Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog

Inspired Jewish Weddings

A Winnie Couture Bride for a Boho Chic Jewish Wedding on the Beach at Mahayana Tulum, Tulum, Mexico

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How gorgeous is the beachy boho Jewish wedding of California couple Amber, who works for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and Elliot, the owner of Golden State Corals?! This travel-loving pair opted for a destination wedding weekend in Tulum.

Amber had always dreamed of an intimate, laid-back celebration with the couple’s nearest and dearest – and fortunately, she was able to make that dream come true despite getting married during the pandemic. The couple’s fantastic planner, Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Lucy Gallagher, helped them bring it all together – which is no easy feat when planning from abroad in the best of times, let alone during COVID.

We love the relaxed California vibes of the day, and Moni Adri Photography’s wonderful pics make us feel as if we were right there with Amber and Elliot.

Now over to the bride, who looked stunning in her custom Winnie Couture gown…

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How we Met

Amber, the bride: I’m from New Jersey and Elliot is from Maryland.  We moved to California separately, around the same time.  We both adopted German Shepherds, his a female and mine a male, around the same time.  We met at the dog park.  Our dogs became obsessed with each other first. We got engaged on the Amalfi Coast in September 2019.Continue ReadingContinue Reading

A Vera Wang Bride for a Multicultural Jewish Wedding where the Jerusalem Lion Meets the Chinese Lion at Kedma Mamilla, Jerusalem, Israel

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We are absolutely in love with the joyous multicultural Jewish wedding of Smashing The Glass Brides Club member Monica to David! Monica, who has a background in design, is Chinese American, David, who has a manufacturing company, is Israeli; they live in London; and they opted to wed in Jerusalem – so they had some seriously great material to work with.

The couple’s amazing wedding planner, Vanessa Ohayon of Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Vanessa Events, helped the couple pull everything together to create the wedding of their dreams – complete with swoonworthy views overlooking the Old City walls – do chuppah backdrops get any better than that?!

One of our very favorite things about this gorgeous wedding is the fact that, with Vanessa’s help, Monica arranged a surprise Chinese Lion Dance, which is performed during major celebrations. Once the guests were seated for the reception, Monica and David made their entrance – followed by a bright yellow Chinese Lion, who wove in and out among the tables before giving the couple a marriage blessing. Then, the music changed, and it was hora time – what an awesome contrast in traditions! In Monica’s words, “it was the Jerusalem Lion meets the Chinese Lion moment.”

We also love that Monica put her design background to work in implementing the pair’s chosen theme of geodes and geometrics in blue and gold, learning modern calligraphy and hand-crafting the exquisite blue agate place cards. There was a spectacular geode-themed cake to match, and the floral centerpieces, designed by Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Craspedia, continued the geometric theme and blue color scheme too. It wasn’t easy to find locally grown flowers in the right colors during the Israeli summer, but Yana of Craspedia took Monica on a scouting trip to a flower market where together they were able to find the perfect blooms.

There’s so much more to say about this beautiful day, but we’ll let Monica – who looked so elegant in Vera Wang – take it from here…

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How we Met

Monica, the bride: We met online in London, but it took 5 months for us to meet up due to conflicting travel schedules. Instead, we had an old fashion email and skype correspondence until our first date at the Holland Park Opera. The rest is history!Continue ReadingContinue Reading

Real Jewish Brides: Orli on Her Upcoming Wedding

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Orli will be marrying Ben on 22nd July 2021 in Orli’s parents’ garden, UK. Click here to read all Orli’s planning posts to date.

THREE FACTS: (1) Orli and Ben met on Jswipe. (2) Orli & Ben will marry in an intimate setting in Orli’s parents’ garden (3) Orli is a member of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club!

A couple of days after I sent off my blog previous post we made the difficult and heartbreaking decision to postpone for the second time and to find what we hope and pray is our final wedding day. After all third time lucky. We met with the caterer and ran through the options that we had with a wedding on the 30 May with the restrictions lifting alongside the roadmap. This would mean we could have 30 people but there would be no dancing and social distancing in place. Whilst we had accepted only being able to have thirty people, we had thought that we would be allowed to dance and to celebrate with our closest 30 people or 28 including us.

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A Beachy Jewish Wedding Weekend at Nautical Club, Limassol, Cyprus

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Israeli couple Hila and Tamir wanted the magic of their Jewish wedding to last more than a few hours – and so they decided to make a magical destination weekend of it! With the help of their fantastic planner, Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Moran Goldstein, the couple settled on Limassol, Cyprus, a breathtakingly beautiful spot just a 30-minute flight from Tel Aviv.

The celebration was spread out over four days, with different activities each day – including fun stuff like a boat trip to a blue lagoon (complete with DJ!) and a pool party – with the centerpiece being Hila and Tamir’s gorgeous oceanfront outdoor ceremony. We love that the pair had two of their best friends officiate, and instead of the traditional Seven Blessings, they had friends and relatives come up and give brief original speeches.

We’re in love with photographer Chen Belachnes’s vibrant images, and we bet you will be too.

Now over to Hila…

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How we Met

Hila, the bride: We met at a 24h cross-country relay race. Continue ReadingContinue Reading

An Amsale Bride for a Backyard Jewish Micro Wedding in Boynton Beach, Florida, USA

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Like so many 2020 couples, Marissa, a physical therapist and reiki master, and Rory, an accountant, ended up with a Jewish wedding very different from the one they’d originally planned. The NYC couple had originally opted for a jam-packed wedding weekend on the beach at a private club in Florida’s Palm Beaches. Everything was just about ready to go for their May 2020 date when the pandemic hit.

Despite all the work and dreams that went into planning their dream wedding, two changes of date later Marissa and Rory ultimately had to make the hard decision to cancel their original celebration and plan a micro wedding for ten in Marissa’s parents’ backyard from scratch. For the most part, the pair had to find new vendors, but two of the ones they’d originally booked were able to make the shift: first, there was Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Nava Shoham, Marissa and Rory’s rock star ketubah designer, who came through with not one, not two, but THREE versions of the couple’s gorgeous ketubah, to account for all of their changes of date. Second was Emily Harris Photography, who’s responsible for the couple’s exquisitely joyous pics.

In Marissa’s words, “The day and night was the most perfect imperfect celebration and ended up being so much more than we imagined. We do hope to get the big party eventually but the night will always be so incredibly memorable.” We’ll let her take it from here…

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How we Met

Marissa, the bride: We met online 6 years agoContinue ReadingContinue Reading