We love seeing what kinds of choices our favorite wedding vendors make for their own Jewish weddings, so naturally we couldn’t wait to hear all about ketubah artist Rachelle’s big day. Rachelle is the mega-talented artist behind Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor The Delicate Brush, and we knew from the getgo that her wedding to Elan, who’s a sales director for a tech company, was going to be something special.
And was it ever! We’re in love with everything from the gorgeous, vibrant colors and florals to the historic venue (which once belonged to Henry VIII!) to the wonderful rustic wood chuppah supplied by Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Happy Chuppah People to the egalitarian ceremony, featuring touches like seven personalized English blessings written by one of the bride’s sisters and read by the bridesmaids.
Then there’s the ketubah. Rachelle is known for her nature-inspired designs, featuring trees, mountains, oceans, and more, and we adore the willow leaf design she chose for her own ketubah. And this busy bride didn’t stop there – she also designed all of the stationery for the day herself! We’re in love with the way photographer Frances Sales and videographer Pristine Videography captured all the exquisite details of this fantastic day.
Scrolling through the images, you’d never know Rachelle and Elan’s wedding took place on March 15, 2020, just as coronavirus was getting serious in the countries where most of this Israeli-British-American couple’s guests reside. In the end, half the couple’s guests were unable to attend – including Elan’s sister, who watched the ceremony via a live stream set up by a friend.
There’s so much more to say, but we’ll leave the rest to Rachelle, who looked stunning in her secondhand Elia Vatine dress…
How we met
Rachelle, the bride: We met on Tinder 4 years ago – our first date was at Tel Aviv University’s student day! We were a couple from day one.
A Historic Venue
We got married at the beautiful and rustic Great Barn at Headstone Manor in the UK on March 15 2020. We chose this venue because it is so unique and cozy, and I have a thing for British medieval history! It used to belong to Henry VIII. We also chose it because it’s only 20 minutes from my family home in West London, is easy to get to and plenty of parking.
I am British and my husband is American-Israeli, but we both live together in Tel Aviv. We chose to get married in the UK so we could have a fun destination wedding for our international friends, and to make it easier for my very large UK family.
A Joyful Wedding
We thought for a while about a “theme”. We sat down at one point and realised – we didn’t have a way we wanted it to look – only a way we wanted it to feel! So, our theme was “joy”. This helped us with everything else – our incredible florist Amy was so wonderful in helping us decide what to go for.
We told her joy – and from there we picked the floral theme of “colourful, seasonal and wild”. The theme all came together from there! We used a wonderful wedding planner, Lynn from Vegan Food Pimp, who was especially useful when it came to the logistics leading up to the day!
The venue came with very little so Lynn was great at ensuring everything was there that we wanted to be. When we arrived the tables were laid out absolutely beautifully with menus Lynn had designed and printed especially.
Paperless Invitations
I designed our invites on Paperless Post! They fit the theme of the wedding with the black barn and florals. We decided not to print them as we wanted to have as little paper/waste trail as we could.
Hair + Makeup
We used an incredible hair and makeup artist called Si James who was highly recommended in our local area of West London. He did the hair and makeup for most of the women in my family/bridal party and was just so fantastic at turning what we want into reality! I wanted a subtle makeup look without too much on my cheeks and little foundation, and it was perfect.
A Secondhand Dress
I bought my dress from an AMAZING secondhand dress boutique in Tel Aviv called ReBride. It was the second place I went on my first day of shopping, and all the dresses are absolutely gorgeous and in excellent condition. I went with my fiancé’s (at the time!) mother who I am very close with – as my mother lives in the UK.
I tried on one or two which were nice, but when I emerged in this one we both knew immediately. I absolutely love fantasy and knew I wanted something that screamed “dreamy” and “enchanted” without being too princess-like. This dress with its sparkly floral detail just stood out so much above the rest – and it fit like a glove!
The dress is originally by a beautiful wedding dress designer in Herzliyah called Elia Vatine.
I also got my lovely cape from Zara – I thought it would just be back-up for bad weather but I actually loved it and wore it a lot throughout the event.
Accessories
I have never been one for tradition, so it was pretty easy for me to opt out of a veil. Though a beautiful accessory, it was never something I connected with. Instead I chose to wear a real flower crown made by Amy the florist the morning of the wedding. I wanted to fulfil my dream of being a fairy queen for the day! The rest of my jewellery all holds a lot of meaning for me.
