How much do we love Jolanda and Jack’s exquisite floral chuppah? SO MUCH. A symphony of soft shades of coral, pink, cream, and sage, it is just absolute perfection – and perfectly fits the bride’s brief of “flowers, flowers, flowers” without overwhelming its stunning outdoor surroundings. You do NOT want to miss The Love Hunters beautiful photos.
No doubt about it, this is one knockout of a Jewish wedding, from start to finish. And we’d expect no less, given that it was planned by the amazing team at Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor optimum weddings. The couple can’t stop raving about how much they loved working with Dyana, Sara, and Jessica, who made their big day not only beautiful but also totally stress-free.
And would you believe that Jolanda’s own nuptials marked her very first time attending a Jewish wedding, after converting to Judaism during her engagement?! Unsurprisingly, she was head over heels for the whole experience – and reports that her friends and family, many of whom were new to Jewish weddings as well, loved the day so much “we had half of them wanting to covert by the end of the ceremony”!
Now over to the bride, who looked so classically elegant in her timeless gown from Suzanne Neville…
How we met
Jolanda, the bride: We met at the Blue Marlin beach club in Ibiza. It was truly beshert! I wasn’t supposed to be there and neither was he, but due to changes in circumstances (he had a friend visiting from Australia and didn’t want to spend it in London and I had a rearranged girls trip) we both ended up there at the same place at the same time. We chatted for about 15 minutes and didn’t see each other again until our first date a few weeks later in London. He raced back from a day at Ascot to be on time, and I was 40 minutes late – and yet here we are today!
A Wedding in Spain
We got married at Hacienda del Alamo, Malaga. We both instantly knew this was the place for us. It was the first place we saw, and after spending a full day travelling along the coast looking at different venues we joked it was typical we found ‘the one’ in the first place. We decided on a wedding in Spain because we met on a beach in Ibiza, both love travelling, exploring and the sun and felt it was fitting to get married somewhere nearby and hot.
We wanted to get our friends and family together for some quality time away and in a location with cheap, easy access for everyone travelling out. We hosted a pre-wedding dinner on the Friday night and hired a beach bar/restaurant for the day after the wedding.
We loved how the venue had different areas to hold different parts of the day and how it all flowed into each other. From the guests arrival, to the ceremony, to the canapes, dinner and then after party. The venue was perfect – we had everything on site in a lovely hacienda and were able to get changed there, walk out for the ceremony, move on to a different area for canapes and then again for dinner and finally into the house for the dancing.
Perfect Planners
We used optimum weddings. The ladies (Dyana, Sara and Jessica) were AMAZING and we didn’t have to worry about a thing on the day. We cannot thank or recommend them enough. If you want a wedding in Spain, Italy, Portugal or England – USE THEM! All we wanted was sunshine, a beautiful setting and all our friends and family around us in a fun, traditional setting.
Hair + Makeup
Makeup was by Niki Makeup – she was brilliant! Based in London and Spain. Hair by Alex Bridal, also great!
A Suzanne Neville Dress
Dress was the Lola from Suzanne Neville. I loved shopping at their Knightsbridge store. It was my favourite experience as the ladies in-store were relaxed and let me get on with it without being overly fussy. I wanted a simple and elegant dress that I thought would be timeless in years to come. I am normally someone that loves bright colours and fun clothing but I felt on my wedding day I was something I could look back on and love when I was 90. For the dancing in the evening, after the first couple of dances, I changed into something a bit lighter (and cooler!) which was Galvan (and of course another pair of shoes).
Accessories
I decided to only wear pearl drop earrings and keep it simple.
The handsome groom
I really wanted it to be traditional, despite it being pretty hot so he was suited and booted in tails and looked incredible. I couldn’t stop smiling as I walked down the aisle looking at him waiting for me. In his pocket he had a personalised handkerchief with a hand stitched note on it. I left it for him that morning with his brother.
Bridesmaids
I had 4 bridesmaids and a best man, Chris. The girls were in light pink dresses, along the lines of the pastel flower theme we had, and Chris was in the same blue suit as the ushers.
As I was getting ready in the house, I looked out the window to see all our friends and family gathering together. I just couldn’t believe all the effort people had made for us to be here on our special day. We had people come from England, France, Poland, Italy, Switzerland, Kentucky, New York, Australia and San Francisco. I also tried to get a sneak peak of the groom but couldn’t see him.
Chuppah
I love a lot of flowers. If I could I would have fresh flowers every day. So my brief was flower, flowers, flowers.
Ceremony
I loved the ceremony, it was so special being under the chuppah surrounded by our family. We had a cantor who married us and was actually Jack’s mum’s flower girl when his parents got married. Funny how things work out. Anyway, Zoe is absolutely wonderful, has the most beautiful voice and she made the ceremony so special for us both.
The whole thing was so special for us both – I converted and my own wedding was my first Jewish wedding so everything was a new and exciting experience. All our friends loved the ceremony and how beautiful it was and our Cantor Zoe did such a good job we had half of them wanting to convert by the end of the ceremony.
