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A Sassi Holford bride for a Destination Interfaith Jewish wedding at Les Mas des Oules, Provence, South of France

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Oh what a treat I have for you today! A super gorgeous couple, and my goodness, where do I start with their delicious destination Jew-ish destination wedding?

It’s designed and planned to perfection by Lucy Till, and it’s just bursting at the seams with details that will make you squeal. Seriously — it’s that good. Kitty’s Sassi Holford wedding dress, the Provencal blooms,  the lavender theme and the home-made touches… it’s all breathtaking. Oh, and Dexter the dog. Don’t even get me started. Let’s not forget Robbie who looks super dapper in his suit and bow tie too (with a matching one for Dexter too!).

I’m approaching things from a slightly different angle today as it’s actually Kitty and Robbie’s very talented wedding photographer —David Morgan — who will be talking us through the bride and groom’s view of the day.

Enjoy this one folks!

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Choosing to get married in South of France

David Morgan, their photographer: Kitty and Robbie were married at a charming little French estate called Les Mas des Oules. Les Mas des Oules is a family run estate in ‘Gard Provenà§al’ and it was originally the farm and winery of the château of Saint-Victor des Oules.

When Kitty and Robbie first went to see the venue it was quite literally a building site as it was in the process of being sympathetically converted by an English couple into eight houses and apartments ranging from one to three bedrooms. The venue is close to where Robbie’s parents have a home so made a lot of sense from that perspective.

Kitty and Robbie fell in love with the views and it was a snap decision with a deposit there and then!

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A Halfpenny London Bride for an interfaith Mexican-Jewish wedding at Searcys at 30 Pavilion Road, Knightsbridge, London, UK

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The last few weeks have been filled to the brim with all sorts of events and meetings… all in the name of work! From admiring the 2017 bridal collections at White Gallery London to a meeting with the Vivienne Westwood couture team in central London to the fabulous Not On The High Street press event where I got to meet the wonderful Kate Halfpenny and see her phenomenal wedding dress designs firsthand. Having been a fan of Kate’s for a long time (since I first heard her speak  at Paperfest in 2014) I’m delighted to be finally featuring a bride wearing one of her vintage-inspired Halfpenny London gowns in today’s interfaith (let’s call it Mexi-Jew!) fusion Jew-ish wedding.

Yes, today’s wedding features a surprise Mexican mariachi band singing Hava Nagila and Siman Tov… Epic, right?

And when it’s all captured by Matt Parry, you know it’s going to be utterly superb. Matt is one of those photographers whose work makes me do a little dance whenever I see it — there is something so very creative and fresh about his style — and I’m so happy to be able to say that today’s couple booked him after discovering his work on Smashing The Glass (which definitely elicits another happy dance from me!).

Mexican Jewish Wedding Searcys at 30 Pavilion Road
how we met

Liz, the Bride: Freddie and I met six years ago whilst I was living in London with friends.  We met at a club and exchanged phone numbers. We went on a date and I spent the rest of my time in London with him.

When I returned to Mexico we assumed that that was the end of our whirlwind romance, however two years later I came back to London for the Olympics and I met up with Freddie and we ended spending the entire summer together. The following summer I was back in London for work and after spending yet another summer together we finally decided to give it a go. I moved to London and the rest as they say is history…

We chose this venue as Freddie and his family used to live less than 100 yards away. As Freddie’s mum mentioned in her speech it felt like coming home…

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A Pronovias bride for a ‘Northerner & The Jew’ interfaith Jewish wedding at Corinthia Hotel London, UK

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Today’s Jew-ish wedding can’t fail to put a smile on your face. It’s literally bursting at the seams with fashion, fun and some very original ideas. The bride and groom are a director and  actor respectively, and they incorporated some brilliantly inventive details  into their  day.

There’s a surprise  Fiddler & The Roof bottle dance  by the groom and his friends, an off-the-scale Pronovias  dress,  Vivienne Westwood shoes that I am MAJORLY  coveting, a dress code of ‘Imagine it’s the Oscar’s and get glamorous’, and one of the best Jew-ish wedding themes ever:  ‘The  Northerner & The Jew’. Genius! The bride  says:

My Judaism  is very important to  me — it is my cultural make-up. It was a big decision to get serious
 with John but luckily I have a great family who adore him. And I adore his. Our upbringing often clashes, mainly 
over little things and we are having to re-write our own rules for our life together. We can’t base it on our parents but there are some great discoveries — like a bacon and challah sandwich. So wrong its right. So ‘Northern and the Jew’.

A  bacon and challah sandwich? Too good to be true! There are so many good interfaith ceremony wedding ideas here, one of my favourite being  the laying out of  flags out on each seat during the chuppah  with different Lancashire and Yiddish sayings.

Jem &  John  had a very personal wedding  and, not surprisingly,  the  report today is written by them both. All the fun comes from the exquisite  Corinthia hotel  in the heart of London with sensational imagery by  Rhapsody Road.

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Choosing to get married at The Corinthia Hotel  London

Jem, the Bride: We were recommended to go and see The Corinthia  by a friend and fell in love with it. We have a love of architecture and restoration work and the way the hotel had been restored and modernised appealed to us. We also wanted somewhere in central London where we could have the ceremony and reception in one place.

John, the Groom: The place is magnificent. As Jem said, the architecture is splendid, the refurbishment is top notch. The welcome from the door staff was fantastic. In fact, everything was exemplary when we looked around. It just made sense. Once we had the food tasting, we knew it was money well spent.

