Rebecca & Daniel | An ‘Autumn in New York’ themed Jewish wedding with Mexican influences, and the bride in a jumpsuit, at Palm Door, Austin, Texas, USA

… And the bride wore a jumpsuit! Oh yes. I’m so excited to feature a bride wearing such an iconic, sassy, fashion statement. Move over Solange Knowles!

And why not? Rebecca wasn’t having a trad day — after all it was her second wedding to Daniel (more on that later) — and she decided she wanted to wear what she felt most spectacular in. And that was an elegant Alice & Olivia white, wide leg, cut out at the back jumpsuit with beautiful lines and the required bridal magic to make a big entrance.

In the imitable words of Rebecca “I realised that since this is my wedding … I could wear whatever I wanted”. You go girl! This is such a great reminder to all brides out there planning your day — try not to get bogged down in the “should’s” — it is after all your day!

The courage of this couple’s conviction rings strongly throughout. Undaunted by the fact that they couldn’t have the dream Central Park wedding, Rebecca and Daniel simply picked up the idea and brought the New York wedding to Austin, Texas. Complete with a Big Apple in the Fall theme. Check out those flowers, and the autumnal foliage winding round the chuppah!

Unsurprisingly the invitations came with a very creative and modern twist – which is completely STG. They both designed and customised Paperless Post save the date cards and invitations, splicing old photo booth pictures together — gorgeously personal and fun – and emailed them to their guests.. A great tip for saving money as well as adding a classy, individual touch.

There was one family tradition however that they certainly kept up with – Friday night dinner at the Tex Mex. The night before the wedding Rabbi Robbi lead them all in the Tex Mex Shabbat prayers over tortilla chips and margaritas. Upstaged only by Daniel’s uber romantic proposal.

Elissa R Photography captures the day …

An ‘Autumn in New York’ themed wedding in Austin, Texas

Rebecca, the Bride: We got married at the Palm Door on Sabine, an event space in downtown Austin. There was no real significance to the space, and since we live in New York we decided to have our wedding there based entirely on the recommendation of my parents who had seen a concert there during SXSW. It ended up being the perfect space though, with a homey but refined feel that really fit in with the entire character of the wedding.

Our general theme was “Autumn in New York.” We live in New York, and it had been a dream of mine in high school to get married in Central Park in the fall. Coming back to Austin for a November wedding, we decided to bring the New York Autumn back to Texas with us. The colour scheme was Autumn colours. We worked with Emily Leach of Bird Dog Wedding
.

Using our creativity with paperless invitations

Since the majority of our guests were friends our age who don’t really check their actual mail, we decided to send our invitations out through Paperless Post. From templates, we added the content for both of the cards ourselves. I really liked our save-the-date because we spliced a bunch of photo-booth pictures together to create a photo-booth invite.

A white jumpsuit, rather than a wedding dress!

I didn’t wear a dress, I wore a white jumpsuit. We got officially married just over a year before the wedding at the New York City government centre after a three-day “engagement” because my husband’s visa had expired and he was having issues getting it renewed. I had about twenty-four hours to scour Soho looking for a dress I liked, and could find absolutely nothing that seemed right for the occasion–the only things I found I liked were jumpsuits!

I then realised that since it was my wedding and it wasn’t even a “traditional” one by any means, I could wear whatever I wanted! I immediately found this gorgeous black Catherine Malandrino wrap-style, wide legged jumpsuit that I loved. I love jumpsuits, and to keep the continuity of a new “tradition” I had made up for myself, I decided to wear a white jumpsuit for the actual wedding.

I was in my last year of getting my MA from Columbia and writing an extensive thesis, so I didn’t have the time to go out shopping. I looked a lot online and narrowed it down to a few styles I liked, sending them out to my bridesmaids for their thoughts. An Alice & Olivia one was a promising option, so I went to the store with a couple of friends to try it on. The search ended right there with the first one, because it was perfect! It was so elegant and the cut and cut-out back were just to die for!

accessories

I wore beautiful Alexis Bittar earrings and my wedding ring(s). I was supposed do wear this crystal belt I had also bought at Alice & Olivia that added a nice touch to the other-wise monochrome jumpsuit, but I forgot it in New York… It ended up being a good thing though since looking at pictures from the night, I prefer the line of the jumpsuit without the belt.

shoes

Since my jumpsuit was very long and wide-legged, and I knew I wasn’t going to keep my shoes on for that long anyway, I just wore a pair of nude Michael Kors pumps that I already owned.

hair + make up

My bridesmaids and I got our hair and make-up done by an Austin company called Adore. Since I never get my make-up professionally done, I decided to go all out–air brush, false eyelashes, and all! The woman who did it was great, and I didn’t look overly done-up at all. Since my hair is so short, there isn’t much you can really do with it, but the Adore hair person made it super piece-y and I loved it.

