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Deborah & Alex | Secret Garden Jewish Wedding at Baya’ar, Israel

04/08/2013 by Karen

I love this wedding. Fact.

Deborah and Alex got married in a truly spectacular venue in Israel. It’s a colourful garden wedding with some incredible creative details and beautiful outdoor ceremony. I have to admit that I have a bit of a soft spot for Israeli weddings. I’m not sure whether it’s their raw edged beauty, the party-loving Israeli energy, the outdoor vibe or the amazing scenery. Whatever the ‘x-factor’ may be, I’m so thrilled to be sharing this special wedding with you today.

Deborah and Alex first met aged 6 at a mutual friends birthday party and despite going to the same school, and both spending their gap years in Australia and New Zealand, they only met properly at Leeds University after being introduced by a good friend of both of theirs.

I’ll now hand over to the lovely Deborah for the tale of their wedding.

THE VENUE AND ‘SECRET GARDEN’ THEME
Deborah, The Bride: As a proud Zionist it was always my dream to marry in Israel. I wanted to ditch the formality of hotels and find something unique and personal. On one of our visits to Israel Alex and I visited a variety of venues in and around the Tel Aviv area. We had originally wanted a venue by the sea but there was none that were large enough. However when we saw Baya’ar (meaning the forest) we fell totally in love with it. It looked like a villa set within beautiful gardens and was both natural and spectacular.. The beautiful link between the modern interior and scenery outside was perfect. Lush, green, intimate and yet modern and elegant.

Inspired by our venue, the theme of the wedding became ‘the secret garden’. The colour scheme was multi-coloured (the bolder and brighter the better!) with yellow as the dominant colour. I wanted it to feel summery and vibrant.

As we were getting married abroad, we created a wedding website full of information about the various events and holiday tips for where to eat, go out and party in Israel.

INVITATION DESIGN
I designed the invitation myself as I couldn’t find anything I liked. The white card I was so frequently shown I found boring. Instead I designed the invitation to reflect the venue and theme with summery yellows and greens and an illustration of a tree engraved with our initials. It was modern and informal and despite the design process becoming quite stressful we were thrilled with the results (plus it was a fraction of the cost).

Rachel & Emile | Moroccan Themed Jewish Engagement Party in London

24/07/2013 by Karen

I normally only like to focus on weddings here on Smashing The Glass, hence the name of the blog, but this Moroccan themed engagement party and Blake Ezra‘s amazingly energetic photos from the occasion swayed me into sharing it with you.

From the spirited dancing to the authentic Moroccan decor to the colourful traditional henna ceremony there’s lots of lovely personality, tradition and detail to focus on at this engagement party extraordinaire.

Rachel, a teacher from Melbourne, and Emile, an online marketer, met two years ago when Rachel moved into a flatshare in Hendon when she had just arrived in London. The room that she had moved into was actually Emile’s old one. After two days of being in the new apartment her housemates threw a party and at that party she met Emile although they didn’t actually start dating till about 5 months later.

The couple got engaged in December 2012 and threw their (what can only be described as ‘mini-wedding’) Moroccan engagement and henna party in May of this year. I’ll hand you over to Rachel now for all the juicy details but before I do I’ll just give you a little background as to what a ‘henna’ is.

Image: Henna By Sienna

WHAT IS A HENNA?
The henna ceremony is a cultural and spiritual celebration practised mainly amongst Sephardi Jews that is supped to bring good luck to the engaged couple. It involves crushing the leaves of the henna plant into a powder, which, when mixed with water, becomes a dough that stains the skin orange. The henna is arranged in intricate lacey or floral patterns on the hands or feet, and symbolises good health, fertility, wisdom, protection or spiritual enlightenment.

Rachel: I’m an Australian from Melbourne and have been living in the UK for two and a half years now. Emile is British but his dad is Moroccan Israeli so that’s where the Henna ceremony/ party would definitely have had to come in either way. We had to make a decision on which country to have the wedding in and we decided to do it in Australia in March 2014. So having a big engagement party in London incorporating a henna ceremony made perfect sense as we could have all our British and international guests who may very well not be able to get to Australia for the wedding, celebrate with us at a big fun affair too.

