Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog

Inspired Jewish Weddings

Facebook Live Catch Up: Photography and Videography Q&A with Blake Ezra Photography and Gavsy Media

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Smashing The Glass Facebook Live
From L to R: Gavin, Karen and Blake :: Image: Blake Ezra Photography

Last Wednesday evening we went live with two of the industry’s most sought-after wedding vendors — Blake from Blake Ezra Photography and Gavin from Imaginarium for the September episode of our monthly STG show.

We went live from my apartment in London and the show was action-packed, super informative and amazing fun to boot – seriously you HAVE to watch the replay here or below, whatever stage of wedding planning you’re at!

Our monthly Smashing The Glass show airs  live on the last Wednesday of every month on the Smashing The Glass Facebook page at 8pm GMT (that’s 3pm EST, 12pm PST, and 9pm in Europe) to coincide with #WeddingWednesday.

Make sure you like the Smashing The Glass Facebook page to be notified of all future shows.

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A Meital Zano Bride for a Galilee Summer Camp-Themed Jewish Wedding at Ramot Resort, Israel

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We ADORE a laid-back Israeli wedding, particularly when the couple in question consists of two wedding planners and a wedding-planning sibling, combining the cool Israeli attitude with a gorgeous wedding aesthetic!

Arielle and Alon — a fashion-forward couple for sure — looked incredible, from handsome groom Alon’s unique suit to beautiful bride Arielle’s Meital Zano Bridal boho-style lace dress, surrounded by bridesmaids in mismatched florals. We say it a lot on Smashing The Glass, but there’s nothing quite like an Israeli dress designer!

Arielle and Alon did things their way, incorporating their own ideas to create a bespoke Jewish ceremony they felt represented who they are as a couple. 

Fabulous photographer Idan Canfi captured the sensational spread of pictures you see below you, and Arielle wrote up all of the details below. We’ll leave you in their capable hands now. Enjoy!

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A Galilee venue

Arielle, the bride: We got married in Ramot at a beautiful hotel overlooking the Sea of Galilee, Ramot Nofesh Hotel. We searched far and wide for a location that embodied the summer camp feel that we wanted to emulate, and a place that we could host the majority of our guests for the night.

We purposely chose a location that was a bit far from Tel Aviv, which is where we and our guests mostly live, to basically force our guests to spend the night, creating the destination wedding vibe we wanted. 

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Real Jewish Brides – Leah: 8 Months Until Our Destination Wedding… Update

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Leah will be marrying Zak in a Jewish wedding on 1st June 2018 at Masia Notari in Spain. Click here to read all Leah’s planning posts to date.

THREE FACTS: (1) Leah knew she wanted to convert to Judaism long before she met Zak. She feels that having a Jewish wedding is another milestone in her Jewish identity and is an opportunity for some of her family to experience new traditions. (2) Leah & Zak met on JDate (3) Leah and Zak are planning a beautiful black tie destination wedding in Barcelona, Spain

When Zak and I got engaged, we hadn’t really put a lot of thought into the details of our wedding beforehand. Immediately we were flooded with questions asking when and where we would be wed, especially since our family and friends are spread out throughout the country. One of our favourite things to do together is travel, so it didn’t take us long to decide that we wanted a destination wedding, but we didn’t realize how many small hurdles we’d have to overcome by planning a wedding from afar.

Finding an Officiant

Finding someone to officiate our wedding was harder than we originally thought. It’s important to both of us that we have a more traditional Jewish ceremony but finding a rabbi in a predominately catholic country proved difficult. Luckily for us, our wedding planner, Becky from Barcelona Brides, was able to help us locate a wonderful rabbi that we began working with to help us craft a custom ceremony that is meaningful to us. Thank goodness for modern technology as we are able to have Skype sessions with our rabbi leading up to our wedding. This was one of our top priorities after choosing a venue and I urge others to begin this process early if their options are limited.

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A Super Luxe Floral Jewish Wedding in the Bride’s Parents’ Garden at Toorak, Melbourne, Australia

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jewish wedding Toorak Melbourne Victoria
Before we get into the details of Samantha and Troy’s sensational super luxe Jewish wedding, there’s also something to be learned from the way that the happy couple met: always keep your eyes open – you could meet your soulmate anywhere. In this case, walking to your car!