My earrings were bought for my wedding by my amazing aunt Penny, and my diamond star-of-david necklace is a family heirloom given to me by my grandpa for my wedding day. It had previously been a gift to my late grandma, many many years ago. As she couldn’t be there with us, it was so important and special for me to be wearing her necklace.
Vegan Shoes
My gorgeous sparkly gold heels came from Roni Kantor, a vegan shoe designer in Israel. I initially wasn’t sure about heels, but fell in love with hers when I saw them! After the ceremony, Elan and I both switched to comfy white trainers so we could dance the night away. Mine were some basic ones from primark – but they served me well!
The handsome groom
Elan and I are both vegan so it was important for us that our clothing and wedding was too! Elan found it tricky to find a vegan suit in Tel Aviv (not containing wool, silk etc.) but eventually found his entire outfit and shoes in Zara! I absolutely love how he looks in a waistcoat… who doesn’t love a man all dressed up?!
When it came to the tie, we knew we wanted colour and floral to add to the “fun” and “joy” of the day! So Elan picked out that tie and pocket square on Etsy for himself and his best man, his brother Shai. Our first look was so special, he looked so handsome!
Bridesmaids
I had 7 bridesmaids – though unfortunately one of them, Elan’s sister, did not attend due to the quarantine rules that had just come in in Israel (she couldn’t go back to quarantine away from her three young children). This was obviously very upsetting for us, though we understood!
We lost a total of 70/140 guests due to the build-up of coronavirus and people unable/unwilling to travel, so the lead-up to the wedding was very upsetting and stressful. In the end I had 6 beautiful, wonderful bridesmaids. 5 of them my own sisters, and the final bridesmaid Elan’s other lovely sister.
I gave them all freedom to pick a dress that was pink – with few rules other than length and sleeve for consistency. They all had beautiful white flowers in their hair and matching bouquets and looked absolutely stunning!
An Egalitarian Ceremony
It was important for Elan and I to make our ceremony very egalitarian. We worked together with a fantastic rabbi to ensure this was the case. The most special part of the ceremony for me was that each of my bridesmaids stood up to read the seven blessings.
Unlike the traditional blessings, these were all English personalised blessings written by one of my sisters who is a journalist and talented writer. They were so meaningful and brought tears to my eyes! It was also lovely that our parents and my grandfather all had something to say or read under the chuppah.
Ketubah by the Bride
I am a ketubah designer (The Delicate Brush) – so the ketubah was an easy one! Elan and I love nature – and leaves especially have always been something I find very peaceful and relaxing to paint. These leaves specifically are willow leaves, willow trees being one of my favourite trees since childhood.
Elan and I also have a thing for the fantasy genre, and loved the idea of incorporating that really subtly and elegantly into our ketubah!
A Colorful Chuppah
We wanted the chuppah design to fit our theme – colourful, joyful and wild! The chuppah came from the amazing Happy Chuppah People (also an STG vendor!) and we selected the beautiful natural wood chuppa to suit the barn. I then sent over to Amy the florist a range of photos I liked and she put together this gorgeous design. We absolutely loved it.
Our music choice
Unfortunately, our friend who was supposed to sing when we walked up the aisle couldn’t attend, but the wedding band “The Harriers” who we chose were fantastic. They quickly adapted to the changing situation and sang the song ‘Wonder of you’ by Elvis Presley.
This song is not only beautiful, but meaningful to me as my mother is a big Elvis-lover so I grew up with Elvis around me all the time. The band were fantastic, playing a range of modern songs throughout. My mother put together an amazing Spotify playlist of traditional Hebrew wedding songs for the Israeli dancing, which got everyone involved!
Flowers
Amy from Memory Lane Flowers in Hanwell (west London) was beyond phenomenal. She knew exactly how to bring our vision to life, creating the most stunning and colourful floral arrangements. I didn’t have a specific flower in mind, so I trusted Amy to select flowers that were complementary colours.
My mother realised early on in the planning that we actually have a HUGE eucalyptus tree in our garden! All of the eucalyptus Amy used is from our family tree, which made it even more special. She curated everything so beautifully from the Chuppah to the bouquets and the button-holes. I couldn’t have asked for better flowers.
Photographer and videographer
Frances Sales is an incredible photographer we found through our wedding planner Lynn. She was wonderful from the moment she arrived! She made sure I sent her a list beforehand of photos I wanted, and even though the weather was miserable she found a way to take creative and gorgeous photos wherever she went.
