Jewish DIY Weddings Archives - Page 14 of 17 - Smashing the Glass

Olya + Yossi | Hand-crafted, rustic, bohemian ‘Instagram’ Israeli wedding at Duce Villa, Tel Aviv, planned in just 3 months!

30/09/2014 by Karen

Oh this is such a beautiful wedding. I’m so very excited to be blogging it, and what’s more, the story of how Olya and Yossi met is quite simply a modern day fairytale, with good ol’ Instagram at the epicentre of their tale!

Olya was looking for a vintage hebrew typewriter and posted a picture on Instagram of what she was looking for. Yossi saw the picture after one of his friends ‘liked’ it, and he then dropped her a message telling her he owned one that she might just be interested in. Originally from Israel, Yossi had just moved to Los Angeles, but that didn’t stop the two of them from carving out a beautiful love story via email, Skype and all manner of 21st century technologies.

Olya says. “We are still wondering how this all magically happened, but here we are now together, sharing the same last name and that turquoise vintage typewriting machine.”

Super creative Olya (the blogger behind the à¼ber-cool boho TLV Birdie blog) handcrafted so many beautiful elements for her wedding, and believe it or not, organised the whole thing in just 3 months! This girl knows a thing or two about originality and artistry so look no further for your D.I.Y. inspiration! Take note of her wise advice the end too. I found myself nodding along in agreement like one of those dogs you find on the back shelf of a car. But I digress… read on for a beautiful story, and some sensational imagery by Irina Yakobson.

PLANNING OUR ENTIRE WEDDING IN JUST 3 MONTHS
Olya, the Bride: When it came to planning the wedding, we had a vision of a simple, cosy, small bohemian wedding. We organised the entire do in just 3 months, and the wedding day fell upon the beautiful date of 4/4/14.

Alana & Marc | Country Garden Boho Jewish wedding at Offley Place Country House, Hertfordshire, UK

23/09/2014 by Karen

Alana and Marc were introduced by a mutual friend over Facebook (the Rabbi even thanked Mark Zuckerburg during the ceremony), and after a few messages back and forth they met up in a Camden pub, and the rest, as they say, is history!

They had a fantastic marquee-in-the-garden wedding and chose to hold their ceremony outdoors, complete with super-sized balloons lining the aisle, and the BEST bridesmaid entrance you have ever seen. Yes, Alana’s 8 month old niece arrived in a a remote controlled mini cream Fiat 500! EPIC or what?

But that’s not all. I also absolutely adore Alana’s entire outfit — from her exquisite wedding dress to her sensitively designed birdcage veil and headpiece which she accessorises perfectly with a pink and peach Peonie bouquet.

Alana and Marc have written their wedding report together and it’s lovely to hear from a Groom who had so much input into the big day, even though he confesses that “Alana had so many ideas for the wedding that [he] wasn’t convinced by, but “[he has] to admit they ended up being amazing” (And he said that he promises he wasn’t forced to write that either!).

Images come from our fabulous Smashing Supplier, Mark Seymour, back with a bang to STG with this wedding. As always, he captures every last detail beautifully. And there’s an immense highlight film right at the end of the post by Wedding Films London. It really captures the spirit of the day and if you’ve never been to a Jewish wedding but always wondered about the “crazy Jewish wedding dancing thing” scroll to 3 minutes, 5 seconds in and you’ll get a terrific example (WARNING: you’ll feel exhausted just watching!).

THE PERFECT VENUE FOR AN OUTDOOR CEREMONY AND A GREAT BIG PARTY!
Alana the Bride, and Marc, the groom: Our venue was called Offley Place. We dreamed of having the ceremony outdoors and we wanted the venue to have real character to it too. We also needed to find somewhere that could fit our huge family. We had a few venues fall through and we were really finding it difficult to find anywhere that worked for us. When we went to see Offley Place we knew straight away that we wanted to get married there. The grounds were stunning and the marquee had capacity for our huge family. The fact that the manor house had rooms for us to stay in ensured that the party could continue late into the night. Also, the manor house itself was very beautiful. Offley Place had the potential to incorporate all our ideas and the team there were clearly geared up for Jewish weddings already.

