Inspired Jewish Weddings
I love Danya’s mum – she told her about Smashing The Glass and shared the blog with Danya a few months before her wedding. Danya told me how much of a help it was for her as she planned her interfaith Jewish wedding to Andrew, and that makes me one very happy smiley blogger.
Danya and Andrew are a really creative couple who blended their heritages (she’s Jewish, he’s not) and their hobbies to start a pop-up restaurant inspired by Jewish culture. Their pop-up supper club was a big inspiration for their wedding ceremony and celebration as they wanted their guests to feel at home and as if they were at a really intimate, delicious, fun dinner party.
The attention to detail, craft and care for everything at this wedding is so apparent — the couple mixed age-old traditions together with individuality effortlessly, with a gorgeous Autumnal colour palette and lots of personalised details.
I also love this: Danya and Andrew asked two of their friends to decorate their apartment so that when they came home to it after the wedding (it was only a few roads away from the venue) it would feel celebratory and special. Their friends strung paper decorations and placed beautiful flowers and candles throughout the apartment together with a late-night snack plate of crackers, cheese, and champagne. Just wonderful!
Danya and Andrew were married in October 2015 at The Green Building in Brooklyn, an incredible warehouse / loft-style venue in the heart of Brooklyn. All the stunning images are by Chris Gifford from Weddings by Two
Danya, the Bride: I’m an East Coast Jew who loves neutral colours and socialising to relax. My husband is a Christmas-loving, West Coast guy who’s never met an outdoor sport he didn’t like. We wanted to combine our backgrounds in a way that felt authentic to us and in a way that our families would recognise, and we lucked out big time with a brilliant and quirky rabbi who totally got what we needed (Rabbi Jim Ponet, a close family friend and Yale University’s rabbi for 30 years – his first ever intermarriage was Chelsea Clinton and her husband!). We spent a lot of time coming up with an original, explanatory, sometimes funny program.
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 Shaun Taylor.
Jewish weddings are full of iconic amazing moments to photograph, and the Badeken and Israeli Dancing are two that definitely stand out. But knowing that this is a scene that is very specific to the couple, their style of wedding at a plantation house in Texas, and knowing that the chances of shooting such a scene again are very low, means that it’s one image that I will always be proud to share.’
There was a time, not isao long ago, when the words Israeli Haute Couture could be considered an oxymoron. There was nothing elegant or sophisticated about evening dresses. And bridal gowns? A profusion of puffiness and petticoats!
But times changed. Dramatically. In a country known as the start-up nation, the bridal industry has captured the world’s attention and is reported to be valued at billions of shekels. The wedding gown creations of Israel’s designers are nothing less than stunning and they are being paraded out onto the world’s catwalks and red carpets – big time. The names of these houses are uttered in hushed, revered tones on both sides of the Atlantic, and beyond.
While the centre of the bridal dress district was once Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv, it now expands out into trendy Jaffa, the southern coastal city of Ashdod and beyond. And although Israeli brides tend to rent their gowns (for considerably less money than buying), many designers sell in bridal salons throughout the world as well as via the Internet. The shops vary from small, personalized boutiques run by classically trained dressmakers to empires run by businesswomen and their daughters.
Berta Baliti was born in Egypt, emigrated to Israel with her family as a small child and parlayed her degree from the famed Shenkar College in Tel Aviv into a world-renown bridal dress empire. She describes her designs as “avant-garde” and they certainly exude sexiness and daring, femininity and elegance with their plunging necklines, flowing trains and delicate veils. She has boutiques in many countries and her gowns have graced magazine covers, and bodies, throughout the world.
> See real brides on Smashing The Glass wearing Berta
Galia Lahav is of Russian descent, born into a family of dressmakers. From a modest beginning creating ivory lace appliques to establishing a design house saturated in extravagance and luxury, a Galia Lahav gown is not for the faint of heart. Her collections epitomize a golden age with evocative names like Ivory Tower, La Dolce Vita, Empress, Lourdes & Les Reves Bohemians. Pearls cascading down a graceful back, mermaid tails, fringes, feathers & ruffles embellish her dresses as jewels in the crowns of royalty.
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.