We are in absolute awe of the photography, and couldn’t have wanted more! We opted to arrive a couple of hours early to the venue so we could have a full couples photoshoot! This was really fun and intimate and I highly recommend doing this.
Craig, our videographer from Pristine Videography, was beyond wonderful. He was so attentive and spoke to me before about the feel and vibe we wanted for our video. He was friendly and professional throughout the day – and also remained inconspicuous, our guests didn’t even realise we had a videographer! I couldn’t recommend him more.
Vegan Food and cake
Our catering was done by Lynn from the Vegan Food Pimp. It was important that our event was vegan and wholesome! We chose Lynn as she is as passionate about vegan food and a vegan lifestyle as we are. Everybody was full and happy and the food fuelled an incredible night of fun!
CREATIVE TOUCHES
As a creative and designer myself, I decided to create all of the stationery we needed for the day. This included the welcome sign, table plan, table names etc. This was a really fun process for me as I am traditionally a painter, so it was incredibly fun to create artwork digitally.
We also displayed an “unplugged wedding” poster as we really wanted our ceremony to be phone-less, aside from our friend who live-streamed the wedding to Elan’s sister.
This was lovely and makes the ceremony photos so much more joyous! We decided to lable the tables as places of significance in our lives – such as Knoxville, where Elan grew up in Tennessee and Cambridge where my grandfather studied. This was a lovely talking-point for the tables.
Elan’s best man and brother Shai made a beautiful speech from the heart, and my dad’s speech made everyone laugh as he went totally off-script that he had previously agreed with my mother! Elan and I also did a short speech which got a lot of laughs and was really fun.
We especially wanted to thank the guests who came despite the circumstances (coronavirus loomed over the UK at that point!). We also made some fun jokes about meeting on Tinder and how glad we were that we looked like our pictures when we first met!
My grandfather also stood up and did a surprise speech, whereby he bestowed upon Elan a beautifully-made book of all of my university essays! He is a wonderfully sentimental man, and loved reading them when I studied. He decided it was time to pass those to Elan.
We also selected beautiful satin kippot from Simcha Invitations, of 6 vibrant colours with our name and date inside. They were perfect and everybody loved them and took them home! The lead-up to the wedding was an incredibly stressful and heart-breaking experience.
Fortunately planning had been easy – my mum was my woman-on-the ground being that I live in Israel and the wedding was in the UK, and I am generally easy-going so making decisions was fun and simple for us. However, a week before the wedding Israel and many places in the world started tightening travel restrictions due to coronavirus.
We flew quickly to the UK to avoid any problems for us in terms of travel. Up to the day before the wedding, cancellations came pouring in including some of our closest friends. This was really hard to handle. Fortunately we invited some amazing family friends last minute who were overjoyed to come, and the day was still wonderful.
Honeymoon
We were supposed to go to Portugal but alas that was cancelled and we decided to stay put in the UK for a little while before heading back home to Israel. Lock-down with my parents isn’t quite the honeymoon I dreamed of! We can’t wait to go to Portugal eventually and then Bali at some point too!
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
My first piece of advice – avoid having your wedding during a pandemic! If you can, of course! It wasn’t ideal. But at the end of the day, you really just need your nearest and dearest around you. One thing I really recommend was taking photos of us and our family before the guests arrived.
This really gave us time for some wonderful photos and meant that we didn’t spend much time apart from our guests when they arrived! It was such a fun day.
RACHELLE & ELAN’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography – Frances Sales
Videography – Pristine Videography
Ketubah – The Delicate Brush {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Chuppah – The Happy Chuppah People {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Wedding planner – Lynn from Vegan Food Pimp
Venue – Great Barn at Headstone Manor
Bride’s dress – Elia Vatine Bridal found at ReBride
Bride’s shoes – Roni Kantor
Groom’s attire – Zara
Hair + Makeup – Si James
Flowers – Memory Lane Flowers
Band – The Harriers
Catering – Vegan Food Pimp
Invitation – Paperless Post
Kippot – Simcha Invitations
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.
What a gorgeous wedding! This colour scheme is stunning, as is the attention to detail. The venue looks amazing too!
What a gorgeous wedding! This colour scheme is stunning, as is the attention to detail. The venue looks amazing too!