Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog - Page 250 of 253

Lee & Gary | Show-Stopping Jewish Wedding at The Criterion, London

16/07/2013 by Karen

Lee and Gary married at the gorgeously opulent Criterion Restaurant in Piccadilly, London. And when I say opulent, I’m talking a sumptuous neo-Byzantine Piccadilly haven with marble walls, decorative archways and a glorious golden mosaic ceiling.

And that’s not the only reason I’m excited to feature this wedding. You see I’m also totally in love with Lee’s couture dress and head piece which she designed herself. AND the fact that Le Gateau Chocolat, the big black transvestite opera-singer, with a penchant for being wrapped in body-hugging glittery lycra, performed at this wedding!

So here’s their story: Although this gorgeous couple are both Jewish, Lee (a former fashion designer, now a full-time mummy) and Gary, a barrister, are both, in their own words, “devout atheists”. Even so, both felt a need for some familiar cultural background in a partner and ended up finding each other on the Jewish dating site, JDate.

I’ll now hand over to Lee with all the delicious detail from the day:

VENUE + DECOR
Lee, the Bride: Gary, my then fiancà©, had been to The Criterion Restaurant before and knowing my love for art deco, thought I might like it. He literally thought of it the day after he proposed (which by the way completely flew over my head as he did it in his usual verbally subtle way!) We were on holiday at the time and arranged to see the venue a few days after our return over lunch. The moment we sat down and took the place in, we knew we needn’t look any further.

With such a beautiful venue choice, we didn’t need or want a theme or colour scheme as we didn’t want to detract from the beauty of the room with many other colours. Our floral and table layouts were fairly clean and simple too, with a combination of old school & clean modern – just how we like it!

How to unearth inspiration and ideas for your wedding day

11/07/2013 by Karen

Today’s post is written by the lovely Kate Shaw from Perfect Details. I’m a big fan of her site – she supplies the most beautiful wedding dà©cor accessories, hire wear and personalised details that together create some lovely finishing touches for your wedding day.

It’s really, really hot in everybody’s office this week, and any brides-to-be planning their wedding are finding their concentration slipping even more to table centre ideas, and where they can match a ribbon colour to their bridesmaid’s dresses…

But with so many places to research weddings, and too many people happy to give you their experience and opinion, where really is the best place to get new ideas for how you’d like the biggest day of your life to look?

PINTEREST
Currently the best way to lose hours at a time in our office… Careful it’s addictive. Use the menu top left to browse the whole wedding category, or use the search box to go more specific. Whether you’re looking for ideas for your dress, or you want theme ideas there are endless stunning images to inspire you.

Check out Perfect Detail’s Pinterest boards
Check out Smashing The Glass’s Pinterest boards

Find images you like and repin them to one board, or different categories such as invitations, table settings, hanging decorations…

WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER WEBSITES
A picture says a 1000 words? The better photographers have online blogs showing off all their best work, which is going to be capturing the magic and detail of other people’s weddings. You can find a photographer who has worked at your venue before so you can get ideas of how to specifically decorate that venue space.

Steven Brooks, a good friend to PerfectDetails.co.uk, is one of the best there is. His blog is full of gorgeous inspirational shots, giving you ideas not just on how to decorate your venue but also of the photos you’ll want to make sure you ask your photographer to get if you’re not lucky enough to have booked Steven himself!

Check out his blog

Andrew & Elliott | àœber-Stylish Soirà©e Wedding at One Marylebone, London

11/07/2013 by Karen

Today you lucky readers get not one but two lovely grooms who together organised an incredibly entertaining (think confetti canons, swing band, full-on Shirley Bassey wedding entrance) and glamorous black tie wedding in the heart of London’s West End. Their story is full of phenomenal detail, useful tips, fabulous eye-candy and impeccable style.

Andrew, originally from Australia, is an Operations Director for a boutique London creative agency, and Elliott is a Client Relationship Manager for a global investment manager. They met in Melbourne, whilst Elliott was traveling for work, and the rest, as they say, is history.

With their wedding being very much a joint planning effort (and boy was there a lot of planning), the account of their double groom w-day is recounted in both their words:

AN EXCUSE TO THROW THE BEST PARTY WE COULD IMAGINE
Andrew + Elliott: As well as being a celebration of our Civil Partnership we always wanted our day to be a celebration for our friends and an excuse to throw the best party that we could imagine. For a venue, we imagined a lavish stately home [with Andrew being from Australia, he had always had the grand notion to have a lavish party in a stately home or palace (somewhere older than the 225 years of his colonised country)], but in keeping with the idea of it being a party for friends we were also adamant that we wanted a Central London location so that guests didn’t need to plan accommodation or travel. Free from needing to marry in a “place of worship” we also wanted the ceremony and reception in the same venue so that there was one less travel logistic for our guests and us.

The problem we faced with a lot of the Central London properties available was that they were either sterile, were just another banqueting room in a grand hotel or were private member clubs with dominating dà©cor that would stop any chance of us adding our own personal touches. We started with a list of over 30 properties that could accommodate 100 guests. We researched via the web and various venue guides and then shortlisted around half a dozen that seemed to meet most of our requirements.