INTERNATIONAL GUESTS
Emile’s dad had over 20 of his relatives fly in from Israel for the week and I had my parents come in from Australia. Emile and I both had family from Canada and New York celebrate with us too and we couldn’t have been more thrilled to have such an international array of family and friends have a ball with us at our London engagement party.

I have to admit it felt like a mini wedding – it was the ‘London leg’ as it were. We loved that everyone could feel part of a big celebration no matter what country they were in.

INVITATIONS
With so many foreign guests to invite we thought that using Paperless Post for our invitations would be a good idea. It’s a great service as you can customise the invitation however you want and then you can really stay on top of things with all the RSVPs and messages. We didn’t need to worry about a designer, printing, postage or addresses or RSVPs getting lost in the mail. We loved it!

VENUE
We wanted to hold the party somewhere local that would be easy to get to and big enough to house our 200+ guests. Kinloss Hall was a blank canvas and we loved the fact that we could dress up the room to the degree that we needed to.
DECOR
Being an authentic Moroccan, Emile’s dad had a vision of how he wanted the room to be set out. He arranged palm trees and lanterns and pouffes and all kinds of fabulous Moroccan props. We didn’t have to hire anything – all the stuff is within Emile’s family – so it was all totally authentic. We weren’t pretending to do a Moroccan party. It was a genuine Moroccan party!

Daphna & Godwin | Tuscan Castle Jewish Wedding, Tuscany,Italy

19/07/2013 by Karen

I have a delicious destination wedding for you today. And they don’t come much more delicious than the beautiful Castello di Modanella in Tuscany – a castle in Italy which is also a vineyard where they make their own wine and olive oil. A stunning venue with gorgeous views and a wonderful ceremony (incorporating the James Bond theme tune) it was the perfect location for Daphna and Godwin to hold their very fun wedding weekend.

Daphna and Godwin (or D&G as they like to brand themselves!) met at work and were immediately attracted to each other. They kept their relationship quiet in the office so none of their colleagues knew that they were actually dating, and when they announced their engagement 15 months later it’s fair to say that all their colleagues were pretty shocked! The wedding itself stretched over a long weekend and took months of meticulous planning. Here’s Daphna with the D&G w-day story:

A WEDDING WEEKEND ABROAD
Daphna, the Bride: I had always liked the idea of getting married abroad, as I had been to lots of weddings in England and wanted something different. As a bride you don’t actually get to spend much time with your guests so I wanted everyone to be relaxed on holiday for the whole weekend. That way at least you get to actually see your guests and for this purpose we organised various nights before the wedding day itself like a BBQ and a pizza night. I thought a destination wedding would be fun because everyone gets into holiday mode and ready to relax and party without having to worry about going to work the next day.

We thought about Spain and Italy as we love both countries, (we have no particular tie to either country, although I did study Spanish and lived in Madrid for a year, so I do love it) but in the end Italy won as it has better food & was a little classier! We looked at the Amalfi Coast too as I really wanted somewhere by the sea, and it is really romantic and gorgeous, but after researching we found that the Amalfi Coast has a lot of strict rules about music, ie lots of places only allow background music, and the party has to stop at 11.30pm etc. As we wanted a big party, this wasn’t really acceptable for us.

Also, it was proving hard to get married outdoors and as far as I was concerned there is no point getting married abroad if it’s not outside in the sun! In the end we decided on a castle in Tuscany, where they make their own wine. It has a big lake, and various swimming pools, so it had the water aspect I wanted. The venue offered wine tasting & trips to their vineyards. There were no restrictions about what time the party had to end (we ended up having a pool party after the wedding till 4am to finish off the alcohol!). Most importantly the food at the castle is absolutely fantastic – I cannot rate them highly enough. They have their own restaurant that is open to the public that is practically Michelin starred – every dish you try is superb.

Additionally there was accommodation for over 200 people, so it meant that everyone from the wedding could stay in one place, which is something else I wanted. I didn’t want everyone dotted around – it’s so much nicer to have everyone together. The views from the castle are absolutely beautiful, right amongst the rolling Tuscan hills.

