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Home > A Monique Lhuillier bride for a city chic Jewish wedding at Bloomsbury Ballroom, London, UK

A Monique Lhuillier bride for a city chic Jewish wedding at Bloomsbury Ballroom, London, UK

18/12/2015 by Karen

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Not only is today’s bride, Dana, a big fan of Smashing The Glass (I always love to hear that!) she also found her super talented florist, Gloria Baker, through the blog, and my goodness, what a breathtaking chuppah Gloria created. It’s a chuppah to die for. Anyone that’s after a dreamy, romantic, floral look should get their pinterest boards at the ready, and if not, get all old school with a notepad and pen — seriously it’s THAT good.

Dana and Jacob married at central London’s Bloomsbury Ballroom and they definitely achieved their aim of creating the greatest party of their lives. A massive 80% of their guests flew in from abroad and everyone partied so hard you just knew they weren’t working the following day! From personalised masks of Dana and Jacob, to flip flop favours, photo booths, and glasses emblazoned with ‘Dana and Jacob’, every dance floor detail was thought of.

I haven’t even mentioned Dana’s epic gown yet.. She wore ‘Sarah’ by Monique Lhuillier but she went a step further and got one of the wonderful seamstresses at Browns Bride to create a detachable skirt so that she could completely change up her look for the ceremony and the party. Brilliant!

As with almost every Jewish wedding ceremony, theirs was steeped in tradition and ritual, and they managed to successfully combine both Ashkenazi and Sephardi wedding traditions to reflect both their heritages. They also made the decision not to see or talk to each other for an entire week before the wedding! This is one of my favourite religious Jewish wedding traditions, but one that I rarely see carried out (for the full week) these days.

All the images and film are by Shedrin & Rubi, who Dana and Jacob flew in all the way from Israel.

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Our wedding in a nutshell

Dana, the Bride: My husband is from Cleveland, Ohio and I am from London (although I grew up in Israel as a child). We met when we studied together at IDC in Herzliya. We decided to get married in London because it would be easier for both our families to be part of the celebrations, but what made the day extra special was that 80% of our guests were from abroad.

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A central London venue

We originally wanted to get married at an outdoors venue, but of course with English weather being so unreliable we decided not to risk it. It turned out to be one of the hottest days of the year, but we are still so glad we picked Bloomsbury Ballroom, a beautiful Art Deco hall in the centre of London.

We didn’t want to have a hotel wedding as it is not our style, and we loved the Art Deco aspect of the Bloomsbury Ballroom. We originally wanted to create a 1920’s wedding style, and this fit perfectly with our theme. We looked at many venues but as soon as we saw Bloomsbury we knew it was where we wanted to get married.

It is also situated right next to Bloomsbury Square, a beautiful garden. We took advantage of this and had our family photos in this garden, straight after the chuppah. This was a great opportunity to relax and share the happiness with our family, while the rest of the guests enjoyed reception and drinks in the ‘Crush Bar’ downstairs.

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hair + make up

I had the best hair and make up stylist ever! It’s really important to choose someone you trust for this job because they’ll be one of the first person you see on your big day, and you’ll be feeling nervous. They can help you relax. And of course, it is important to feel as beautiful as you can for your big day. My make up and hair stylists definitely made me feel that way! My make up artist was Sarah Field and my hair stylist was Ayelet Garson

Bloomsbury Ballroom wedding
A Monique Lhuiller dress with a detachable skirt

I went to see many dresses but couldn’t find one that I truly felt was the one! After a fruitless search, I went with my mum to Browns Bride and instantly fell in love with the first dress I tried on there. It was a Monique Lhuiller dress named ‘Sarah’. I also got a skirt made by the amazing seamstress who works at Browns. She created the whole thing from scratch. This was great as I got to change the look of my entire wedding dress simply by taking off the skirt. I wore the skirt for the chuppah and photos and took it off for the dancing. It was amazing that the first dress I tried on with my mum was the one I fell in love with. I guess she knows me much better than I know myself!

Monique Lhuillier dress
accessories

My dress was made entirely from beads. It was very delicate and had a lot of detail. For this reason I decided to keep it simple, with a simple veil and only earrings for jewellery (no tiara or hair accessories!).

Bloomsbury Ballroom wedding
bridesmaids

My bridesmaid wore beautiful sparkling kimono dresses that shone throughout the whole night.  The maid of honour was my sister, Raquel. I can’t wait to return the favour one day… My other maid of honour was Jacob’s sister, Ellie. We all took pictures in my garden and then took a limo to Bloomsbury. It was so fun and I felt so glamorous!

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The ketubah

We found our Ketubah on Etsy. It is beautiful and unique. It was completely hand made and the art was amazing. We love it.

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the ceremony

Since Jacob’s family has Ashkenazi traditions and mine has mostly Sephardi traditions we decided to mix both. We had a tisch, where the men all drink whisky, eat smoked fish and sign the ketubah. Instead of having the badeken before the chuppah (we wanted to see each other for the first time under the chuppah), we had it during the ceremony. My parents walked me down the aisle, then Jacob walked towards me before I reached the chuppah, and we had the badeken in the middle of the aisle. It was so overwhelming at this point but I’m so glad we decided to do it this way!

