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A Monique Lhuillier Bride for a Magical Candlelit Indoor Garden Jewish Wedding at The Dorchester, London, UK

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We are absolutely blown away by the pure, unadulterated gorgeousness of today’s London Jewish wedding! Kelly, a restauranteur (she’s the owner and founder of A.O.K Kitchen), and Abel, who’s in property focusing on social housing, set out to plan a celebration evoking a magical candlelit garden, complete with tons of romance and beautiful flowers – and did they ever pull it off!

Everything about this day – from the flowers to the chuppah to the luxe backdrop provided by the couple’s venue, The Dorchester – gave off the ultimate fairy tale vibes. And that’s before we even get into Kelly’s exquisite Monique Lhuillier gown! As soon as Kelly spotted this dress – adorned with colorful hand-embroidered flowers and butterflies – she knew it was the perfect fit for her special day.

Now over to Kelly…

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How We Met

Kelly, the bride: We were introduced by a mutual friendContinue ReadingContinue Reading

A Sassi Holford Bride for a Gothic Fairy Tale Halloween Wedding at St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, London, UK

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There’s nothing we love like seeing a couple put their own totally unique stamp on their Jewish wedding – which is exactly what today’s couple, Candy and Sam, did! These two opted to get married on Halloween, and they let the date serve as inspiration for their gothic fairy tale-style day, low on pumpkins and skulls but high on haunted house vibes and tarot card styling.

Candy and Sam found the perfect partner to bring their vision to life in wedding planner Michelle Jacobs of Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Elegante by Michelle J. Michelle totally got their unique vision, and she introduced the pair to so many of their amazing suppliers – including Pippa Mackenzie Photography, who captured these incredible images. The duo can’t stop gushing about Michelle’s amazing service, throughout the planning process and on the day too.

 The couple chose Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Rabbi Paul Glantz as their officiant, and they loved that he encouraged them to write their own personalized ketubah text – which they then read aloud from during the ceremony!

For entertainment, Candy and Sam chose Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Totem’s gospel choir and full live band, a choice that resulted in an awesome party. In Candy’s words, “The music was one of the huge successes of the night, during dinner we had a huge party break out and the band and guests went wild. People were dancing on chairs, people’s shoulders and even the windowsills. It was outrageous in the best way possible.”

Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Adam Nathan Catering provided the couple’s kosher-style catering, and he was incredibly flexible and easy to work with, despite having a lot of opinions to take into account! Candy and Sam loved the way he brought everyone’s ideas together to create a totally delicious meal.

There’s so much more to say, but we’ll leave the rest to the bride, who looked smashing in Sassi Holford… 

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How we Met

Candice, the bride: We met at The University of Leeds in our third year. Sam then moved down to London so that we could carry on seeing each other and we began our careers. Sam pursued a role in television and is now a TV Director launching a food and wine show whilst I am a Creative Director at a creative agency specialising in social media.Continue ReadingContinue Reading

A Berta Bride for a Timelessly Glam Jewish Wedding with a Cannabis Bar at Chicago Illuminating Company, Chicago, Illinois, USA

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Alana & Benjamin, Chicago Illuminating Company, Chicago, USA

We are absolutely, positively in love with Alana and Benjamin’s jawdroppingly gorgeous Chicago Jewish wedding. Swathed in greenery and twinkly lights, the ambience these two created for their day was nothing short of magical (don’t miss the stunning photos by Avery House!) – and we love that they added in some unexpected personal touches, like a cannabis bar!

Perfectly matching their color scheme focused on neutrals, white, and gold was the couple’s fabulous ketubah from beloved Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor The Ketubist. Featuring papercut gold peonies on a white background, the design is SO chic – and Alana and Benjamin loved working with founder Talia.

This wedding was full of so many more wonderful touches, but we’ll leave the rest to Alana, who looked nothing short of ravishing in her exquisite gown from Israeli designer Berta…

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How we Met

Alana, the bride: Formally, we met on the Jewish dating app J-Swipe. However, Benjamin’s friend from Jewish summer camp happened to have been my college roommate and eventually became our Rabbi. He played a significant role in our courtship after we met. We are both psychotherapists.Continue ReadingContinue Reading

A Joyce Young Bride for a Jewish Wedding Worth the Wait at Dartmouth House, London, UK

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Jos & Daniel, Dartmouth House, London, UK

We’re so excited to be featuring the Jewish wedding of our beautiful Brides Club member Jos today! As with so many couples over the past few years,  Jos, who works for a tech company in product marketing, and Daniel, a lawyer, had lots of setbacks on the way to marital bliss – including THREE postponements and a change of venue – but the final outcome was more than worth the wait, as we’re sure you’ll agree if you scroll through the incredible photos by Rachel takes Pictures.

