Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog

Inspired Jewish Weddings

Hedsor House: A Stylish Buckinghamshire Country House Venue Perfect for Your Jewish Wedding

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The struggle is real: you’ve always dreamed of an idyllic, secluded countryside wedding, but also need a venue where the team knows a chuppah from a hora.  

I hear you. It’s not always easy planning a UK Jewish wedding when you’re not going for that big city feel, between kosher catering, easy transportation for guests, and all the other considerations that come into choosing a venue for a Jewish wedding. But there are a handful of fantastic venues out there that let you have your cake (or scone?) and eat it too.

Like Hedsor House, an incredible Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor in the heart of the English countryside, yet only 45 minutes from London. Located in the beautiful Thames Valley, Hedsor House’s Buckinghamshire location embodies that classic English country house splendour with its magnificent Georgian architecture, elegant decor, and sprawling grounds. It’s truly a special backdrop for your big day.

Hedsor House regularly hosts luxury Jewish weddings, and the events team are total pros at handling all the special details that go into a Jewish wedding. Whether your ceremony is Orthodox or Jew-ish, they know what to do — and they’ll be there with you every step of the way, with their mega-attentive service ensuring your ideas are brought to life and your big day runs smoothly.

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A Noa and Ayelet Bride for a Super Stylish Israeli Wedding at Gan Vradim, Rishon LetZion, Israel

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Beautiful wedding, beautiful photography, beautiful couple… this gorgeous Jewish wedding really is a blogger’s dream!

Granted, it would be hard to go wrong in a setting as stunning as Hadas and Idan’s choice, Gan Vradim in Rishon LetZion. It’s a totally breathtaking urban garden, packed with plenty of romance and just a little bit of edge.

That same description could be applied to the totally breathtaking photos by Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Jossef Si . Artistic, creative, full of emotion – what more could you ask for in your wedding photography? It’s easy to understand why Hadas reports that she and Idan immediately fell in love with his work. Yep, we’re just a little bit obsessed…

Another thing we’re obsessed with is the fact that Hadas and her future MIL came up with the design for her stunning wedding dress together! Noa and Ayelet Wedding Dresses brought the dream dress to life, and we are just so in love with the outcome.

Now over to the bride…

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How we met

Hadas, the bride: We are both building engineers, we met in chemistry class the we were in school together! We’ve been together ever since.

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Real Jewish Brides: Alexandra’s Wedding Planning’s Ups And Downs

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Alexandra will be marrying Jordan on 26th May 2019 at The Grove in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. Click here to read all Alexandra’s planning posts to date.

THREE FACTS: (1) Alexandra and Jordan met in college and have been together ever since. (2) They are planning a romantic fairy tale garden wedding inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream – LOVE! (3) Alexandra’s wearing Galia Lahav for the big day – one of our absolute fave Israeli designers!


Overcoming family drama: take a deep breath, have a positive mindset, and move forward!

Let’s be real – wedding planning is SO exciting and fun, but it can also be stressful! A LOT goes into a wedding and it may be overwhelming to get it all done (unless you have a wedding planner ????). Everyone has their own story, with ups, downs, and a whole lot in between. Today I’d like to share my three biggest wedding planning struggles with the STG community.

The first hurdle we faced on our wedding journey involved conflict with family. Very shortly after Jordan and I got engaged in May of 2017, we decided that we would get married mid-June 2019! We consistently shared this with family, friends, and strangers alike. About six months after our engagement, my older brother proposed to his girlfriend.

We were overjoyed, until they very quickly decided that they too wanted to be married mid-June 2019, which naturally created tension. Their defense was that they didn’t understand why our wedding was “more important” than theirs. Jordan and I have never felt that our wedding should take priority, however, we were engaged and openly settled on the timeframe for six months, so we did feel that they should concede.

They didn’t, as they had already found a venue and secured the date, whereas we had been taking our time venue-hunting with our long (2-year) engagement.


Image by Catullo Photography

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A Pronovias Bride for a Destination Jewish Wedding with 2400 Roses at La Quinta de Jarama, in Madrid, Spain

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Nothing gives us the warm and fuzzies like hearing that we’ve helped a couple plan their Jewish (or Jew-ish!) wedding. Especially when said wedding is as gorgeous as today’s knockout destination celebration with an absolute stunner of a rose chuppah – yup, that chuppah alone contained a whopping 1500(!) roses.

Deborah, a solicitor in a City firm, and Michael, who works in finance, live in North London, but they opted to marry in sunny Madrid, where the groom grew up (#margolovichwedding).

This is obviously a totally stunning wedding from a visual standpoint – Victor Lax’s emotion-filled photography and Al Agua’s moving trailer attest to that – but we’re seriously touched to hear that we inspired some of the emotional details of the day.

For instance, Deborah reports she got the idea to incorporate her late father’s tallit into the chuppah design right here on STG – such a beautiful way to incorporate a loved one into the ceremony.

The couple also sourced their exquisite papercut ketubah from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Danny Azoulay – featuring a gold ldea design of Jerusalem vineyards, in honor of their having met on Birthright in Jerusalem – aww!

There are so many more great details, but Deborah, who looked so elegant in her princess-style Pronovias gown (with pockets!) will fill you in on the rest of the story…

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How we met

Deborah, the bride: We met ten years ago on Birthright in Jerusalem when we were both students and got engaged in November 2016 in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, so this wedding has been a long time in the making!

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Facebook Live Catch Up: Luxe Wedding Dress Trends for 2019/20 – Live from Mirror Mirror London

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I’m so excited to share with you my latest Facebook Live from one of the world’s most gorgeous bridal boutiques, London’s Mirror Mirror (a much-loved Recommended Vendor), I was lucky enough to meet with co-founders Maria and Jane, sisters-in-law who started their business 30 years ago out of a shared passion for artisan bridal fashion, and we had wonderful Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Adrian Stone behind the camera.


These two inspirational ladies, who I got to know after noticing that so many of our STG Real Brides bought their gowns from Mirror Mirror, are both designers and stockists of some of the hottest international bridal designers, including Nurit Hen, Hayley Paige, YolanCris, Gemy Maalouf, and Atelier Pronovias. So who better to talk us through the top luxury wedding dress trends for 2019/20?

We had the amazing Reportage Gallery on hand to sneak some behind-the-scenes photos. They were a joy to work with, and I’m absolutely delighted to share the images they snapped with you!

Maria and Jane started off showing us some stunning dresses from their own Mirror Mirror Couture collection. We saw some totally gorgeous gowns and chatted about some of the top bridal trends for the coming year. 

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