We love it when a couple plans a Jewish wedding that’s totally, completely them – and that’s exactly what Maya and Lior did when planning their fabulous wedding in Israel.
The couple’s top priority was to make their day feel homey and intimate, and it didn’t hurt that Maya is one of the craftsiest brides around. She took the lead on wonderful DIY touches from DIY glittery wedding sneakers (to match her custom sparkly gold gown designed by Studio Ran Zuriel) to a hand-crocheted bouquet of fabric flowers to custom massage balls the duo have out as wedding favors. Don’t miss all the details in the exquisite photos by Lior Rotstein and video by Oren Jacobson.
Given how artsy Maya is, she naturally wanted something extra special when it came to her ketubah. And she and Lior found exactly that in phenomenal Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Brit Colors. Lior chose the Purple Rings design and Maya came up with the idea of adding the couple’s names in shiny gold-leaf to maintain the wedding’s sparkly theme.
This day is chock full of so many more special details – read on for the full story in the couple’s own words…
How We Met
Maya, the bride and Lior, the groom: We met in physical therapy school in 2015; today we are both physical therapists and Maya is getting her Masters in Public Health.
A Garden Venue
We got married at Gayya, a beautiful event garden in Hadera. We actually didn’t know it existed until we tried PlaceIt‘s VR goggles and saw it there! It was really important to us that the venue felt like we were at home, and Gayya definitely answered that criteria.
Personal Touches
Maya planned the entire wedding herself, and insisted on making everything she possibly could by hand! There were tons of small details throughout the event that made it “us”, from the DIY to the footwear (most of the wedding party wore sneakers!) to the custom massage balls we had made as wedding favors.
We wanted the event to feel homey and intimate, despite being in a pretty large place, and tried to add tasteful personal touches wherever we could in order to make it feel like home. We were going for sparkly, fun and energetic, but tasteful and not over-the-top, and we feel we definitely accomplished that.
Invitation
Maya designed and made the invitations, with paper cutouts she made herself and watercolor art made by Lior’s sister. The most unique feature has to be us including our siblings on the invitation, which is a long-standing tradition in Maya’s family.
Hair + Makeup
A friend of Maya’s from high school went into the hair and make-up field some time before the wedding and her work was phenomenal! It’s important to surround yourself with people who make you feel comfortable on what can be a really hectic day – Elisheva has a really special energy and will immediately feel like your friend, too.
A Studio Ran Zuriel Dress
I had been dreaming about a sparkly gold wedding dress for years – I knew it wasn’t common and wanted something unique, which posed many challenges! I spent what felt like years searching the internet for a designer who worked with gold, and finally came across a blog post featuring a sparkly dress with a few gold elements.
That dress was designed by Studio Ran Zuriel in Tel Aviv, and within an hour of finding that blog post I had already been to the studio and decided to make my custom dress there! The moment that really got me was Yael (the designer) saying that she hates repeating her own ideas – it showed me just how open she was to creating something really special with me, and the rest is history.
My dress, in addition to being sparkly and gold, had mini-cap sleeves (with longer sleeves attached for the chuppah), a low-cut back and even featured a hidden fidget toy for me to play with during the ceremony so I could pay attention and be present.
Accessories and Shoes
In keeping with the general theme of being as comfortable and at-home as possible, Maya wore sneakers the entire day! We’re both physical therapists and never even considered heels. The dress designer helped plan the total look, including the DIY on the sneakers – we took pieces of bling from the dress and glued them onto the shoes, and did detailing in shiny gold paint along with gold glittery shoelaces.
All the accessories we wore came from home – including a ring inherited from Maya’s late grandmother, a tie clip inherited form Lior’s late grandfather, and a ring given to Lior at his bar-mitzvah.
Bridespeople
One of the many unique things about our wedding was the bridesmen! There’s no reason for gender to get in the way of being there for a bride or groom on their wedding day and our wedding really proves that. Maya’s brother and sister were co-maids of honor, and two female friends + one male friend were additional bridespeople.
Instead of robes or other more traditional bridal party elements, we wore custom loungewear (which Maya made and has definitely been used since!) whilst getting ready. All bridespeople then changed into dark blue with gold bling (the same colors as Maya’s engagement ring), in accordance with what they felt most comfortable wearing. Another cool item of clothing was a dark blue tuxedo t-shirt that one of Lior’s groomsmen wore. Everyone looked good and felt fabulous!
Ceremony & Chuppah
We’re both from religious Anglo families, but had to cater to a very mixed crowd – Israeli, American/Canadian/British, religious, secular, non-Jews, only-English-speakers, non-English-speakers… at times it seemed impossible to come up with a way to make sure everyone felt included! One of the solutions we came up with was making and printing out guides for those in attendance who had never been to a Jewish wedding, so they could follow along and understand what was happening.
We also live-streamed our chuppah on Youtube, so that the people we loved who lived far away could still celebrate with us. The rabbi who married us is one of Lior’s dad’s best friends (going on 60 years!), and Maya’s brother hosted our chuppah ceremony (alongside the rabbi) – he got the crowd warmed up with some fun facts and a list of all the countries people had come from/were watching our livestream from, and we’re still getting compliments on how funny and charming he was!
It really set the tone for the rest of the ceremony, which was sweet and relaxed, yet fun and energetic. The chuppah design was done by Gayya’s in-house designer and incorporated things that Maya had made, along with fairy lights – because who doesn’t love fairy lights?! Lior’s favorite moment from the chuppah: after placing the ring on Maya’s finger, she started jumping up and down and nearly sent the ring flying!
Some very quick thinking on his part stopped that tragedy from happening but he still won’t let her live it down. Maya’s favorite moments from the chuppah: walking down the aisle to ‘I Want It That Way’ and when her brother, the emcee, called himself up to recite one of the sheva brachot.