We also had 3 friends do readings during the ceremony as we really wanted them to be involved and chose one from “Wild Awake”, one from “Tuesdays with Morrie” and the final one from Winnie The Pooh which was about never wanting to live without each other!Jack had two best men (his brother and best friend) who are getting married this year so were far too nice to him probably for fear of what he would say when he came to speak at their weddings. I had my closest childhood friend speak as well which was lovely.
Our ketubah was hand painted and now sits above our bed.
Our music choice
I walked down the aisle with my parents to the Hebrew song ‘Halleluyah’, with our Cantor Zoe singing it to the tune of the famous Leonard Cohen song we all know, so everyone got to join in for the chorus as I walked in which was so lovely. Jack and his parents, followed by the bridesmaids walked down to ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight’. Both songs were played by a trio of strings – cello, violin and guitar. At the end of the ceremony after signing the ketubah, a really good friend of ours who is an incredible sax player (he played for George Michael!) played us back up the aisle to ‘All You Need Is Love’, Love Actually style! Our first dance was ‘The Wonder Of You’ by Elvis Presley – the line that made it for us was “Guess I’ll never know the reason why you love me like you do, that’s the wonder, the wonder of you”.
Flowers
Flowers were lots of soft pastel colours – pinks, apricots, mauve, plus plenty of white – lots of roses, hydrangeas, estatice, gypsophila and a load more I can’t remember! They were done my Unique by Roberto Silvosa who outdid themselves. I couldn’t have been happier.
Photographer
The Love Hunters – I was very particular about the kind of relaxed, but not too casual, style I wanted and also didn’t want vintage filters etc that may go out of fashion and looked at so many different options but Marcus’s photos really stood out as being exactly what I was looking for.
Videographer
Michel Maraver – still waiting on our video, desperately want to see it!! We looked at so many different videographers and though he was a bit more expensive, his videos were stunning and head and shoulders above the rest both in terms of quality and the way they were put together. We had to have him.
Food
Our catering was done by the venue’s caterers – Alabardero and wow was it good! We are very particular about our food and even so this was another level – so much more variety and way tastier than we could even have imagined. Tasting was so much fun – everything we tried was delicious. We had 18 different canapes to go through plus the three course meal and a load of wine too. It really was the icing on the cake for us (no pun intended). We brought a three tier cake in from an outside caterer and we had so much left that we had two tiers to go through at our beach party the next day. Two tiers were red velvet cake, and Jack insisted on a top tier of fruit cake soaked in brandy which he didn’t even try in the end!
Entertainment
We had a local string trio of violin, cello and guitar for the ceremony.
Our great friend Ed Barker played the sax at the end of the ceremony and joined in with the band later in the evening
We flew a 5-piece band out from England Mister Shakes who performed at Jack’s 30th and were outstanding, really got the place going. We had to have them and they totally lived up to expectations again. It was a great night.
Everyone couldn’t wait for the Israeli dancing we had before dinner and the band had learned all the songs especially.
Favours
We wanted kippahs for everyone to match our colour scheme (pink) and have an inscription so they could remember the day – there were a lot of our non-Jewish friends there so it was quite exciting for them all to get one. We also had some inscribed fans, pink again, as we thought it could be quite warm.
Cold fire sparklers
A big highlight was Jack’s surprise for me. I wasn’t happy that I didn’t get my big “extra” moment as the venue didn’t let me have fireworks, but on our entrance up to the first dance, Jack had secretly organised cold fire sparklers which went off in the dark with everyone waiting for us and cheering as they went off and we walked through them. Loved it!
Honeymoon
We had a mini-moon to Crete straight after the wedding as a friend of ours was getting married in Goa in February so we through we would tie that into our full honeymoon and go to India then the Seychelles to have a mixture of culture, exploring and total relaxation. Imagine our surprise when he then changed location back to England after we booked it!! We are still going though and can’t wait.
Advice to couples currently planning their weddings
Do what makes you happy and don’t worry about pleasing other people. Also, keep the days after totally free, you will be exhausted! Ensure you find as many moments to spend with your husband throughout the night as possible – it genuinely flies by and you will regret it if you don’t see each other and get to take it all in. We made sure to sit down and eat our meals together and chat and at one point during the dancing went for a little walk around the venue together.
Jolanda & Jack’s little white book
Photography – The Love Hunters
Wedding planner – optimum weddings {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Videography – Michel Maraver
Venue and DJ – Hacienda del Alamo
Bride’s dresses – Suzanne Neville and Galvan
Bride’s shoes – Jimmy Choo
Hair + Makeup – Alex Bridal and Niki Makeup
Flowers – Unique by Roberto Silvosa
Saxophonist – Ed Barker
Band – Mister Shakes
Catering – Alabardero
Cake – Cake Couture Marbella
Ceremony chairs and lights – Masque Palets
Sound equipment – Marbella Entertainments
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One of the best weddings I have ever attended! Attention to every detail was extraordinary and the venue was something out of a fairytale. Highly highly recommend this venue and all who made this special couple’s dream come true!