Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog

Inspired Jewish Weddings

An Anglo-American Enzoani bride for an English country garden Jewish wedding at Northbrook Park, Farnham, Surrey UK

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One of the best ‘how we met’ stories ever to have graced these pages is about to unfold before your very eyes. I’ll let the bride, Danielle, regale the full tale, but essentially the bride and groom’s parents were friends before these two were even born and their mothers fell pregnant at the same time. Born just six days apart, the bride and groom essentially knew each other from birth and what makes this Jewish wedding so very special is that so many of the guests had known both the bride and groom since the day they were born and had seen them grow up together — and apart (Danielle and her family moved to Florida when she was six) — and then together again!

No surprise then that this wonderful wedding is all about celebrating family with a closeness and an intimacy that I’m sure was felt intensely by every guest. So many wonderful touches, but one of my favourite is Danielle and Adam’s chuppah idea:

As the chuppah symbolises the four walls of a Jewish home, we wanted our family and friends to help us build this ‘home’. We asked all the ladies to pick out a rose and place it within the chuppah and hopefully while they did so they also made a wish for us and our marriage.”

I’m also very much liking Danielle’s Enzoani dress and those wonderful mismatched bridesmaids complete with baby’s breath flower crowns  — the perfect accompaniment to that scenic backdrop of blue skies and the Great British countryside.

Everything about this beautifully designed wedding at the gorgeous Northbrook Park is like viewing canned happiness and fun! From the personalised ushers’ pants(!) to the abundance of floral prettiness provided by Fairynuff Flowers to the Marryaoke and the “family style” Mediterranean cuisine by Eat Me. It all made for a rustic, relaxed feel of a family Shabbat dinner with people chatting and sharing food as if they had known each other for years! Oh wait, many of the guests did!

Enjoy this one peeps — the day was photographed perfectly by Cotton Candy — a duo of fun, fabulous women who did a brilliant job of capturing all the love and details.

English Country Garden Jewish Wedding Northbrook Park English Country Garden Jewish Wedding Northbrook Park
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“My best Jewish wedding photo” by Erika Szostak

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A weekly series where  I ask some of the world’s best wedding photographers to pick out their favourite shot from their Jewish wedding portfolio. This week it’s the turn of  Erika Szostak of PhotoMadly.

Erika-Szostak

‘A chuppah in the  dark’ by Erika Szostak

Sheli and Zack were married at a breathtakingly beautiful resort near Palm Springs, California. The resort was ringed by craggy mountains, which made for a stunning backdrop — during the day. The wedding ceremony was scheduled for sunset but as things often happen on wedding day, things ran late, and the ceremony didn’t start until about 20 minutes after schedule.

Well, not having worked at this particular resort before I didn’t know that the transition from light to dark at the base of the mountains is like going from white to black in the blink of an eye. Inexplicably, neither the venue nor the wedding planner seemed to know this either, and no one had thought to provide a single light source for the ceremony. So, the sun set and suddenly we all found ourselves in total blackness.

As you may or may not know, a camera’s autofocus does not function in the pitch dark. It needs contrast in order to work, thus you need at least one point of light in your frame. I switched to manual focus, but that didn’t help either because it was so dark I couldn’t see anything through my viewfinder. Total panic mode!

Luckily, my partner and second shooter, had had the forethought to hang a remote flash from a tree branch over the chuppah before the ceremony, thinking the chuppah would act as a nice diffuser and we’d get a bit of fill flash. We never imagined it would be the only light source! It worked though, and while disco-strobelight-flashing-chuppah is not the effect we were going for (and Sheli and Zack said they didn’t even notice this), it meant that disaster was averted and not only were we able to get the shots under incredibly difficult conditions, they were especially dream-like and dramatic to boot.“

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Win your wedding photography by award-winning Jewish wedding photographer, Claudine Hartzel

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Claudine-Hartzel
For those of you who are yet to book  your wedding photographer, today’s blog post is especially for you. Oh yes, today’s your lucky days as I’m thrilled to be partnering with  Jewish wedding photographer extraordinaire  Claudine Hartzel  to give one engaged-to-be-married couple completely FREE wedding photography! Let the celebrations begin!

