Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog

Inspired Jewish Weddings

A Creative Indoor Forest Jewish Wedding with a Ritva Westenius Bride at One Embankment, London, UK

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Oh Genna and Seth, where to start? What a wonderfully cool and creative wedding these two had! 

But we have to start somewhere, so what better place than with the venue design? This included effectively transporting a magical woodland into an urban, London venue – the beautiful One Embankment. You genuinely have to look hard to realise that the chuppah did not, in fact, take place in an enchanted forest. We are also seriously into those stairs leading to the chuppah – what an entrance!

The wedding was submitted by illustrious kosher caterer, Food Story, for whom Genna and Seth had nothing but glowing praise, and, being very familiar with their work, we have to agree! 

Genna looked every bit the breathtaking bride in her astoundingly gorgeous Ritva Westenius gown, which was made just for her (and wow, it really shows), and STG Vendor Sensation Band entertained the crowd with a spectacular live music soundtrack, working very closely alongside the bride and groom in the run-up to their Big Day (that’s an STG Vendor for you!)

Genna and Seth did not see or speak to each other for a whole week before the wedding, and, literally surrounded by friends and family at the chuppah, were totally overwhelmed with emotion and excitement. We think this is an absolutely wonderful idea for those who possess the self control, and it clearly made the moment even more special and electric for them. 

You can check out all the details below, including all the images by Earthy Photography, the moving, vintage-inspired movie by videographer, Mariage a la Mode, and beautiful words by the gorgeous bride, Genna.

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How we met 

Genna, the bride: I wouldn’t call this a romantic fairytale story… Seth and I have know each other for 15 years. We had a first kiss when we were just 14, then again aged 16, where I totally and utterly fell for Seth but the feeling wasn’t quite mutual.

Eight years then passed without speaking or bumping into each other, until we met again at a friend’s party. After an awkward conversation, and a lot of drinks, we set another time to go on a date, and the rest was history.

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Facebook Live Catch Up: Jewish Wedding RoundUp and Wedding Videography Q&A with Adrian Stone from The Dreamcatchers

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On Wednesday evening myself and Adrian Stone from The Dreamcatchers had SO much fun when went live for the May episode of our monthly STG show live from my apartment in London!

After covering the essentials of what happened behind the scenes with Smashing The Glass during the month of May, we went straight into a Wedding Videography Q&A and covered everything from how much you should expect to be paying, to different wedding cinematic styles, to what it was like collaborating together at The Savoy, to Adrian’s new ‘Selfie Wed’ product enabling you to film your entire wedding on your iPhone! 

It was action-packed, and if you missed it live, you can still catch up by watching the replay above. Adrian was just fantastic and it’s an absolute must-watch if you are considering (or have already booked) a videographer for your upcoming wedding.

Our monthly STG shows air  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.

Put Wednesday 28 June in your diary for June’s STG Live show — it’s a ‘Best Hebrew Songs for Jewish Weddings’ special with chazan Jonny Mosesson – it’s going to be uh-mazing!

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

 

A French lavender-themed Jewish wedding at Mas de Garguier, Marseilles, France

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Lovely lavender, beautiful southern French rural countryside and a rustic-chic aesthetic define today’s delightful real wedding – Gladys and Jonathan are, amazingly, our first STG French-born Jewish couple to tie the knot in France, and boy, was it worth the wait! 

The day was full of beautifully personalized details – the portable chuppah with its adorable lanterns, the lawn games for guests, the country-chic floral arrangements, totally a treat for the eye. Gladys managed to secure her dream photographer, Rà©mi from Une Vie en Provence, to capture all of the pretty!

We adore the rustic aesthetic, but also all the heart and soul that Gladys and Jonathan poured into making their day just perfect and so ‘them’. We also think Gladys’s advice at the end of the post is absolute gold dust – so do keep reading until the end!

Over to Gladys for the big-day lowdown!  

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How we met

Gladys, the bride: Jonathan and I met at work in 20th September 2012. I worked in a PR agency and he was working for one of our clients. I met him during our annual open-doors event: I saw him and told to my colleagues that he was exactly my type of man!

Of course one of them couldn’t help to go and repeat to him what I said (like we were in high school!) He came and spoke to me, but nothing else happened.

