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Tory & Brooks | Beachside Autumn Jewish wedding at Bel Air Bay Club, California, USA

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Autumn-Beach-Club-Wedding
Tory and Brooks’ wedding has Autumn completely wrapped up. An orange and navy colour scheme, dune grasses, twinkly lights, and pumpkin seating card holders. One of my favourite elements? The fairytale ‘boardwalk’ petal-covered grass aisle. So very, very pretty.

Tory is such a sparkling bride — watch out for her incredible silver-glitter-heeled Kate Spade shoes, and searingly honest report.

Oh and I love her advice at the end to “find three separate secret times to kiss your groom in private!” Absolutely right!

It’s just about one year since these two lovebirds got married so I take great joy in wishing them a happy 1st wedding anniversary!

All of the wonderful images were taken by the rather talented and lovely Elisabeth Millay.

Outdoor Jewish Wedding at Bel Air Bay Club, California
Outdoor Jewish Wedding at Bel Air Bay Club, California
HOW WE MET
Tory, The Bride: Brooks and I met at ReelzChannel in Los Angeles n 2009  which is a TV cable channel all about movies. I was a host and he was a producer. After we both left the company, we stayed friends and then best friends. Coffee dates every day, dinner every night. Finally, on Valentine’s day, after one year of this platonic bliss, Brooks asked me what I would have said if he had asked  me out on a date that night. I said I wasn’t sure and needed to think about it. The next day I called him to go to lunch as usual but he said he was at the beach hanging out with a couple of friends (including this cute blonde chick I knew). Hilariously, my jealousy was all it took. By the next sunset we had our first kiss and said we loved each other. The rest is history.

Outdoor Jewish Wedding at Bel Air Bay Club, California
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The Seven Blessings (Sheva Brachot) – Jewish Wedding Traditions Explained #6

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The-Seven-Blessings-Jewish-Wedding
All imagery by Blake Ezra Photography. This is part 6 of the 9-part Jewish Wedding Traditions Explained series.

In the last five weeks on Smashing The Glass we’ve made it through from waking up on the morning of the wedding to standing under the chuppah. One key part of the ceremony are The Seven Blessings, or as they’re known in Hebrew the Sheva Brachot.

Seven blessings are said (or sung) over a cup of wine, which the couple then drink from, giving them these blessings for the rest of their life together. Sometimes the Rabbi, or Chazan, will sing these blessings to the couple under the chuppah.

If you’re planning a wedding, an incredible way to make your service more personal and interactive, whilst also honouring those who are most important in your relationship, whether that’s a grandparent or the person who set you up on your first date, is to invite seven people each to give a blessing. Each one will come up to the chuppah, one-by-one, hold the cup of wine and say or sing their piece.

One other really beautiful touch is to invite those people bestowing the blessings upon the couple to also write their own blessing, something personal which can be read out after the official blessing in whatever language is understood by most guests, which may or may not be Hebrew or Aramaic!

The Seven Blessings Sheva Brachot Jewish Wedding
The Seven Blessings Sheva Brachot Jewish Wedding
The Seven Blessings Sheva Brachot Jewish Wedding
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Ros & Alex | Contemporary cool Jewish wedding with 50’s and 60’s touches, at The ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts), London, UK

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London Theme Wedding at the ICA
Ros and Alex mixed contemporary and vintage styling to perfection, and I adore the sleek modern venue they chose: The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA). It’s an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square, and is one of the capital’s most beautiful contemporary spaces. I am beyond excited to be blogging what I believe is the only Jewish wedding ever to have taken place there, and a totally jaw-dropping one at that.

Ros’s wedding report is one of the loveliest I’ve ever read so if you can get 5 minutes with a cuppa to sit and read Ros’s words as well as ogle over the stunning photography from Especially Amy I promise you will fall in love with this wedding story. Ros also gives some excellent money-saving tips at the end in her ‘advice to other brides’, as well as some super useful planning advice.

