Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog

Inspired Jewish Weddings

A Liz Martinez and Yaniv Persy Bride for an Urban Chic Jewish Wedding at Avigdor 22, Tel Aviv, Israel

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We are just blown away by Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Ran Bergman’s fabulous, artistic photos of Dana and Daniel’s super cool contemporary Israeli Jewish wedding at Avigdor 22 in Tel Aviv. Every shot is framed to perfection — just look at that shot of the two of them standing against the orange wall!

And it doesn’t hurt that Dana and Daniel are basically supermodels. Dana looked beyond gorgeous in not one but TWO fantastic gowns: for the ceremony, a long-sleeved, high-necked lacey Liz Martinez for a touch of old-fashioned glamour, and then, for the reception, an ultra-contemporary sleeveless, backless number from Yaniv Persy with a striking geometric print. Dana chose it because she knew it would be perfect to dance in, and if you look through the photos of the couple’s fab dancing, you’ll see she was absolutely right!

Oh, and their food? With a spread including everything from za’atar-coated Jerusalem bagels to colorful macarons to fresh mozzarella, this is one wedding that’s got our mouths watering! Now over to Dana…

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A Tel Aviv Wedding

Dana, the bride: We got married at Avigdor 22. We chose this venue because we were looking for a place that would be convenient for most of the guests (in Tel Aviv) and especially because we wanted our Friday afternoon wedding to continue into the night, so we looked for a place that was not kosher. Besides, we liked the urban concept.

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Celebrating 15 years of David Pullum, One Of The World’s Best Wedding Photographers (and a special gift for all Smashing The Glass readers)

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We are extremely honoured to be celebrating a truly talented and wonderful photographer today — the amazing David Pullum.  Not only is it his birthday (Happy Birthday David!) it is also the anniversary of his 15 years working in wedding photography. 

Voted one of the best 50 photographers in the UK in 2018, David Pullum is one of the most visually engaging photographers we know – he has an unbelievable skill of capturing emotion and his timeless style create memories the couple, the bridal party, and their friends and family will truly treasure forever. 

We come across thousands of photographers here at Smashing The Glass, but David is definitely one of our all time favourites — he is utterly outstanding. 

We adore having David as part of our Smashing family and today we want to make it all about him – congratulations David, 15 years in the wedding industry is a remarkable achievement! 

Before we let David tell  us more about his wedding photography experience so far, we are beyond 15 year excited to let you know that to celebrate this fantastic milestone David is offering off 15% of his wedding package for all Smashing Glass readers!! HAPPY DAYS! 

Now David, over to you… 


Where did it all begin? 

In 2003 the company I was working for decided to move most, if not all of its staff to Bangalore. Having left school with very few qualifications and have spent most of my working career in a trading room, the options were fairly limited. A good friend of mine at the time had just taken up wedding photography and so I signed up for the same course as he had done and by the end of that year I had my first wedding booking. Continue ReadingContinue Reading

A Carol Hannah Bride for an International Jewish Wedding at The Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers, New York, New York, USA

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You don’t get much more cosmopolitan than today’s couple. Hayley, from New York, and Emmanuel, from Paris, met while living in London, and chose to hold their Jewish wedding (well, one of them…) in the bride’s super-cool hometown, whilst including so many gorgeous creative details!

Their wedding at The Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers celebrated their international backgrounds through details like bilingual French-English invitations and a custom designed map displaying all of the places both Hayley and Emmanuel have lived, and that have been important in their relationship.

We love this idea for an ultra-personal touch, and Smartup Visuals came up with the most fun design — you’ve got to see Corey Torpie’s photos of it!

You know how we said in the intro that one of the duo’s weddings took place in NYC? Well, that’s because these two had already gotten legally married in a civil wedding in France, the groom’s home country, which let them let loose and enjoy the celebration and religious ceremony at wedding part 2.

With guests from all over the world, making sure everyone felt included was paramount. One lovely way Hayley and Emmanuel made all of their guests feel part of the day was by having a group reading of the Seven Blessings. They found some modern interpretations of the Seven Blessings they liked, printed out copies for all the guests, and asked everyone to join in during the ceremony — isn’t that beautiful?

Hayley, who looked stunning in her modern, almost sculptural Carol Hannah gown, will fill you in on the rest…

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How we met

Hayley, the bride: Emmanuel and I met a few years ago when we were both living in London. Ironically, I had lived in Paris – where Emmanuel is from – for a few years before moving to London, and Emmanuel had lived in New York (my hometown) before moving to London. We had lived in the exact same places but at different times, so we connected right away.

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It’s Our Birthday and To Celebrate Take 20% off our Smash Glass Pouches – Today Only!

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Smash-Pouch-Jewish-WeddingFive years ago I hit the ‘go live’ button on my very first blog post — the real Jewish wedding of my brother to his incredible wife, (and my one-in-a-million sister-in-law), Lee Ann… Just the most gorgeous wedding for very many reasons!

Five years later we are a fabulous team of five with gorgeous Maria, our fabulous editorial assistant; ever-wonderful Claire, our much-loved client relations manager; amazing Emily, our fantastic features writer, and amazing Megan; our very talented social media manager. And, of course, there’s me, Karen, the founder and editor!

We couldn’t let our 5th birthday pass without a little gift for you, so to celebrate we are slashing our coveted smash glass pouches for under the chuppah by 20%, but the special discounted price is for today only!

More about the Smash Glass Pouch

As founder of Smashing The Glass (and with a background in award-winning creative design and branding), I personally created this gorgeous lined Smash Glass Pouch with you in mind.

Enough already with those chuppah glasses wrapped in foil, a napkin, or an old-fashioned velvet pouch… Your Smash Glass Pouch should be as Instagrammable as the rest of your wedding, right?!

Smash Glass Pouch
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2018/19 Real Blogging Brides: Introducing Jay + Tom: How They Met To The Present Day…

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Today on the blog we’re introducing our 6th gorgeous bride from our crop of 2018 and 2019 Real Jewish Brides! Please give a warm welcome to Jay who will be marrying Tom on 24th November 2018 at Hyatt Churchill, London, UK.

THREE FACTS: Jay and Tom met on Tinder (Tinder For The Win!) (2) These two are planning a big fat Jew-ish wedding (Jay is Jewish, Tom is not) but in Jay’s words: “Tom was brought up in Edgware and has more of a love for chopped liver and bagels than I do!” (3) Jay is a Personal Trainer and Fitness Instructor and Tom works at Facebook.


How we met

I am 26 and met Tom just over 4 years ago. We met on Tinder – something we tried to keep quiet at first, however, Tom’s first introduction to my family over a Friday night dinner back at my parents house, where anything goes – my sister decided to explain to the whole table of sixteen people about Tinder, so the secret was well and truly out of the bag!

We had our first date at a The Fence in Farringdon, I knew straight away I liked this guy, he made me laugh and we just seemed to click. We spent a lot of time together and things were moving forward pretty quickly, spending many weeknights and weekends together.

About six weeks after we met, I was going away for Christmas with my family skiing, we spoke briefly the first few days of me being away and messaged each other Christmas morning to wish each other a wonderful day, I then never heard from Tom again.

I put on a brave face and pretended it didn’t mean much but I was a little bewildered by it all when I saw an email in my inbox with a long apology. I guess when you meet on Tinder you don’t necessarily think you are going to meet The One…

For me I knew what we had was something special, for him I guess he had to come to that decision himself. I was very reluctant to meet him again, as I wasn’t up for playing games… but the rest is history!

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