The venue is owned by a family friend, so it made the whole affair really personal to us, as it felt like our family was there every step of the way helping us organise the wedding.

The Jewish Wedding and Breaking the Glass. Why?

16/07/2013 by Karen

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Image: Dave & Charlotte

Nothing says “Jewish wedding” more than the sound of the smashing of the glass, so it’s the natural joyous title for my Jewish wedding blog but why is breaking the glass such an important ritual of the Jewish wedding ceremony?

First and foremost it is the official signal to cheer, dance, shout “Mazal Tov!” and start partying! But there are various other explanations depending on whom you ask. Some of them are that it:

1. is a representation of the fragility of human relationships; and a reminder that marriage will change your life (hopefully for the good) forever.
2. is a superstition and the loud noise is supposed to drive away evil spirits.
3. is a break with the past: the marriage is to last as long as the glass remains broken, ie. forever.
4. symbolises the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem some 2000 years ago.
5. symbolises a hope that your happiness will be as plentiful as the shards of glass, or that your children will be as plentiful as the shards of glass.

And so it goes on. And as with many symbolic acts in Judaism, you can see that there are a host of reasons available to explain why we break the glass at a Jewish wedding. Some Jewish men may also joke that this is the last time the groom gets to ‘put his foot down’!

Image: Hatunot Blog / Alexey Kudrik

CHOOSE THE INTERPRETATION THAT IS MOST MEANINGFUL TO YOU

Whatever reason resonates with you best, feel free to ask your rabbi or officiant to mention, just before the breaking of the glass, an interpretation that is the most meaningful for you.

And on the subject of breaking the glass, there are all sorts of alternative variations that you can make eg. why not both break the glass together with one swift smash in unison? Be creative and choose the interpretation of the breaking the glass that means the most to you as a couple and it will make that element of your ceremony more momentous.

Image: Hatunot Blog / Dima Vazinovich

WEDDING SHARD MEZUZAH KEEPSAKE

Once the glass-smashing has been done and you are man and wife, I think it’s a beautiful idea to create a mezuzah keepsake out of the smashed glass from your wedding ceremony. There are quite a few crafts-y people on Etsy who will create one for you from your shards of glass such as the one below from Enid Traisman

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Lee & Gary | Show-Stopping Jewish Wedding at The Criterion, London

16/07/2013 by Karen

Lee and Gary married at the gorgeously opulent Criterion Restaurant in Piccadilly, London. And when I say opulent, I’m talking a sumptuous neo-Byzantine Piccadilly haven with marble walls, decorative archways and a glorious golden mosaic ceiling.

And that’s not the only reason I’m excited to feature this wedding. You see I’m also totally in love with Lee’s couture dress and head piece which she designed herself. AND the fact that Le Gateau Chocolat, the big black transvestite opera-singer, with a penchant for being wrapped in body-hugging glittery lycra, performed at this wedding!

So here’s their story: Although this gorgeous couple are both Jewish, Lee (a former fashion designer, now a full-time mummy) and Gary, a barrister, are both, in their own words, “devout atheists”. Even so, both felt a need for some familiar cultural background in a partner and ended up finding each other on the Jewish dating site, JDate.

I’ll now hand over to Lee with all the delicious detail from the day:

VENUE + DECOR
Lee, the Bride: Gary, my then fiancà©, had been to The Criterion Restaurant before and knowing my love for art deco, thought I might like it. He literally thought of it the day after he proposed (which by the way completely flew over my head as he did it in his usual verbally subtle way!) We were on holiday at the time and arranged to see the venue a few days after our return over lunch. The moment we sat down and took the place in, we knew we needn’t look any further.

With such a beautiful venue choice, we didn’t need or want a theme or colour scheme as we didn’t want to detract from the beauty of the room with many other colours. Our floral and table layouts were fairly clean and simple too, with a combination of old school & clean modern – just how we like it!

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` Image: Dave & Charlotte

Image: Hatunot Blog / Alexey Kudrik

CHOOSE THE INTERPRETATION THAT IS MOST MEANINGFUL TO YOU

Image: Hatunot Blog / Dima Vazinovich

WEDDING SHARD MEZUZAH KEEPSAKE

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Image: Dave & Charlotte