There’s lots to love but I am particularly taken with Ros’s beauty and style and the London theme details such as the London Underground map table plan, and miniature black cabs and double-decker buses on the tables.

Here is their story…

London-themed contemporary cool Jewish wedding at The ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts), London
London-themed contemporary cool Jewish wedding at The ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts), London
HOW WE MET
Ros, the Bride: We met at Bristol University in September 2002, as Fresher’s living in the same student halls. Our first date was breakfast at a greasy spoon cafe down the road! Alex popped the question in February 2011 at the boutique Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City before whisking me off for dinner and cocktails. We have always loved New York, so it was perfect. That night, the lights on the Empire State shone for us in the snow. After a lot of planning and juggling of dates, we married 18 months later.

London-themed contemporary cool Jewish wedding at The ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts), London
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The Chuppah – Jewish Wedding Traditions Explained #5

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Chuppah
All imagery by Blake Ezra Photography. This is part 5 of the 9-part Jewish Wedding Traditions Explained series.

The word ‘chuppah’ is used in two ways. Firstly, it’s the Hebrew name of the canopy under which Jewish couples get married. Secondly, it’s also colloquially used as another word for ‘ceremony’. So if someone asks you “When’s the chuppah?” don’t assume they’ve lost all grasp of how to put a sentence together, they’re not asking when the canopy is, but when the ceremony starts.

So what is a chuppah? Why do Jewish couples get married underneath one? What do they do when they get there?

The chuppah, like many elements of a Jewish wedding, is beautifully symbolic. It symbolises the home that the couple will build together in their married life, and is open on all sides like the biblical tent of Abraham and Sarah, signifying that everyone is welcome and that everyone will be treated hospitably.

For readers of this blog, who may be planning their own Jewish wedding, the chuppah is also one of the great opportunities to personalise your ceremony. It can range from a massively decadent, custom-designed piece of floral artistry, to four friends holding poles, upon which sits a custom made quilt or Jewish prayer shawl, called a Tallit.

Chuppah, for Smashing The Glass Jewish Weddings Explained. Chuppah, for Smashing The Glass Jewish Weddings Explained.Chuppah, for Smashing The Glass Jewish Weddings Explained.Continue ReadingContinue Reading

Zina & Igor | Intimate orchard-themed Jewish wedding at Casablanca hotel, Saint Petersburg, Russia

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Russian-Jewish-Wedding
Good afternoon  lovely readers. The wedding I  have for you today is absolutely gorgeous and it’s a Smashing The Glass first! Yes, Zina and Igor wanted to be the first super cool Jewish wedding from  Russia on the  blog… and they’ve achieved that accolade! Not only are the details divine, the citrus colour scheme  to-die-for, and the flowers fabulous but Zina’s  write up of her and Igor’s  day really comes from the heart; as did Zina’s  efforts for the entire wedding.

Zina  and Igor  managed to pull off their wedding with a modest budget. And what an AWESOME job they did too. Sometimes stripped back, unfussy weddings are the best.

All of the decor  was made by Zina’s best friend  and so many  friends and family  were involved with this wedding – it’s really heart-warming.

I particularly love the gingerbread men and women favours. Such a unique idea and all  made by Zina’s mum, Zina, and another great friend.

Intimate orchard-themed Jewish wedding at Casablanca hotel, Saint Petersburg, Russia
AN OUTDOOR CEREMONY AND VENUE
Zina, the Bride and Igor, the groom:  Our  wedding took place at the  Casablanca Hotel,  a small country hotel, with only about 50 guests made up  of our closest friends and relatives. We knew we wanted to have our ceremony  outdoors, as the date of our wedding was in the middle of summer and it was one of just a few possible days to have good weather in our rainy city.

We  wanted to have the whole day  outside the city, ideally in a  country hotel where most of our guests could stay overnight. We were very lucky as we chose the first hotel we visited. It was perfect: it had a small, cosy garden with a swimming pool and enough space for a reception, chuppah, dancing and just general ‘hanging out’!

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