Hannah & Raf | Laidback, colourful ‘English Garden’ Jewish wedding at The Priory Barn, Little Wymondley, Hertfordshire, UK

20/08/2014 by Karen

An english country garden jewish wedding
Hannah and Raf’s big day is bursting at the seams with colour, fun and some very original ideas, and if I had to describe their wedding in one (ok two) words, it would be utterly joyous. From Raf’s beaming smile to Hannah’s multi-coloured nails, through to the wild summer flowers dotted about everywhere, and the most original first dance I’ve heard about in a long while (I’ll let Hannah surprise you with that one).

I want to be a guest at this wedding. I want to receive a homemade invitation designed by the bride. I want to stand amongst the moorhens and weeping willows. I want to hear a klezmer version of The Final Countdown. I want to have a slice of hundreds and thousands cake. And I want to have every moment captured by Marianne Chua whose images are appearing for the first time on STG which I’m so very thrilled about!

Get ready because you gorgeous lot are going to be pinning until your fingers are raw.

colourful English garden Jewish wedding_0033

A MIDWEEK WEDDING AT A WONDERFUL GARDEN VENUE
Hannah, the Bride: We chose to get married at The Priory Barn in Little Wymondley. We researched various venues, but had difficulties in that a lot of the London venues wouldn’t allow religious ceremonies and we didn’t want a hotel. We also wanted outside space and The Priory has an amazing garden complete with a stream, weeping willows and baby moorhens! We had budget concerns and The Priory had a great midweek deal. Our wedding was on a Thursday but this really didn’t seem to affect turnout.

Natalie & Eli | Informal DIY Boho Jewish Wedding at House Plantation, Texas

17/07/2014 by Karen

I think it took me exactly 3.6 seconds from the moment I first read Shaun Taylor‘s email, detailing Natalie and Eli’s wedding, to thinking oh yes, this has crashed through my submission barriers — I’ve got a killer Smashing The Glass wedding on my hands here!

I love that Natalie made her own dress and wore cowboy boots. I love that Natalie’s mum made her jewellery. I love that the couple flew out their photographer, Shaun Taylor all the way from Derby to Texas because they loved his work so much. I love what Natalie says about working together with your fiancà© as a team in the planning stages. And I love that it rained and then rained some more, but far from letting the weather dampen their spirits, they embraced it and the results are even better than they imagined, as Natalie describes below.

You’ll also see the most exquisite henna tattoos covering Natalie’s arms. A traditional Yemenite henna party is a popular pre-wedding ritual for Sephardi Jews and you can see theirs in full swing over on Shaun’s blog. It just goes to show you can stamp your personality onto your wedding weekend and dig deep into your culture’s traditions too. The two are not mutually exclusive and that’s exactly what this blog is all about.

Gena & Tony | Extraordinarily imaginative ‘color explosion’ Jewish wedding at the Sydney Polo Club, NSW, Australia

10/07/2014 by Karen

Epic.

Get your sunglasses ready because todays wedding is a massive rainbow-hued color fest. Gena and her husband Tony had one of those weddings where there are so many details I love I hardly even know where to start.

There’s Gena’s pom pom crown, her crochet dress and her supersize bouquet filled with flowers of every possible hue, glitter, ribbons, and pom poms. Then we’ve got bridesmaids dressed in orange carrying big foil heart shaped balloons with tissue paper tassels instead of bouquets. There’s a super cute dog taking centre stage during the ceremony. And 1200 odd colored ribbons used to decorate the barn and chairs. The handmade resin crayons for buttonholes (a reference to the green crayon hair clip that Gena wore in her hair the night Tony first noticed her) are so cute!). And then there’s the way that Tony looks at Gena…

So have you got your sunglasses ready? Well get your Pinterest boards primed too because you are most certainly going to need them! All of these delectable images were taken by the rather brilliant Lara Hotz. (Oh and check out the mighty cute wedding film at the end of the post by The White Tree too!).

A RUSTIC VENUE
Our wedding was on a farm at the Sydney Polo Club, about an hour away from where we live. We wanted to have something a bit out of the ordinary (this can be hard with a big Jewish wedding but we knew we didn’t want a hotel reception room) and not expect people to have to travel too far. We ended up having the chuppah and dance floor inside the barn and connected a marquee to the side where the guests were seated. The barn doors slid open to connect the two spaces.

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