Off we trotted to spec out the various venues on the shortlist after work or on weekends. Several we wrote-off without even entering the building, others were excluded because of silly charges and inflexible terms and conditions. One, in particular, we rather liked but we didn’t gel with the event planner — her creativity extended only as far as suggesting neon pink lighting because this was a gay event! We were becoming slightly worried that our expectations were too high. We started to reconsider the stately home alternative. We unconsidered it again and armed with a bottle of wine we sat down and spent another evening reconsidering venues that we had previously ruled out (thinking we should at least go and inspect them as we were only reliant on photos from the web). A late addition was One Marylebone, which a good friend of ours had recommended.

WOWED BY ONE MARYLEBONE
We went to see One Marylebone one wintery evening after a stressful day at work, and apart from being wowed by the beauty of the building we immediately hit it off with Alicia, their fabulous event planner. We’d barely taken our coats off and already her suggestions were filling us with inspiration. We knew there and then that One Marylebone was the right venue — as an event space it was new enough that we would be original, as a venue it is awe inspiring and needs little additional decoration and, above all, we knew Alicia would make our day into what we wanted it to be!

Cool alternative versions of Hava Nagila, the Hora and other Jewish Wedding music

09/07/2013 by Karen

Image taken from Mishie & Misha’s spectacular Amalfi Coast Jewish wedding

How about a twist on the traditional versions of Hava Nagila or the Hora? These mp3’s will add that different element to your Jewish wedding music and make sure that yours goes down as the coolest Jewish wedding in town. If you know any other great alternative versions of Jewish wedding music that’ll get everyone dancing like this (see 40 seconds in!) please add the links or names of the songs and artists in the comments section.

HAVANA NAGILA BY HIP HOP HOODIOS
Listen
A cuban version of Hava Nagila

HAVA NAGILA BY MESHUGA BEACH PARTY
Listen
Hava Nagila with a surfing beach party twist

HASSIDISH BY SOLOMON & SOCALLED
Listen

SADAGORA HOT TUB BY AMSTERDAM KLEZMER BAND
Listen

Shiri & Yariv | Intimate ‘Surprise’ Jewish Wedding at Taboon, New York City

08/07/2013 by Karen

This has to be one of the most original and ‘true-to-themselves’ weddings I’ve ever had the pleasure of writing about. It’s a very small affair with the bride and groom, Shiri and Yariv, inviting just 20 of their closest family members out for brunch and then surprising them with a chuppah! And if that wasn’t exciting enough, the ceremony took place on a bustling New York street corner! How incredibly atmospheric must that have been? The chuppah itself is very special but more about that later.

Shiri and Yariv met in New York City several years ago. When they met, Shiri was living in London but spending most of her time in the US on business. She was single and didn’t have much of a social life so used JDate as a platform to meet interesting people. That’s how they met. He took her out for dinner at one of his favorite haunts, a restaurant called Taboon, and the rest is history.

VENUE & THE IDEA FOR A ‘SURPRISE WEDDING’!
Shiri the bride: Our ‘surprise’ wedding took place at Taboon, the restaurant Yariv took me to on our first date. It’s a beautiful yet unassuming Mediterranean restaurant in a neighbourhood of NYC called Hell’s Kitchen. Their menu is full of delicious twists on Israeli dishes and carefully chosen Mediterranean wines. I don’t have to tell you the magical memories the site of a couple’s first date has — I remember that night as if it was yesterday.

Yariv and I return once a year on the date of the night we first met, and that year, halfway through my Haloumi salad (and a few glasses of Chenin Blanc), the idea of having an intimate surprise wedding at Taboon took over my imagination. We had been together for 3 years and really wanted to start a family, but not before sealing the deal under a chuppah. Our families were going to be in town that following Thanksgiving, a few months away… the idea took on a mind of its own!

Thankfully Yariv liked the idea as much as I did. He’s a very modest, low-key guy and the thought of not having a big hoopla wedding sat very well with him. We booked Taboon and very slowly started calling our close family members inviting them for “brunch”.

REVEALING THE SECRET
Uncovering the purpose of our get-together was one of the most exciting moments of our lives. We’d been keeping a secret for what felt like an eternity and our guests had absolutely no idea. Some thought we might announce our engagement at the “brunch” (that’s right, we weren’t even officially engaged) but nothing more.

Once the appetisers were cleared, Yariv & I stood up to toast the occasion. When Yariv announced that we would like to invite everyone to be part of our chuppah just before dessert, the energy of the room became electric. Everyone cheered, our mothers had tears in their eyes and the guests’ excitement was something indescribable.

CEREMONY
The Rabbi who wed us is a superstar. He’s a young Chabad Rabbi of a small (yet growing!) congregation in our neighbourhood. When we came to him asking whether he would marry us in a non-kosher restaurant he looked perplexed. We assured him no meat would be served, he took a minute to think about it and said “how about the nearest street corner?” A surprise wedding on a bustling New York street corner? We loved it!

And so did our guests. They stepped outside on a windy but dry day, the men wearing napkins on their heads because someone forgot to buy kippot (!). Four of our male guests held the chuppah poles, the backdrop was the usual hustle & bustle of the city, taxis and buses honking as they whizzed by, a FedEx guy even stopped to watch the show… you get the picture. I will always remember every detail.