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Our amazing florist and the most incredible flowers

I truly loved Gloria Baker, our amazing florist, and I trusted her completely with the entire design! I let her make all the decisions for the design, she seemed to really understand what would suit us best just from the first meeting! We met with very limited time before the wedding so we didn’t have time to look at a sample, but I knew it would look beautiful anyway – and it did!

Gloria used beautiful romantic quicksand, sahara, and avalanche roses. These included green and pinks for the chuppah and the reception. Then the room was changed over entirely from romantic to very art deco era of chic, elegant and a stunning intimate dinner style with beautiful, tall, glass fluted vases with large palms, dripping phaleonopsis orchids and light green hanging amaranthus. Gloria also put candles everywhere, from the chuppah aisle, the reception and the dinner room to highlight the romantic vibe of the night. It was simply stunning!

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The handsome groom and the perfect shoes for smashing the glass!

Jacob and I decided not to see or talk to each other a whole week before the wedding. This was extremely difficult and worth it! I missed him so much, but it also made me so much more excited, and made the wedding a truly beautiful and emotional day. Especially when I saw him waiting for me under the chuppah! He was dressed in a DKNY tuxedo and looked super hot! He had a black bow tie on and looked absolutely ‘smashing’! He also had beautiful shiny black tux shoes on, which aided him in truly smashing the glass to pieces!

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Fabulous kosher catering

The food by Philip Small was also very delicious. Yum! Everyone loved the lamb chops and enjoyed many of his delicious cocktails.

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our fabulous photographers and videographers

Our photographers, Shedrin & Rubi,  were INCREDIBLE! They actually filmed my brothers barmitzvah in Israel, so we knew they were amazing. They are Israeli but since we liked them so much we had them fly in to film our wedding. We are so glad we did. The photos and the videos were way beyond our expectations!

Bloomsbury Ballroom wedding
Personalised Converse sneakers for dancing!

Something really fun that me and Jacob decided to do was get Converse shoes that said ‘Mrs A and Mr A’ on the back, which we changed into for the dancing. This was especially good because it was extremely comfortable and meant we could dance all night.

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entertainment

Our band was the Eli Tamir band. I was a bit nervous because I’d never heard them live before but we loved Eli (and he has an amazing voice) so we had confidence in him. We are glad we did! It was the best wedding band we had ever heard and we would recommend him and his band to anyone that asks. You’ll fall in love with his voice the second you hear him. They created an amazing vibe and people were dancing almost the entire night!

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fun favours

We had flip flops for people to change into for dancing. We also had glasses that said ‘Dana and Jacob’ as well as hats, scarves and light up bracelets and necklaces. Something special that we thought of was having face masks of the the Queen and Abraham Lincoln. We also had masks made of mine and Jacob’s faces which everyone loved. It was pretty crazy (and weird) seeing our faces surround us everywhere we looked.

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photo booth and partying till 2am!

We also had an amazing photo booth by The Photo Booth Guys whom I strongly recommend!

None of the suppliers believed us when we said we wanted the wedding to go on till 2am. It is extremely rare in London! But we insisted on it, since most of our guests were from abroad and came to celebrate with us and party! We are glad we did. Even at 2am, most of our guests were still on the dance floor.

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Advice to brides and grooms currently planning their wedding

It is extremely stressful planning a wedding but remind yourself that at the end of the day, the important stuff is that you enjoy your special day with the people who love you the most, especially your handsome groom!

You can’t please everyone, but try to consider others in the planning, such as your grooms wishes and your parents (and his!) Don’t be scared of thinking outside the box — you don’t need to do anything just because someone else tells you that’s how its done. Trust your suppliers, and don’t try to control them too much… in the end they will do an amazing job.

Most importantly, let go of everything on the day and just have fun. The day is about marrying the man of your dreams and being surrounded by people who love you! In the end you get to go home with the most amazing man ever…

Watch Dana & Jacob’s wedding film

Dana & Jacob’s LITTLE WHITE BOOK

Photography and Videography — Shedrin & Rubi
Venue — Bloomsbury Ballroom
Flowers and chuppah —Gloria Baker
Catering — Philip Small
Photo Booth — The Photo Booth Guys
Bride’s dress — Monique Lhuillier from Browns Bride
Bride’s dance shoes — Converse
Groom’s suit – DKNY
Make up — Sarah Field
Hair — Ayelet Garson
Ketubah —Etsy
Entertainment — Eli Tamir Band

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Filed Under: Real Jewish Weddings, Jewish City Chic Weddings Tagged With: London Wedding, Browns Bride, Gloria Baker floristry, UK, Monique Lhuillier dress, floral chuppah, Converse, Bloomsbury Ballroom wedding, DKNY, Philip Small catering

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About Karen

Loves great design, cityscapes, berry cocktails, and the word “yes”. Founder and editor of Smashing The Glass. Follow me @SmashingTheGlass

Comments

  1. RA says

    24/12/2015 at 12:12 am

    Love the bridesmaids’ kimono dresses, where are they from?

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