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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 photographyClaudine Hartzel photographyClaudine Hartzel photography
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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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Greek-Island-Jewish-wedding
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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“My best Jewish wedding photo” by Matt Parry

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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 Matt Parry.

Matt-Parry

‘Energy’ by  Matt Parry

The only way to truly capture weddings is to get right in the thick of the action. One of the true innovators of photography Robert Capa once said “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”

I love this shot. I love the dance floor at all Jewish weddings. OK I may take the odd elbow/chair leg to the face but its so worth it to get right up close and capture that sense of energy and happiness. Sometimes the energy and movement within images can be subtle (a moment just before a kiss) ….and sometimes it can be in your face obvious (a flying groom just before he collides with your camera lens).”

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Smashing the Bride’s Glass Ceiling

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Brides-giving-speeches
This is a guest post by  Lucy Jenkins (pictured above),
a newlywed television publicist living in London,  whose wedding I  featured on the blog last month.

Over the last few years there has been a huge renaissance in the rise of feminism, with women pushing for the right to equal pay, equal rights and against every day sexism. In the wedding industry, an industry which revolves predominantly around women, it seems bizarre that there are so many antiquated rules that determine how we create our wedding days.

Over the past year I was asked on a nearly daily basis how ‘my’ wedding plans were going, and very rarely did anyone assume that my husband was involved in the intricacies of the planning process. There were constant references to ‘Lucy’s wedding’ and a general assumption that the big day was higher up on my agenda than his. It is an extraordinary set of circumstances and outdated behaviour that a wedding day seems to belong to the bride, and yet her voice is the only one that we do not hear.

After many years working in publishing and now in television I spend my days talking non-stop, and you’d think that when I leave the office that my ability to talk and talk and talk would diminish, but it never seems to. When Matt and I first met, on a flashing dance floor of a club, he offered to buy me a drink and we spent the next three hours sitting in the corner talking about anything and everything under the sun.

Our first few dates lasted until 2 or 3am, moving from restaurants to bars, watching last orders being called around us while we were lost to the world deep in conversation. We are both chatterboxes, we love regaling our friends with stories, working any problems out by talking them through, having heated debates and are most definitely not known for our shyness. And yet when it came to planning our big day he seemed a little taken aback that I wanted to stand up on stage and say a few words.

Brides-Speech
Image:  Jez Dickson

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