGIA & JOEL’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography – Liam Smith Photography {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Planner – Linda Abrahams & Co {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Venue – Marriott at Regents Park
Bride’s dress – Stella York found at Forever Bridal
Bride’s shoes – Steve Madden, Tommy Hilfiger
Bride’s accessories –Ivory and Co, Belmont Jewellers
Groom’s attire – Moss Bros, Ted Baker
Bridesmaid – Jenny Yoo from Nabbd
Hair + Makeup – Jessica Schochet, Avigail Felman
Flowers – Flowers By Alina
Band – The Sparkle Band
Pianist – Josh Nesbitt
Catering – Celia Clyne
Stationery/Invitation – Canva, Paperless Post
Stationery printing – Kellmatt
Rabbi – Rabbi Alby Chait MBE
Wedding Registry – The Wedding Shop , China Presentations
Honeymoon – Hotel Mioni Pezzato
Photo app – Guestpix
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.