The handsome groom

Daniel borrowed a Ralph Lauren tux from this place in the mall. He had this great corsage that the Bird Dog floral designer made as well. He didn’t really care about his outfit, but he looked great as always!

nine bridesmaids dressed in mismatched burgundy

I had nine bridesmaids… it was a lot! They were my best friends from both high school and college, and my two sisters-in-law. In order to make things easier on everyone, told them that they could wear whatever dress they wanted, as long as it was a burgundy colour. My friends all have very different body types and styles, but burgundy is universally flattering and a gorgeous Autumn colour.

It ended up working out really well, even though a lot of the dresses were different shades because I wasn’t very strict about it. Everyone wore a dress and accessories that fit her style, but the overall colour tied everything together across all the differences. We all looked fantastic!

A personalised Tex mex shabbat dinner and a tri-lingual Jewish wedding ceremony

Our ceremony was entirely personal, although it did follow the basic Jewish wedding trajectory. The rabbi who married us was the cantor of my Bat Mitzvah, so she knows me and my family very well. I’ll start with Friday night, when we had a big dinner party with all of our guests at a Tex Mex restaurant downtown.

Growing up, my family always went out to dinner on Friday nights, almost always to a Tex Mex restaurant, and we would say the Shabbat blessings over the candle that was usually in the centre of the table, the Hamotzi over the tortilla chips, and the Kiddush over my parents’ margaritas. In keeping with this weird family “tradition,” Rabbi Robbi lead us all in the Tex Mex Shabbat prayers. During the ceremony itself, Robbi incorporated a lot about both me and Daniel from a questionnaire she had us fill out.

The ceremony was tri-lingual, and a touch that I really liked was that we had the wedding blessings translated into both English and Spanish: the English spoken by friends and family on my side, and the Spanish by those on Daniel’s. It brought some of Daniel’s culture into it, and allowed us to incorporate more of our guests into the ceremony. My favorite part of the ceremony was reading our vows to each other.

music for the ceremony

For our processional, the musicians played Erev Shel Shoshanim.

For our recessional, they played All You Need is Love at my dad’s suggestion. Since Daniel and I were the first ones out, we didn’t hear this, but I heard from my parents and wedding party that everyone started singing the song with the instrumentals. I thought that was so nice that people felt so moved by the ceremony and comfortable as our guests that they decided to chime in and be a part of it!

We danced our first dance to a Mexican classic called Bà©same mucho (Kiss Me A Lot). Grupo Fantasma did such a beautiful version of it! Then for the dances with the parents, they did another Mexican classic, but more upbeat.

an ‘Autumn foliage’ chuppah design

We did a lot of google image searching for ideas, but when we came across a photo of a chuppah that incorporated Autumn foliage, I knew we had our design. It went with the theme perfectly, and the final product was nothing short of gorgeous.

Sarah Reichardt, Bird Dog’s floral designer who also did the chuppah design, suggested a deep burgundy background, which I was skeptical about at first since I thought it would be too much of the same colour, but it ended up looking great.

Autumn-hued flowers

Honestly, I don’t know anything about flowers, but I had the most GORGEOUS bouquet in these beautiful Autumn tones. Bird Dog’s floral designer, Sarah Reichardt, also came up with the most beautiful arrangements for the dinner and greeting tables.

our fantastic photographer

Elissa of Elissa R Photography is one of my best friend from high school’s sister-in-law. He told me about her work when I was visiting Austin the summer before the wedding, and after checking out her gorgeous photos, we decided on her. She was absolutely fantastic. I’ve seen a lot of awful wedding photographers that will get right up into the bride and groom’s face during their first dance or stand right in the middle of the central aisle during the ceremony ruining everybody’s view and moment, but Elissa and her team were so discreet and professional!

a menu that reflected us as a couple

The overall catering was done by Palm Door’s in-house catering company Pink Avocado. My husband and I love food, and didn’t want to stick to your typical wedding menu of steak or fish with a side of asparagus and mashed potatoes. To keep things informal, we also served the food buffet style, which gave us more options. People just raved about the food, and really appreciated the uniqueness of the options. They said they could tell it was a menu crafted by the two of us.

a gluten-free Mexican tres leches wedding cake… and a birthday cake!