We so loved having Jos in Brides Club, where she made real-life friends she’s still connected with post-wedding and found some of her fabulous vendors, including their videographer Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Adrian Stone and planner Katy Cresner.

Speaking of Adrian Stone – The Dream Catchers – we can’t say it any better than Jos did herself: “When we received our Storybook film and highlights edit it was better than anything I could ever wish for. Adrian captured the spirit of the day and so many moments that would have been forgotten if we didn’t work with him.”

We’re also in awe of the couple’s florals by Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Blue Sky Flowers. Jos and Daniel chatted with founder Liz about their preferences and then left her to run the show… and they were absolutely blown away by the results, as are we! The duo also loved that Liz donates flowers leftover at the end of the night to Floral Angels, so that other people can enjoy them!

There were so many more wonderful personal touches to this day, but we’ll leave it to Jos, who looked stunning in Joyce Young, to tell you about all that…

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How we Met

Jos, the bride: We met on a cold January evening at the Freemasons Arms pub in Hampstead, but originally we both swiped right on Tinder. Well he swiped for me, my friend swiped for him, but that’s another story.

We got engaged on the Greek island of Naxos, which is now our absolute favourite place on this planet. It was simple and quintessentially us, and we set about planning our wedding almost as soon as we got back. 

We were originally meant to get married in June 2020 with 250 people at Hackney town Hall. We were one of many couples who had to cancel because of covid and we were a little optimistic with trying two more times in November 2020 and March 2021, both dates fell during national lockdowns and we pushed it to April 2022 and got on with our lives.

We bought a house and a dog like good covid millennials. I have to say, that I put wedding planning completely on the back burner. I found it really hard to get excited and I was super anxious about moving forward with a wedding date before 2022 because I was terrified that people would get sick. Being honest, I’m not sure if I saw how much limbo we were living in, it was an important event that we were very keen to have, but we were also totally paralysed by the events in the world.

In August 2021 my mum went on holiday with her cousin and called me from the beach declaring she thought it would be a great idea of we just got married in October. She wanted to be as early into Autumn as possible, in the hope that there were no covid restrictions. Initially she had suggested getting married in their garden, but that proved to be unworkable, so in 6 weeks we planned a cut down, but just as fabulous wedding, it was a whirlwind but one we couldn’t be more grateful we did when we did it.Continue ReadingContinue Reading

Smashing the Sake Barrel: A Multicultural Same-Sex Chinese-Japanese-Jewish Wedding at Spring Studios, Kentish Town, London, UK

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Just about all the weddings we blog feature a couple smashing the glass, but we’re pretty sure this is our first where the couple’s also smashed a sake barrel! Beautiful London-based brides Phoebe and Misa, both software engineers, planned the most smashing (sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves) lesbian Jew-ish wedding combining Phoebe’s Jewish background with Misa’s Chinese and Japanese heritage – and we’re obsessed!

These two wanted their day to truly reflect them as a couple, and we don’t think they could possibly have done a better job. With a Jew-ish ceremony led by Phoebe’s childhood rabbi, Chinese and Japanese canapes, personalized sake cup favors for the guests, and a blessing in Japanese from Misa’s mum, we’re obsessed with how seamlessly multicultural the duo made their day.

And back to the smashing of the sake barrel – did you know that it’s a Japanese custom to break the lid of a sake barrel with a wooden hammer on special occasions? What a cool parallel to smashing the glass (which Phoebe and Misa also did, naturally) – and the sake from that smashed barrel was used for the final toast of the night!

We’re obsessed with Phoebe and Misa’s incredible photos by Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Marta Ilardo. The camera-shy couple wanted a documentary-style photographer who’d make them feel comfortable on the day, and Marta fit the bill perfectly – plus, how stunning are her photos?

Now over to the Phoebe and Misa, who looked gorgeous in their dresses by Aesling and Mikaella, respectively…

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How we Met

Misa and Phoebe, the brides: We actually met at a coding bootcamp (Makers Academy) in 2016! Phoebe was working in finance and Misa was doing a PhD in partnership with Cancer Research UK, when we both decided to re train as Software Engineers.Continue ReadingContinue Reading