Inspired Jewish Weddings
Happy Tuesday! And your Tuesday’s going to 100% turn into a happy one (if it isn’t already) in the form of a wonderful competition we’re running with our friends from E.Y.I. Love, a fantastic Glasgow-based luxury wedding stationer and beloved Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor, who work with stylish Jewish couples all over the world.
Read on to hear the details of the fantastic prize and how to enter!
Gaby will be marrying David on 26th May 2019 at Trinity Buoy Wharf, London, UK. Click here to read all Gaby’s planning posts to date.
THREE FACTS: (1) Gaby and David met at work at an advertising agency in London (2) Gaby is Jewish and David is Christian, and they are planning an inclusive ceremony and party that will embrace both of their cultures (3) They are planning an urban luxe wedding in a converted London lighthouse – we LOVE the sound of this!
I’m sure every bride and groom can relate when I say I can’t believe how quickly time is flying. This weekend it will be exactly 4 months to go, which is madness.
I know leading up to the big day my time will be so stretched, so I’m trying to utilise free time as best as possible! One of those nagging tasks is writing a detailed schedule/logistics sheet for the day. This is so vital for smooth running and will make sure everyone knows their role, where they should be and what they should be doing.
The last thing I want on the day is to have loads of questions fired at me. As selfish as it sounds, I don’t want to have to think about anything on the morning of the wedding apart from breathing… and my dress!
We always love seeing what wedding pros choose for their own big days. On one hand, they’ve got a leg up knowing all the ins and outs of the industry. But on the other, when you’re surrounded by amazing wedding vendors day in and day out, how do you choose?!
Today’s beautiful bride Laura is a London-based wedding planner, and we’re not surprised that she and Moshi, a financial adviser, picked a whole roster full of Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendors for their beautiful destination wedding in Rome: from ultra-creative videographer Denee Motion (love that drone footage!) to a 10-piece band by the amazing Totem to a beautiful, colorful ketubah by artist Veronique Jonas from Ketubah.com, they went for some of the very best of the best.
And then there’s Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Italian Wedding Company. Being a planner’s planner is no easy job, but Stefania and Vanessa handled it with aplomb, helping Laura realize the wedding of her dreams despite her planning from abroad and speaking not a word of Italian.
Photographer Paul Toeman captured all the emotion of the day — not to mention the gorgeous setting — so perfectly, and we can’t get enough of the couple’s adorable wedding hashtag, #moshandbecks.
We’ll let Laura, who looked stunning in Suzanne Neville, fill you in on the rest…
Laura, the bride: He was sitting next to a friend’s husband one year and asked who was sitting next to his wife. After cancelling what would have been our first date and re-connecting a year later, we met up and the rest is history!
We love a good museum wedding. We also can’t get enough of edgy post-industrial venues. Today’s Jewish wedding — in a super cool whiskey factory-turned-art museum — combines both, so we’re doubly into it! Exposed brick for daaaaays — don’t miss Sachs Photography‘s pics!
Allison, a nonprofit strategic communications consultant and speechwriter, and Andy, a postdoctoral fellow, also had a super clever idea to make sure their Hora ran smoothly: they assigned three of the bride’s cousins as “hora captains”! The captains were tasked with things like making sure no one brought out chairs too early, using the good chairs that the caterer provided when it was time, and bringing the couple water at the end. Highly recommended!
Oh, and did we mention their stunning ketubah from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Ruth Mergi, combining a fantastic modern papercut design with a lovely watercolor background in soothing blues and greens?
We’ll leave the rest to the bride, who looked beautiful in her petal pink strapless dress by Amy Kuschel…
“It was the only place close to Norfolk that offered a direct flight,” Allison said.
There were four prospective students on the flight that day, according to Allison. “He was the only cute one,” she said.
Upon landing, Allison asked her aunt and uncle if they could give Andy a ride to campus with her. They agreed. The two met up again in the fall. By Valentine’s Day, they were an official couple. They have been together since.”
Super exciting day for us here at Smashing The Glass, as this is the first ever Jewish wedding we’ve blogged from Berlin, Germany, and we absolutely LOVE it! Anna and Assaf easily picked one of the coolest Jewish wedding venues we’ve seen yet: Teppich Fabrik (“Old Carpet Factory”), which, as its name suggests, is an old carpet factory loft building near the city center of Berlin (which automatically gives it some edginess cred right there).
The couple loved it for its industrial yet romantic vibes, and we are totally, totally with them — check out the effortlessly glam shots from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Ben Kelmer (in the words of the bride: “Nobody has ever made us look this good!”) to see for yourself.
As a very secular couple, Anna, a lawyer, and Assaf, a carpenter and project manager working in real estate, knew a traditional ceremony wasn’t for them, and we love the way they crafted a laid-back, individual ceremony mixing Jewish customs with the duo’s own personal touch: there was a chuppah (built by the groom and his friends!), blessings by friends, children running around, and, of course, a smashing of the glass!
We also love that these two organized a kids’ corner with babysitters, movies, games, and even a few beds, so that parents could dance all night worry-free (and we really do mean all night — the dance floor didn’t close up until 5 a.m.!).
Now over to Anna, who looked super chic in her dress from local designer Chiton…
Anna, the bride: We met at a hummus restaurant in Berlin Prenzlauer Berg in 2011 and started dating a few days later.