Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog

Inspired Jewish Weddings

A Maggie Sottero Bride for a Festival Jewish Wedding at Lattenbury Hill Weddings, Cambridgeshire, UK

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We love a good boho festival Jewish wedding. And Alana and Adam’s is one of the best. These two worked hard to craft a day that was 100% them – filled with tons of DIY touches, from spray painting soup cans to turn them into flower vases, having the bride’s mother bake 500 brownies for the wedding dessert, and getting friends and family together to set up the venue – and they absolutely smashed it.

This wedding was full of so many exquisite details, from the gorgeous rustic turquoise stationery suite created by Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Liv & Luc, inspired by a favorite holiday snap from a trip to Italy to the way Alana and Adam crafted a personal ceremony highlighting their shared values of feminism and equality: they both smashed a glass, gave a speech, wrote vows, and circles each other under the chuppah.

And because you can’t have a festival without awesome music, the couple opted to bring in the big guns: Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor TOTEM, who Alana and Adam picked partly for their vast experience with Jewish weddings and wide repertoire of Israeli dancing songs, kept the guests on the dance floor all night long in their signature style. We can’t get over all the love and energy captured in the photos by Aaron Collett Photography and videographer James Alexander Chapman.

Before we turn you over to Alana, we’ve also got to mention her stunner of a gown by Maggie Sottero, which she found at the wonderful Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Morgan Davies Bridal. Alana was on the hunt for a boho style figure hugging lace gown, and did the team at Morgan Davies ever help her make the dream a reality!


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HOW WE MET

 Alana, the bride: We met at a mutual friend’s engagement party 6 years ago, pretty sure we were the only single ones left in the room and were introduced to each other in an awkward year 6 disco style way. He managed to convince me he was a bomb disposal expert (he’s not) and the rest is history.

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Real Jewish Bride: Sarah on The Emotional Side of Postponing

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Sarah will be marrying Rich on 20th June 2021 at Tikitano Beach, Marbella, Spain. Click here to read all Sarah’s planning posts to date.

THREE FACTS: (1) Sarah knew Rich was the one when he brought a gift of dog treats for her toy poodle Nuala along to their fourth date! (2) They are crafting an amazing destination wedding weekend in Marbella with beloved Smashing The Glass Recommended vendor optimum weddings as their planner. (3) Sarah is a member of  Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club!

So, since my last blog post was written and published in March, a lot has changed! I look back now and find it surreal that I was writing about being optimistic about sticking to our June 2020 date and how it would all be ok. Needless to say, that is not exactly how it played out in the weeks that followed.

A few weeks ago Richard and I had to make the hardest decision yet, to postpone our wedding. We initially spoke to our amazing wedding planner Dyana from optimum weddings and we decided to pencil in September 2020.

However, after looking at the somewhat bleak possibility of Covid-19 being resolved by then, the chances of everyone being able to fly to Marbella and the general stress of being in the “will it or wont it’ category (known as wedding limbo), we decided to do what was best for our guests’ health and our sanity and we postponed until 20th June 2021.

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A David’s Bride for a Nature Lovers’ Jewish Wedding at Ramat Rachel, Jerusalem, Israel

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There’s nothing like an Israeli wedding. And we’re especially in love with the beautiful Jewish wedding of Cassie, a social media manager, and Yona, who works in construction, who met while working together in Jerusalem’s Old City. Both nature lovers, we’re obsessed with the way the pair brought their enthusiasm for the outdoors into their big day.  

They opted to wed at Ramat Rachel, a kibbutz in the outskirts of Jerusalem full of wild greenery, with a verdant ketubah strewn with pink and white flowers to match.They even opted for a gorgeous nature-inspired ketubah from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor The Delicate Brush. We’re crazy about the exquisite, joyous photos from Jonny Finkel Photography and videography by Shlomi Tzur.

