A Jewish wedding in a chapel? Er… YES! You’ll probably know by now that nothing Jewish-wedding-related is off limits on Smashing The Glass (in fact, the more unusual, the better!) and it’s true, today’s Jewish wedding took place in a breathtaking setting that was once a chapel. It’s now a music venue and the bride and groom’s chuppah ceremony graced the stage where the bands usually play, whilst the guests watched on with glasses of wine in their hands.
Everything about this wedding is the epitome of the STG mantra of having the wedding you want, your way. It’s a super creative fun-filled W day – one of those where you will need to come back time and time again to view the images just to make sure you didn’t miss any of the achingly cool details.
Katie and Jason are insanely, crazily, and meant-to-be-together-forever in love. It screams out from the incredible imagery by STG-faves Chrisman Studios – and it screams out of their wedding report too (they wrote it together…).
Happy Tuesday folks.
a non-traditional Jewish wedding venue
Katie and Jason, the Bride and Groom: We picked the venue because we wanted something non-traditional. It was in our neighbourhood and we loved the idea of an urban, city wedding. The Chapel is a fun music venue, and we viewed our day as an opportunity to celebrate and party with all of our closest friends and family.
a gold colour scheme
Katie: We used Susanne Capello who we loved! I love gold and I love glitter and even though we never ‘articulated’ a colour scheme when people asked, this was absolutely the direction we ended up going in. Gold and great white lighting.
invitations
We used Minted, they had a SF themed gold and black ready to use. This design did not have a save the date, so we decided to create our own save the date out of one of the insert cards. This turned out really well. When using minted we discovered it was the little ‘add-on’s’ that made the difference in our design. For example – paying the extra money so that the back of our invitation was black (like the front) and not white. The little touches added to the classy look we wanted.
make up
Katie: I was pretty relaxed about everything. I ended up finding a make-up artist online. She was AMAZING, but it was a total gamble to go with someone I had never met before. Lia Negrete did my make-up. She was so wonderful, I knew I wanted something that didn’t look to heavy, would look great in photos and yet allow me to look like myself on our wedding day.
the dress
Katie: My dress was from Bridal Galleria. I worked with Kim at Bridal Galleria and she was absolutely fantastic! The dress is designed by Lazaro. When finding the right dress, I think I had much more of an idea of what I didn’t want than what I did. I liked this dress because it was simple, flattered my body and had a light layer of glitter. The small touches in the design made the difference. I only wore a veil for the ceremony. To be honest, I never though it was ‘the one’ but figured I looked good and it made me feel good! I can only assume that there are other dresses out there I’d like too!
accessories
Katie: I wore a veil for the ceremony and purchased this from an off the rack bridal salon called Glamour closet. I decided to only wear it for the ceremony as a veil didn’t scream me, but I did feel like it was our wedding day and that it completely the look for the ceremony. I also wore a gold headband, I struggled with this decision as I wanted one but did not agree with the prices these were sold for in bridal boutiques. I ended up ordering it online from usabride.com – It was perfect! The headband was truly the finishing touch!
shoes
Katie: I chose flats! Why not wear something comfortable and cute on your wedding day?! I wore sparkly gold flats. The gold was subtle and the sparkle was perfect. They were great, they weren’t the ones I was searching for, but they ended up going perfectly with the dress.
The handsome groom
Jason: I wore a Theory slim fitting suit in black. And a light goldish Theory Tie.
bridesmaids
Katie: I had three bridesmaids. They all are very different shapes, sizes and personalities. I asked them to all wear short/mid-length black dresses. They all knew I preferred black lace and ended up getting black lace dresses. This was awesome because they were each able to find something that worked best for their body and feel good all day long! Plus they looked great together!
the ceremony
We wrote our own vows. Overall I think we both felt like the ceremony was fun, and we were supported by our loved ones. I have two older brothers and Jason has two older sisters. Our combined four siblings held the Chuppah poles, and our parents joined them. It was really nice to have our immediate family under/next to the Chuppah with us.
chuppah design
Jason: The poles are from the camp that Katie works at, and they’re made from cedar trees. Each couple that uses them, wood-burns their initials into the poles. The covering was Katie’s grandmother’s irish linen and my father’s talit.
Giant letter sign
We had a light up sign that said ‘Love’ and this was a huge hit for our guests!).
music and dancing
When we wanted to signal that everyone should take a seat, the band played Going to the Chapel of Love! How could we not! The processional song was Bright Eyes’ First Day of My Life and I walked down to a family member (Jason Cousin) singing Make you feel my love. The recessional was Hall and Oates’ You make my dreams come true. Our first dance was The Drifters’ Stand By Me. We combined the father/daughter and son/mother dance. We wanted to make sure we didn’t lose the attention of our guest and kept everyone dancing the night away. It started with my dad and I dancing to Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely, then Jason and his mum joined us on the dance floor.
flowers
Katie: I like to keep things simple and classy. We went with all white in season flowers. Since our venue was so unique I wanted to make sure we had simple flowers and also kept the price down. We had white tulips, peonies, roses, hydrangeas etc. I can’t remember the florists name as our wedding coordinator recommended her.
our fabulous photographer
Ben, Erin and Ryan of Chrisman Studios were our photographers! We love love love their unique take on a wedding and felt it matched us perfectly.
catering and desserts
The Chapel did the overall catering including desserts. We were not interested in a cake since the Chapel has an amazing pastry chef! We had cream puff, mini tequila lime pies, and caramel puddings.
Entertainment
Bobby Yang, the violinist, was the entertainment, and we had a live band with a DJ. They played along to some songs, and the DJ just played some songs on her own. We got married at a music venue so it was important to us to have a great band! Bobby Yang was awesome and provided a great live music!).
a creative guest book that reflected our love of music
Instead of a guest book, we had old records that people could sign with gold and silver sharpies.
advice to other brides and grooms
I think remembering it’s just one day, and a marriage is forever. Spending your time and energy on the things that are important to you, cherishing the time you get to spend with your loved ones during your wedding is so important!
Watch Katie & Jason’s wedding film
Katie & Jason’s LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography and videography – Chrisman Studios
Venue and catering – The Chapel
Wedding planner – Susanne Capello
Make-up –Lia Negrete
Dress –Lazaro from Bridal Galleria
Gold headband – usabride.com
Groom’s attire –Theory
Entertainment – Bobby Yang
Stationery – Minted
Very nice wedding imagery, as usually from Chrisman Studios 🙂