Today’s wedding is a total feast for the eyes as bride Samantha owns a fashion business, and brought her own sense of style to the aesthetic of the day. 

Samantha and Troy opted for a traditional white wedding at Samantha’s parents’ private residence in Melbourne, Australia. Adorned with an abundance of outstanding floral arrangements (THAT CHUPPAH!!) and styled to perfection, with not a detail missed, the day was so deliciously decadent, it really was the dictionary definition of a dream wedding – an absolute triumph for wedding planner, Styled by Coco.

The day, of course, ended with a bang – a lot of bangs, actually, in an out-of-this-world fireworks display.

The impact of the dà©cor, and parts of the firework display, can be lived vicariously through the stunning and cinematic video by Untitled Images, which also brings to life the heartfelt and loving speeches delivered by the couple’s devoted friends and family.

Bride Samantha looked straight from the pages of a glossy magazine in her breathtaking J’Aton Couture dress, flawless makeup and chic up ‘do. 

Photographer Yervant Photography captured every moment with expert ease, and Samantha has provided us with the wonderful writeup below. Enjoy – and please DO Pin everything you love (that’s a lot of Pinning!) 

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jewish wedding Toorak Melbourne Victoria

jewish wedding Toorak Melbourne Victoria

jewish wedding Toorak Melbourne Victoria
How we met

Samantha, the bride: We bumped into each other on a Friday night in September 2013, Keilor Road, Niddrie. Literally – bumped into each other. I was walking to my car, and Troy was out getting a bite to eat, when I bumped into his chest and then remarked how tall he was. After a brief conversation, we decided to grab a bite to eat together, nachos. We ate, chatted and exchanged phone numbers and that was it that night. 

We met up a couple of days later, struck up a conversation and decided to catch up again soon. A friendship was about to turn into a relationship.

A few weeks later, I went a holiday that had already been planned, and I was thinking about Troy the whole time I was away. Troy was missing me too. On my return, the friendship did become a relationship as we proclaimed our love for each other. Six months later we were living together… and here we are today!
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A Nature-Themed Outdoor Jewish Wedding at Mpekweni Beach Resort, Eastern Cape, South Africa

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Get your Pinning fingers ready, because today’s South African Jewish real wedding is an absolute beauty, and we guarantee you’ll want to steal pretty much all of it.

Inga and Jonathan chose a simple, clean outdoor theme, with a colour scheme of green, white and gold accents. With the emphasis on greenery, rather than big florals, the couple created a stunning, into-the-wild aesthetic which still managed to be totally chic and fresh.

Beautiful bride Inga looked like a Grecian goddess in her boho-style gown and flower crown, and I think we can all agree that she steals every photograph!

Speaking of which, we absolutely adore the whimsical and romantic-look images taken by fabulous photographer, Astrid Bradley Photography. Not only is every detail shot perfectly framed, but the emotion comes through so beautifully that you’ll feel like you were there.

There are some smashing ideas in here, including a wishes jar on each table for guests to write in. As there were 18 tables, the couple plans to open one jar a year for the next 18 anniversaries. Now that is self control! 

We’re also totally up for a big day dance off! So much fun!

We’ll leave you with Inga now for the full writeup of her and Jonathan’s spectacular wedding day, but before we do, with Yom Kippur almost upon us, we just want to wish the Day of Atonement to be a meaningful day for you, no matter how or if you are observing it. Shabbat Shalom!

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A relaxed, refined atmosphere

Inga, the bride: We got married at Mpekweni Beach Resort. We chose this beautiful venue for a number of reasons. Firstly, it holds significance to us as we spent some of our first holidays, beach walks and sunsets as a couple here. We also got engaged in a similar spot not too far down the coastline. We were attracted to the relaxed and refined atmosphere Mpekweni effortlessly provides (which is significantly due to the incredible management of Colin and Nicollette Whitehead).

We are both family orientated, and this venue allowed us to keep the feeling of a close family gathering without having to forgo anyone on the guest list. Moreover, our wedding was a weekend affair, as we wanted to take full advantage of having all our loved ones close by and there are few competitors to Mpekweni.

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