Today we’re featuring the wedding of a very special Smashing The Glass Brides Club member Jenna! You see, way back in the Before Times, Jenna hosted the very first NYC Brides Club meetup – a challah bake at her place in Brooklyn, which, as a mega-talented baker, she also led!
During the pandemic, she and now-husband Mat (who’ve got a super cute how-they-met story, by the way) relocated from NYC back to their shared hometown of Tucson, Arizona, where they also held their wedding – and while I know the New York Brides Club crew misses Jenna’s generosity and baking prowess, after taking a look at the gorgeous landscape featured in She.We Studio’s photos, can you really blame her?!
Even before Jenna and Mat’s move back to the Southwest, they always knew they wanted their wedding to reflect the beauty of the region where they met and grew up. Their main requirement in a venue was epic mountain views, their ketubah featured watercolor mountains reminiscent of Tucson’s, their invites featured prickly pear cacti – Jenna’s bridal bouquet even featured succulents! And she found the perfect lightweight gown for Arizona climate at Grace Loves Lace, too.
There’s so much more to say about this wonderful wedding, and we’ll let Jenna tell you all about it in her own words – but before we do, we’ve got to share her kind words about her time in Brides Club:
“I joined the Brides Club because Smashing the Glass really is the only resource out there for modern Jewish weddings. The Brides Club was a way to have that same community I was seeing from other wedding resources, but with the added bonus of people actually understanding questions related to a Jewish wedding. What I didn’t know was that I would meet so many wonderful women and make so many amazing friendships, which was especially helpful when Covid hit and caused so many of us to change or cancel our plans. I honestly couldn’t have weathered two postponements without being surrounded by my friends and having Karen there for mental and emotional support.”
Awww! Doesn’t get much better than that, does it? Take it away, Jenna!
How we Met
Jenna, the bride: I am a data analyst, currently working in retail, & Mat is a customer success manager in tech. We actually met back in 1994 (we weren’t even two years old yet) at a tumbling class at a local park’s rec center. We reconnected throughout life, as we both grew up in Tucson, AZ and belonged to the same synagogue (I even stole Mat’s birthday for my Bat Mitzvah date), but we happened to both be at a mutual friend’s high school graduation party (who ended up being our wedding videographer) one summer.
It turned out that Mat was going to be in the same freshman business mentorship program at our local university I had been in the year prior (I was a grade ahead of Mat in school) and was planning to attend the orientation that following week (University of Arizona is a large school with multiple orientation dates). A few days later, I got a Facebook message from Mat saying “I got your book.” Somehow, Mat got the book we read in the business mentorship program that I had signed – out of 60 from my year and 60 in his incoming year and of all orientation dates, he got my book! When school started, I invited Mat to our school’s Chabad welcome back barbeque for free kosher food, and the rest is history (although, it would take us until March of the following year to start dating).