A few weeks later, he added me on LinkedIn, then we realised we had several mutual friends on Facebook as we went to the same synagogue, and we started to talk more often.

It was a very busy period at work for both of us so we didn’t have time to see each other, and we also had the weeks of holiday season. After few weeks of speaking on the phone for an hour every evening, sharing dozens of texts messages each day, we started to date on January 5th 2013! We shared so much during the previous weeks that it was obvious. Our respective parents already knew about each other, we were just waiting to start our story.

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How to talk to your family about marrying a non-Jewish partner

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By Sara Gibbs (All images are from the author’s Jew-ish wedding)

I always assumed I would marry a Jewish man. Even though I wasn’t religious, I grew up with a strong sense of culture and belonging. My father was Israeli, my mother, a Habonim alum from north London. While other families celebrated Christmas, I looked forward to feasting on doughnuts, spinning dreidels and eight days of presents (this bears repeating – eight days of presents – what you got on that, Santa?). My September birthday was frequently, and notably, ruined by coinciding with Yom Kippur, and then magically repaired with the breaking of the fast (what better way to break a fast than with birthday cake?). I loved helping to build the sukkah, failing to blow the shofar, searching for the afikoman. I loved my friends at cheder, I loved the songs, and the rituals and the togetherness – the unique warmth of a Jewish family.

I was going to marry a Jewish man, because I wanted a Jewish home. I wanted to have Jewish babies and raise them in a house full of the music of my culture, the foods, the beautiful bickering – anything else was unthinkable.

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Love chooses you

The thing about love, though, is that you don’t choose it – it chooses you. At university, I met a Jewish man, a fellow vegetarian and bohemian type, who, on paper, was perfect (and who, to this day, remains one of my closest and most important friends). But for all his convenient Jewishness, true love didn’t choose us.

We parted ways and I moved to London, where, in my very first job, I met an initially very surly IT manager, who was raised at an international school in Saudi Arabia. He was grouchy and didn’t seem to like me at all. And, in return, I didn’t like him one bit (that’ll teach him). But over much political debate, and him coming to the rescue when I managed to kill my poor, overworked laptop, this incredibly kind, startlingly intelligent, warm-hearted man was revealed to me. All grouchiness subsided – I’d read him all wrong. I had accidentally discovered a diamond – one of the last good ones. A man who would cook and clean and support my dreams with unconditional love and unfathomable patience. He wasn’t Jewish – but it didn’t matter. I was in love.Continue ReadingContinue Reading

Our favorite Jewish / Israeli / Yiddishe foods

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bonappetit.com

Hungry? No? Don’t worry, you will be in just a minute – we certainly are after collating the brilliant answers our STG Recommended Vendors sent in to the question “what’s your favorite Jewish / Israeli / Yiddishe food?”

It’s an impossible question, with far too many answers, and the mouth-watering selection below is certainly food for thought (see what we did there? Sorry!) 

One thing that is absolutely striking is that almost everybody mentioned the heart and significance that goes into Jewish cooking, the echoes of times gone by in each meal, and each family’s very slight variant on that recipe, the food of our culture keeping us together when we are a diaspora, the eclectic melting pot of flavours and backgrounds, of places we’ve visited and called home – and the love passed down in families, l’dor va’dor– from generation to generation. 

Jewish food is more than just food – it’s an expression of the unique, Jewish soul. It’s bickering around the table, it’s breaking wonderful news over a matzo ball soup, it’s second helpings of savta / grandma’s signature dessert, it’s that special flavour that only our family gets just right. Jewish food represents love and home – and this comes through in every word below.

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Lazy Cat Kitchen

Tania from Dany’s Traiteur Kosher Catering:

“As a Kosher caterer in the South of France, I have an incredible amount of contenders of typical Jewish food to be my favorite: falafel, shawarma, fantastic cous cous, amazing tajine or any” Bkaila” for my Tunisian clients.

But what I love more than anything is when we organise catering for weddings and the bride’s grandmother asks me timidly if she could bring a few oriental pastries that she will make by herself because her granddaughter loves them so much, and because over years and years, from generation to generation in Morocco or anywhere else, they always have these pastries for the dessert in weddings.

And despite all the wonderful desserts our chef pastry makes, all the guests are fighting to have one of these cigars filled with almonds made by Aunt Rachel…”

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