I featured Claudine’s photography in one of the first real weddings I ever blogged back in 2013 and I’ve been smitten with her work  ever since (and have blogged her  images many times over too!). A soon as I discovered her talents, I quickly snapped her up as a Smashing Supplier and having met her as well, I’m genuinely lucky to call her a friend as well as a much-loved industry colleague.

Based in East London, but shooting weddings throughout the UK and beyond, Claudine captures weddings beautifully and naturally, using fashion, reportage and still life photography.

Claudine is herself Jewish, and has photographed many Jewish  weddings — check out her fabulous Jewish wedding portfolio here) so you  can only imagine how thrilled I was when she told me she wanted to give away  a completely FREE  wedding package together with an engagement shoot in London, to one couple anywhere in the world! If you’re getting married before next October  2017 and you haven’t organised  your photographer yet, then today is most definitely a  fortuitous day!

Even if you’re not fortunate  enough to win, Claudine  would like to offer every couple that enters 10% off their wedding photography if you then decide to go on and hire her.

Scroll down to read more about the prize and how to enter, and be sure to check out more of Claudine’s  work at Claudine Hartzel Photography.

Claudine Hartzel photography Claudine Hartzel photography Claudine Hartzel photography
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STG Recommends: Jennifer’s Paper

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Jennifer-Paper
I am thrilled to welcome Jennifer’s Paper  to our  Smashing Suppliers, Smashing The Glass’s handpicked selection of the best brands and services the wedding industry has to offer.

Smashing The Glass hand selects and verifies each Smashing Supplier, and can personally vouch for the fact that every one of them has the ability to turn your wedding day into something truly special.

You can find Jennifer’s Paper  in the Stationery  category in the UK Smashing Suppliers.

Jennifers Paper
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A Monsoon bride for a super fun destination Jewish Wedding on the Greek island of Paros, Greece

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If the image above doesn’t  draw you right in to this Greek / Jewish  (or Grewish!) wedding, I don’t know what will! I’m obsessed with the energy and aesthetic of it… and the talents of the man behind the lens, Ronen Boidek, whose work  I’m honoured to have  featured before on Smashing The Glass.

Courtesy of Ronen’s photography, and a very entertaining  wedding report by Tamar the bride, not to mention  an incredible film by  Nikos Vamvakidis  at the end of the post,  we’re being whisked  off to the  gorgeous Greek  island of Paros today. Blue skies, smiles for miles, sandy beaches, a bride and groom jointly smashing the glass, broken  plates, smashed pomegranates, Jewish wedding traditions, Greek wedding treaditions, the sparkliest of azure seas, Greek music, Jewish tunes, a first dance tango to  Por Una Cabeza  (one of my favourite pieces of music)…. wow! As the bride puts it, this wedding is literally  a mesh of joyous inclusion.

And  not only did bride  Tamar  rock a gorgeous Grecian-style dress from High Street label  Monsoon  but she switched into ANOTHER  gorgeous frock before the bash was  over  too! And Vasilis  played his part of the snazzy  groom splendidly  in his linen suit and trilby…  totally  dashing!

There are many humorous  moments (as could only be found at a big fat Greek Jewish wedding) brilliantly told by Tamar, including a very funny  proposal story, the groom’s getting ready story (I have genuinely NEVER heard anything like it!) and tales  aplenty about Tamar’s mother’s insane dancing…

Just a word of caution —  you may well be booking a little trip to Greece  by the time you’ve finished this post…. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Jewish Wedding on the Greek island of Paros, Greece
how we met and the groom’s  (five!) proposals

Tamar, the Bride:  Vasilis and I met in a boho tea room on Brick Lane in London in November what feels like 100 years ago. Five years after that he proposed five times! He had intended to propose on the anniversary of our first meeting. We had planned to go to Budapest that November and he wanted to get on one knee in the middle of the bridge between Buda and Pest. But he couldn’t wait. So the first time he proposed I was in my pyjamas the night before we flew and was so shocked and a bit sad: I wanted to have at least been wearing a bra!

The second time was only two minutes later with bra on and shock not over. The ring was a bit big so we planned to resize it after our anniversary holiday. The third time was that weekend on a bridge between Buda and Pest and the fourth time was a few minutes later on an even better bridge that he liked even more. Then, when we returned to London we had to get the ring resized and after picking it up he presented it to me again on the balcony of the Royal Opera House. He says that he loves proposing to me and that every time I say yes his heart leaps, so although the count is at five proposals, they may not be the last!

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