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A Johanna Johnson bride for Supper club inspired interfaith Jewish wedding at The Green Building, Brooklyn, New York City, USA

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I love Danya’s mum – she told her about Smashing The Glass and shared the blog with Danya a few months before her wedding. Danya told me how much of a help it was for her as she planned her interfaith Jewish wedding to Andrew, and that makes me one very happy smiley blogger.

Danya and Andrew are a really creative couple who blended  their heritages (she’s Jewish, he’s not) and their hobbies to start a pop-up restaurant inspired by Jewish culture. Their pop-up supper club was a big inspiration for their wedding ceremony and celebration as they wanted their guests to feel at home and as if they were at a really intimate, delicious, fun dinner party.

The attention to detail, craft and care for everything at this wedding is so apparent — the couple mixed age-old traditions together with individuality effortlessly, with a gorgeous Autumnal colour palette and lots of personalised details.

I also love this: Danya and Andrew asked two of their friends to decorate their apartment so that when they came home to it after the wedding (it was only a few roads away from the venue) it would feel celebratory and special. Their friends strung paper decorations and placed beautiful flowers and candles throughout the apartment together with a late-night snack plate of crackers, cheese, and champagne. Just wonderful!

Danya and Andrew were married in October 2015 at The Green Building in Brooklyn, an incredible warehouse / loft-style venue in the heart of Brooklyn. All the stunning images are by Chris Gifford from Weddings by Two

Green Building Brooklyn wedding
The background to our wedding

Danya, the Bride: I’m an East Coast Jew who loves neutral colours and socialising to relax. My husband is a Christmas-loving, West Coast guy who’s never met an outdoor sport he didn’t like. We wanted to combine our backgrounds in a way that felt authentic to us and in a way that our families would recognise, and we lucked out big time with a brilliant and quirky rabbi who totally got what we needed (Rabbi Jim Ponet, a close family friend and Yale University’s rabbi for 30 years – his first ever intermarriage was Chelsea Clinton and her husband!). We spent a lot of time coming up with an original, explanatory, sometimes funny program.

Green Building Brooklyn wedding

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A Vera Wang bride for a spectacular rustic-glam Jew-ish destination wedding at a private villa in Phuket, Thailand

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From the introductory image above, it’s fair to say that Melissa and Ishay’s Jew-ish wedding is going to be seriously swoon-inducing… and it doesn’t stop with that extraordinary ceremony setting either. Their entire W Day is dazzling from start to finish with a beautiful back story of love crossing continents and eclipsing expectations.

Thai-American Melissa, and Israeli-born Ishay met in an Irish pub in Uganda (yes, really!) and everyone told them they were crazy to think their relationship could last.

As Melissa says, “After our time in Africa, and a year and a half of Skype video chats and international flights around the world, to and from Uganda, Israel, Thailand, and San Francisco, we embarked on a new adventure together – The East Coast. Then one evening when I was on call, Ishay decided to surprise me in my new apartment in New York City with over 400 candles. Who knew Ishay could be so romantic? Of course, I said yes.”

Oh I do love a good international love story (did you know that both my parents’ and my brother’s marriage are the culminations of long-distance relationships?) and the incredible story behind their relationship is told in their own words in one of the most moving wedding films I’ve ever watched – tears in my eyes. You absolutely have to see it – it’s just below.

Super stunning Melissa married the love of her life in a breathtaking Vera Wang gown, and if there is one word to describe this gorgeous couple’s big day then it’s WOW. From the show-stopping fireworks to those beautifully decorated long tables at dinner, to the exquisite displays of flowers and that chuppah on the infinity pool set against the backdrop of the Indian ocean, it all looks spectacular.

But that carefree shot at the end of both of them jumping into the swimming pool in their half-dressed wedding attire? That’s my favourite.

Enjoy this Tuesday treat of a wedding with words by the bride, images by Julian Abram Wainwright and the must-watch film below by David Pritchard from Imageforge Asia

Destination wedding Thailand
how we met

Melissa, the Bride: It started in an Irish pub in the middle of Uganda. I know, right? Ishay moved from Israel to Uganda to pursue a new life adventure. I took a year off from medical school to engage in medical research in Uganda. True to ex-pat living in East Africa, all good things came out of the regular go-to hang out place, the “local” Irish pub known as “Bubbles.”

It would be nice to say that it was love at first sight for both of us. If you asked Ishay, he would probably say that Melissa just never met anyone like him before. If you asked me, I would probably say that I initially was just not that impressed. Luckily, Ishay is persistent or, at the very least, stubborn. On the second meeting I became intrigued. By our first date, we were both hooked. We just couldn’t get enough of each other. Six months after spending time together in East Africa, what appeared to be the most unexpected love story was expected, by everyone, to end.

I moved back to San Francisco to finish medical school. Ishay stayed in Uganda to continue working. In less than a year, Ishay moved back to Israel to finish college. After a year and a half of Skype video chats and international flights around the world, to and from Uganda, Israel, Thailand, and San Francisco, we embarked on a new adventure together – The East Coast.  And then on one fall evening when I was on call (shocking for some but, dermatology residents do take call), Ishay decided to surprise me in my new apartment in New York City with over 400 candles. Who knew Ishay could be so romantic? Of course, I said yes.  Over the next two years, we had a civil ceremony in New York City at City Hall, had a traditional Buddhist ceremony in Bangkok, and finally, we had our wedding in Phuket. 
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