Emma & David | Elegant tropical garden Jewish wedding at Boca Raton Resort & Club, Boca Raton, Florida, USA

Emma and David’s big day is absolutely exquisite, and for a summery garden wedding I don’t think you can beat their beautiful colour scheme and all their ‘beachy’ touches. I’m talking Emma’s starfish-topped heels, the elegant palm-patterned wedding stationery, the pretty florals with an almost coral reef-like feel, and  the cutest kissing flamingoes cake topper!

Emma’s wise words at the end are nothing short of perfect, reminding us all of the most important things in wedding planning and your lives together thereafter. But never mind that — check out their multi-coloured sprinkles covered cake. O.M.G!

I must also mention that our beautiful bride tragically lost her grandma very suddenly on the morning of her wedding. It must have been unbelievably difficult to genuinely celebrate the day, but these two managed to come through, and their rabbi sensitively incorporated the heartache into their wedding ceremony (which incidentally took place beneath one of the most beautiful chuppahs I’ve ever seen on Smashing The Glass).

Justin DeMutiis has taken some amazing shots that perfectly illustrate Emma’s tale of her big day with David…

a wedding weekend at a ‘resort’ venue

Emma, the Bride: We got married in Boca Raton, Florida at the Boca Raton Resort & Club. Since about 80% of our guests were travelling in from out of town, we wanted a place they could come and spend the whole weekend at and not need to leave for anything. The Boca Resort provided us with just that. They have plenty of restaurants, multiple pools, a beach club, activities for kids, a spa, pretty much anything our guests would need. There is not any significance to the space to David and I, it is just a beautiful resort.

I am a teacher so I have the summers off and wanted to do the whole wedding myself, of course with help from David and our families! Our colour scheme incorporated many different hues: pink, mint green, cream, blue, and gold, among others. I did not want a beach wedding, but I did want to incorporate some “beachy” elements to the wedding. I wanted something classic, chic and somewhat romantic for our wedding day.

Letterpress wedding stationery around a ‘beachy’ theme

We used an online retailer, Bella Figura for our invitations. The style was “Traditional Palm”. This was one area I brought the “beachy” elements into. The invitations had a big palm tree on them with flowers. It mimicked the look of the Boca Resort with the big palm trees all around the grounds. We used a flat rose color, a shiny mint green and a shiny gold on the invitations, response cards, menu, program and place cards.

A Monique Lhuillier  dress

My dress designer was Monique Lhuillier and the name of the dress was “Forever”. I bought my dress in Coral Gables, Florida at Chic Parisien and I tried on probably 15 dresses in one day! I had my mum and mother in law with me and we all knew it was the one. It was a blush colour, which is hard to see in the pictures, but it was perfect!

accessories

I wore a headband in my hair, also bought at Chic Parisien by Maria Elena. I also had a cathedral length veil by Monique Lhuillier in the same fabric and colour to match my dress. The other jewelry I wore included two diamond tennis bracelets, one from my mum and one from David’s mum and a pair of earrings that were a gift from David. The earrings had a big pink/purplish stone in the middle surrounded by diamonds. He picked them out himself!

shoes

My shoes were by Charlotte Olympia. As soon as I saw them online I knew I had to have them for the wedding. They were a light gold with beaded starfish on the front to bring in another “beachy” element to the wedding. While they were very uncomfortable, I powered through because they were perfect!

hair + makeup

For my hair I knew I wanted something that I could have done in the morning and not have to mess with for the rest of the day, I went with a curled low chignon. Being in Florida, the humidity is terrible. I normally wear my hair down and curled, but knew that would not last for 10 hours. My makeup was very similar to my everyday makeup, just kicked up a little bit. I went with purplish, pinkish tones and a nude lip. My makeup and hair artist was Kristin Brown.

the handsome groom

David wore a custom made suit by a tailor at Tailor Trends in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was a blue suit with a lighter blue check. His tie was by Ermenegildo Zegna.

mint green bridesmaids

I had four bridesmaids and they all wore different dresses by Joanna August. I let them pick the style of dress, but all dresses were in a mint green.

the ceremony

The ceremony and wedding day were both bitter sweet. My grandma, who was in attendance for the rehearsal dinner the evening before and was supposed to be there for the wedding, died suddenly the morning of the wedding. It was definitely a difficult day for all of us, but our rabbi incorporated it into our ceremony and it was beautiful.

chuppah design

 The chuppah was designed from a picture I had seen online. I loved the birch wood and David’s grandpa’s tallit was used for the top. The sides on the chuppah and the bottom were adorned with big bunches of flowers which matched the flowers used throughout the whole wedding.