Ketubah
Maya made every possible thing she could for the wedding, but our families stopped her at two different points – the chuppah design and the ketubah! We found the phenomenal Brit Colors at a bridal expo a few months before the wedding and were in awe of the work she does with watercolors, beads, and even embroidery! Lior chose Brit’s beautiful Purple Rings design and Maya came up with adding our names in shiny gold-leaf to maintain the wedding’s sparkly theme.
There was a bit of a dramatic moment at the wedding, where the ketubah was dropped momentarily amidst all the excitement, and one of Maya’s bridesmaids literally lunged at the chuppah mid-ceremony in order to save it! Maya likes to say that she can make anything, but even she couldn’t do what Brit does! Even after the wedding, following her processes and work on social media is mesmerizing – be sure to check her out!
Our music choice
We both have very eclectic tastes in music (among other things, Lior like brit-pop and rap; Maya is obsessed with the Eurovision Song Contest and we both dislike a lot of the music we’d heard at other weddings) and knew that we weren’t willing to have music we didn’t like at our wedding. Did we mention yet how Maya walked down the aisle to ‘I Want It That Way’ ?
We also knew we wanted a band for the chuppah and Jewish dancing (which is not so common in Israel these days), that wasn’t presumptuous and would just play good music and have a fun time. Here enter the Solomon Brothers Band! Maya’s parents heard them play at a wedding and immediately knew they were the ones.
The whole process with them was incredibly easy and chilled out, and other than a few specific requests, we knew we could trust them to do their thing and have a blast – and they did not disappoint! They helped dictate the amazing energy that our wedding had and provided a great soundtrack for our wedding video!
We used the deejay they work with for the reception and second half of the party, who made sure we had music we liked and wanted to hear, and set the tone for a great dance party that was fun and energetic but not over-the-top. Lots of people have told us they hate dancing at weddings but couldn’t help themselves at ours – and it’s all thanks to these amazing guys!
Flowers
Fun fact: there were no real flowers at our wedding! Maya crocheted her bouquet from string she inherited from various family members, made origami and tissue paper flowers for the chuppah and centerpieces, and also crocheted succulents and potted flowers for some of the centerpieces. She also made an entire display of floral accessories made from fabric and washi tape (headbands, combs and lapel pins) for guests to adorn themselves with.
Photographer and videographer
We’re not big on being documented, but you wouldn’t know that from our photos and video! We had amazing vendors for stills, video and magnet photography who did a fantastic job and deserve lots of credit.
We actually found our stills photographer, Lior Rotstein, at a friend’s wedding a few years prior – he took amazing pictures of us and it was clear he’d be our wedding photographer when the time came. He was very sensitive to our requests and went about the process with a lot of heart and soul. We’ll let the pictures speak for themselves 😉
Our videographer, Oren Jacobson, was such a superstar! He has an unnatural amount of talent hidden behind a sweet, calm facade. He brought so much peace and calmness to a hectic day and made our wedding video look like we were stars in a Hollywood film.
Magnets – a concept our international guests were less familiar with but now love! The amazing and underrated Shmulik from Let’s Dance Photography never stopped taking pictures, worked the dance floor like he was one of our guests, and took amazing pictures with great energy. It’s essentially hiring an additional stills photographer, which means double the photos!
Food and cake
The food at Gayya is an “open kitchen” concept, which means all-you-can-eat — perfect for Maya’s bottomless stomach! For dessert, we had amazing pareve cupcakes from Sweet Shira (we have since had her dairy ones and they are identical!!), who was the only vendor we contacted here who didn’t think having cupcakes at your wedding was nuts. She was amazing – can’t recommend her enough!
Extra Details
You could write a whole blog on all the tiny details that went into this wedding! Some standout details that haven’t already been mentioned:
– Instead of flowers girls, we had glitter girls – Lior’s sister and aunt threw gold confetti as they walked down the aisle.
– Our menus had icons on them to help our guests avoid foods they might not be able to eat (there were more than a few allergies, vegetarians and vegans, including Maya’s dad).
– We took a trip to England right after we got engaged and bought a Manchester United pin that Lior wore; as well as dolls that we made over into Significant Otters and displayed at the entrance to our wedding. Next to those dolls we also had a box of cards that Maya had made for people who’d forgotten to bring one.
– Lior kept cool during the dancing by wearing a fan around his neck that looked like headphones – he’s still getting compliments on it!
– Maya’s family has a traditional “bottle dance” that was performed at her parents’ wedding and was displayed in the background as they performed an updated version at our wedding.
– We had custom temporary tattoos made of us, that were a huge hit after people had gotten drunk enough to put them on! One of our friends went to work the next day with our faces on his neck and it was iconic.
Honeymoon
We’re hoping to travel in the US and Canada this summer 🙂
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
Maya’s aunt gave us the best advice when we got engaged – “you’ll never make everyone happy – just try and make the least amount of people unhappy”. Every decision we made was met with some resistance, but it really helped put things in perspective when we compared the amount of people giving us pushback to the amount of people who were excited for us unconditionally.
Another thing that really saved us was opening a group chat specifically for wedding-related things – we still use it! If you can, try not to stress about RSVPs – 30 people got sick on the day of our wedding (the irony was not lost on us as healthcare providers) and couldn’t attend and we still had a great time.
MAYA & LIOR’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography – Lior Rotstein
Videography – Oren Jacobson
Ketubah – Brit Colors {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Venue – Gayya, viewed using PlaceIt
Bride’s dress – Studio Ran Zuriel
Hair + Makeup – Elisheva
Band – The Solomon Brothers Band
Catering – Gayya
Cupcakes – Sweet Shira
Temporary Tattoos – Tattoo It
Magnets – Let’s Dance Photography
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.