We got our cake through Coco Paloma. Both my mum and brother are gluten intolerant, but she was able to make us a gluten-free tres leches cake! It’s a Mexican cake, and Daniel’s favourite dessert from his childhood. Since we could not go to Austin simply for a cake taste testing, my parents and my brother went, and I didn’t try the cake before the actual wedding. We didn’t have a groom’s cake, but this wedding happened to fall on my birthday, and my family surprised me with a red velvet birthday cake and everyone sang happy birthday.

Mexican sweets

Traditional in northern Mexican weddings is that a bunch of Mexican candy and snacks that are arranged on a table and left out throughout the night. We had a bunch of these goodies that Daniel’s mum brought from Mexico. His aunts even made candied pecans for the occasion.

Entertainment

During the ceremony and the dinner, David Perkoff played guitar and another musician from his group played the flute. David Perkoff was recommended to us by our rabbi, who had worked with him before. For the party, the amazing (and grammy-winning) band Grupo Fantasma played! Having them was really important, because their music is infectious and you cannot help but dance to it, and, as a Latino band, they were able to provide some cultural balance to the wedding. Their music is almost entirely in Spanish, and a lot of our guests were native Spanish speakers from Mexico.

Completely accidental, and a happy coincidence, is that Grupo Fantasma did a version of one of my favorite songs, The Talking Heads Burning Down the House with the lyrics translated into Spanish! It was amazing.

polaroid picture favours

We provided some gift baskets from Whole Foods for the guests staying in our hotel block, but the real “favours” people got were polaroid pictures. We provided about eight polaroid cameras so that people could take pictures throughout the night (it was an alternative to a photo booth). They could take pictures and tape it into our guestbook, and they could just use them throughout the night for whatever they wanted! They could of course keep the photos they took, and they ended up being great mementos of the night for both ourselves and our guests.

advice to other brides and grooms

Since we had already been married for almost a year once the wedding came around, a lot of the pressure of having the “perfect day” was diminished. It really made me realise that your wedding is ONE day in your entire life together, so although it is really special and a time you can share with your loved ones, how it looks and how it goes is of less importance. Your ultimate focus of the day should not be on the ceremony or the party–these are just events–but on the relationship you and your significant other share.

finally and most importantly…

Finally, and most importantly, is that Daniel “proposed” to me the night before the actual wedding. Since we had this whirlwind three-day engagement followed by a speedy wedding due to visa issues, Daniel proposed to me with the horrible cheap plastic “rock” he found at Forever 21. I wore it because I thought it was hilarious, but I lost it about a month later.

At our Friday night dinner the night before the wedding, Daniel motioned to me to get up on the stage with him. I thought it was just a routine announcement thanking everyone for coming and saying how happy we are that they all could be here, but after this little spiel, he went down on one knee and re-proposed in front of all our friends and family. It was a total surprise and shock, and I pretty much emotionally lost it. It was amazingly special and so touching. I had just thought that since our marriage had been the way it was, I just wouldn’t have an engagement ring, which was fine with me. But unbeknownst to me, Daniel had been using his lunch breaks at work to look at rings, and had been consulting with my parents and best friend.

The ring he gave me is stunning, and fits really well with the wedding rings we had already picked out. I still tear up about this moment when I am writing about it now! This was so incredibly special, and really embodied Daniel’s amazing character.

Rebecca & Daniel’s LITTLE WHITE BOOK

Photography — Elissa R Photography
Venue — Palm Door on Sabine
Wedding Co-ordinator — Bird Dog Wedding
Catering — Pink Avocado
Wedding Jumpsuit — Alice & Olivia
Shoes’s — Michael Kors
Groom’s Tuxedo — Ralph Lauren
Hair & Makeup — Adore
Florals — Bird Dog Wedding
Entertainment — David Perkoff and Grupo Fantasma
Cake — Coco Paloma (gluten-free tres leches cake)
Rings — Anna Sheffield
Earrings — Alexis Bittar
Stationery – Paperless Post
Rabbi — Rabbi Robbi