Music also played a big role in Cassie and Yona’s wedding, with Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor DJ Naor keeping the guests on the dance floor until the end of the night, and the bride’s family surprising her with an original song! The bridesmaids and groomsmen got in on the action too, secretly working with the groom to choreograph a dance they all did together to surprise the bride. Aww!

Now over to Cassie, who looked like an absolute princess in her David’s Bridal gown and rose gold glitter sneakers by Keds – Kate Spade…

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Natural Vibes

We got married at Ramat Rachel which is a kibbutz in the outskirts of Jerusalem. We fell in love with all the nature when we went to visit the venue for the first time and we were sold. 

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A Spiritual, Magical Florida Backyard Jewish Wedding Reimagined Due to COVID-19

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Today’s Jewish wedding is so unbelievably, jaw-droppingly, breathtakingly gorgeous, it’s hard to believe it wasn’t the couple’s Plan A all along. But believe it or not, bride Ganga, whose work combines counseling, astrology, ritual, and ecological design to support clients through change and loss, and Seth, a strength and conditioning coach who draws on a similarly interdisciplinary background, pulled together this intimate, impromptu wedding in the bride’s mother’s back garden after their original plans were waylaid by coronavirus.

These two had a bigger wedding at an eco-retreat all lined up – and they still plan to hold that bash, with their original lineup of vendors, next year – but when the pandemic hit, they changed their plans to this pared-down backyard celebration with a focus on spirituality.

The couple, who are both training to be inter-spiritual ministers, poured themselves into developing a ceremony that felt deeply authentic to them both, from their circling around each other to the Adon Olam, to adapting the seven blessings to reflect poems and blessings from many traditions to reciting their own vows.

We also love the thought they put into selecting their gorgeous Gingko Spiral ketubah by Temma Gentles from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor ketubah.com: the ginkgo has been around for over 300 million years, meaning it’s a true adaptor and survivor – just what we all need to be in these uncertain times.

And would you believe these exquisite photos were shot by a first-time wedding photographer? Ganga’s bridesmaid – the only one who was able to make it in the end – just happens to be mega-talented photographer Thais Aquino, who’s clearly a natural at weddings!

Now over to Ganga, the bride…

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How we met

Ganga, the bride: We met through my best friend who had been one of Seth’s students, on New Year’s Eve 2016. The first thing I remember asking Seth was what his intention for 2017 was, to which he replied, “just to be love.” That immediately told me we were on the same page in our approach to life, and within a few weeks we were learning how to be love, together.

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Can You Postpone a Jewish Wedding Because of Coronavirus?

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Rabbi Paul Glantz officiating Laura and Gio’s wedding

We’ve been hearing that some of our STG Brides Club members have been getting pushback from friends and family when discussing the hard decision to postpone their Jewish wedding due to COVID-19.

You may even be getting messages from well-intentioned loved ones that it’s forbidden by Jewish law to push back your wedding date. But chances are, the people giving you flack about postponing are struggling to give you a solid reason for their objections.

So we wanted to clear things up for you once and for all. We chatted with our resident expert in all things Jewish law, Rabbi Paul Glantz (who has officiated many beautiful STG real weddings),  and he says it’s 100% fine to postpone a Jewish wedding.

It’s absolutely fine to postpone a Jewish wedding for Covid-19

Although it’s true that there’s a strong custom not to postpone under normal circumstances, it’s just that: a custom. There’s absolutely nothing in halacha (Jewish law) prohibiting it. While some very strict rabbis are taking the stance that, even amidst the pandemic, Jewish weddings shouldn’t be postponed, it’s important to know that that’s a very strict interpretation. 

Rabbis who are advising couples to avoid postponing may be relying on the tradition of not delaying joyous events – which, while a strong theme in Jewish law, absolutely does not override the stronger principle of pikuach nefesh, the idea that the preservation of human life takes priority over just about all other Jewish laws and customs. Given the danger of gatherings at this time, it’s pretty clear that by waiting to hold your wedding until the pandemic has receded, you are honoring pikuach nefesh – and there’s not much more Jewish than that!

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