music for the ceremony

The song I walked down the aisle to was Marry Me by Train. Since it came out a few years ago it has been one of the favourite songs. We knew we didn’t want traditional music at the wedding so we picked songs we both liked.

flowers with meaning

David and I went on a two week vacation to South Africa about a year before we got married. When we were there we saw a lot of proteas which is their native flower. I immediately thought they were beautiful. When I started planning our wedding I came across a picture online of a protea bouquet and knew I had to incorporate it. It was a special touch that reminded David and I of our first big holiday together. The other flowers that our florists, Boca By Design, included were hydrangeas, wax flower, garden roses, astilbe cockscomb, and a few others.

we only needed to look up one photographer… Justin DeMutiis

One of my favourite wedding blogs here in the United States is Style Me Pretty. Before we chose a venue or anything else, I found a featured wedding on Style me Pretty from Justin DeMutiis in the Bahamas. Everything about the pictures was beautiful and just looked very natural. I went to his website and contacted him and within a week or so of speaking knew he was the one. In fact, I did not contact another photographer at all. Along the way he would send us little gifts and treats in the mail. Everything with him from start to finish was flawless and he captured our wedding beautifully.

a dessert table and a flamingo-topped multi-coloured cake!

Neither David or I are big cake people. We wanted a dessert table instead of a cake and there was no way we were doing a cake cutting at the wedding like a lot of traditional weddings include. However, we know a lot of people like cake so we had a small cake with two layers, the top layer being chocolate with raspberry filling and the bottom layer being vanilla with strawberry filling. It was covered with multi-coloured sprinkles and two kissing flamingos to top it off (to include another “beachy” element”. We also had an ice cream bar, mini desserts, and frozen hot chocolate. The Boca Resort did all of the catering.

entertainment

For the ceremony and cocktail hour we had the Drew T Band,  and for the reception we had a DJ from Visions DJ. We wanted live music for the ceremony, but wanted David’s cousin (the owner of the Drew T Band) to be able to enjoy himself at the reception, so we hired the DJ for that. Our first dance was to John Legend’s All of Me.

We did not have any favours on the tables for the guests at the wedding. Most of the weddings I have been to, people just leave them on the table and forget about them. We did do welcome bags in everyone’s hotel rooms filled with snacks and water.

Donut treats!

We didn’t have traditional favours as such, but the end of the reception we had our favourite donut company bring in about 250 donuts for people to take with them either for the night or to keep as a treat for the next morning. I love donuts and thought it would be a cute idea after everyone was tired from the day and from dancing. Everyone loved the donuts and they were gone quickly. We probably should have ordered more!

a bittersweet day

As I mentioned earlier, the significant thing that happened on our wedding day was my grandma passing away. It was completely unexpected and to be honest, it made the day very difficult to celebrate. All of our family and friends were so sweet and caring and there is not another person I’d want to share that day with. My grandma and David also share the same birthday, which also makes it special because we have so many ways to remember her now. David and I wanted to plan our wedding and venue in a place that was easy to get to and at a time when all of our living grandparents could attend, it was the most important thing for both of us. My grandma made it to Friday night and I have a beautiful picture of her from our photographer of that night sitting with her family and grandkids that she had not seen in a while. It was the most perfect night for her last night on Earth with us. We will always remember it.

advice to other brides

We had a long engagement and it gave us enough time to enjoy being engaged and enjoy the wedding planning process. There was not a lot that I stressed out about because we had so much time and I am very organised. Once my parents gave us a budget, we created a spreadsheet of everything we wanted, what we wanted to spend on it and then how much we actually spent. While we did go over budget slightly, we kept track of it so nothing was a surprise in the end. Being so organised and having so much time really helped with our stress level and helped us get the vendors we wanted because they were not yet booked. On the day of the wedding I was very relaxed and calm. I knew we had taken care of everything that we could and anything that did not get taken care of was not going to. I had to just let go of the control and enjoy the day with my closest friends and family.

Emma & David’s LITTLE WHITE BOOK

Photography — Justin DeMutiis
Venue + catering — Boca Raton Resort & Club
Bride’s Dress and Veil — Monique Lhuillier from Chic Parisien
Bride’s hair piece — Maria Elena from Chic Parisien
Bride’s shoes — Charlotte Olympia
Groom’s suit — Tailor Trends
Groom’s tie — Ermenegildo Zegna
Bridesmaids — Joanna August
Flowers — Boca By Design
Hair + Make Up — Kristin Brown
Stationery — Bella Figura
Entertainment — Drew T Band
DJ — Visions DJ
Rabbi — Bruce Warshal