Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog

Inspired Jewish Weddings

8 must-have items for a memorable Jewish wedding ceremony

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Jewish wedding ceremony
I started  Smashing The Glass back in May 2013 because I wanted to create the blog I wish I’d had access to when I was planning my own Jewish wedding. When I was planning my big day, I felt that there was a total lack  of Jewish wedding inspiration that wasn’t  ‘old fashioned schmaltz’. And when it came to planning an individual  and personal  Jewish wedding ceremony,  this was particularly relevant.

One of the most popular pages on the blog is my constantly updated chuppah ideas page with literally hundreds of cool, creative ideas for you to peruse through and be inspired by. Today I’ve gone a step further and picked out  an edit of some of the most gorgeous products  for  under the chuppah  in my quest to help you infuse  your Jewish wedding ceremony with beauty, individuality  and creativity. At the end of the post there are also several links to help you source some really fabulous  music for your Jewish (or Jew-ish!) wedding ceremony  too.

Hope you’re inspired. Happy Friday!

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1.  Smash Pouch (coming soon)

I named  the blog  Smashing The Glass  because I absolutely  adore the celebratory Jewish wedding tradition of the  breaking the glass at the end of the ceremony so I just had  to create this personalised bag to house the glass. And guess what?! I will very shortly be selling these personalised ‘smash pouches’ for you to break  your glass in style, and have a beautiful keepsake  from your ceremony! Sign up here to be the first to know when they go on sale.

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2. Beloved Ceramic Wedding Kiddush Cup £40

I love the clean lines of this kiddush cup designed by Jennifer Raichman  and the beautifully calligraphed Hebrew and English  typography

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A Pronovias bride for a cool, whimsical Jew-ish wedding at The Amadeus Centre, Maida Vale, London, UK

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Amadeus-Centre-Wedding
Today’s gorgeous bride,  Michelle, has some seriously talented friends. The super cool  wedding stationery? Oh, just designed by a friend. That gorgeous ‘brownie tower’ wedding cake? Oh just made  by ANOTHER amazing friend. That beautiful piece of music played during their Jew-ish wedding ceremony? Oh just lovingly  composed by a super talented friend of Michelle’s mother. Michelle  is a lucky girl! But  you can see that her and Ben have created all that love and given it back in bucketloads, not only from her report, but by the fact that almost  50% of their  guests travelled from abroad, from countries including the  USA, Netherlands, South Africa, Canada, Singapore, Russia, Germany, Iceland and many more — and this amazing  detail is perfectly  captured in their interactive ‘heart’ map that  you just have to see…

I love how she and Ben  have incorporated both Jewish and non-Jewish, and both British  and Dutch  themes into their day. They held their wonderfully inclusive  wedding at  the  Amadeus Centre  venue  in Maida Vale which they chose as it’s by Regents Canal which also runs past their home in Camden.  I’ll  hand you over to Michelle  now for the full report, exquisitely documented by the very  talented Martin Beddall, and watch out for, amongst other things, the world’s cutest pageboy…

Amadeus Centre Wedding
how we met

Michelle, the Bride:  We met in Edinburgh at a house party as we were both coming to the end of our masters degrees at the University of Edinburgh. Ben had a week left in Edinburgh before he was set to move back to Amsterdam, and I was heading to London at the end of the summer. After a summer of travelling back and forth between Amsterdam and Edinburgh, Ben decided to take the plunge and move to London, and we both didn’t look back!

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“My best Jewish wedding photo” by Michael Temchine

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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  Michael Temchine.

Michael-Temchine

‘Eyes’ by  Michael Temchine

Picking a favourite photo out of the tens of thousands that I have taken is not a simple task. On any given day it will likely change. But I always come back to this photo taken under the chuppah at Sarah and Meir’s wedding. It simply grabs you and holds you.

Like many orthodox, or frum, weddings the chuppah was packed with people and moving around was difficult at best. Finding an angle that would put Sarah and Meir’s faces both in the frame was nigh impossible. Being able to find those fleeting moments that tell the story and have them composed in a way that supported the meaning of the moment was like winning the lottery. It took a lot of small adjustments to get everything right on my end as I prayed Sarah would give him that little look.

I simply love that all of the elements in this photo return you to those eyes. It is simple, direct, and the perfect moment.“

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Win your wedding photography (worth £2450!) by the internationally acclaimed wedding photographer, Kate Nielen

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If you’re a sophisticated, creative couple who are  currently on the hunt for your perfect wedding photographer, let me  introduce you to the internationally acclaimed luxury fine art wedding photographer, Kate Nielen.

Based in London, but shooting weddings all over  the UK and beyond,  Kate  travels the world to photograph beautiful weddings with her distinctive dreamy, cinematic style.  Her gentle, fine art editorial approach creates timeless, luminous images that show her couples and their special day at their most romantic, natural and beautiful.

Kate works for the most discerning clients who appreciate photography and want the best wedding photography experience available, so  you can only imagine how thrilled I was when she asked if I’d host a competition  for her, and I was even more excited when she told me she wanted to very generously give away a completely FREE  wedding package together with an engagement shoot in London, to one lucky couple anywhere in the world. Wow – just WOW! If you’re getting married before July  2017 and you haven’t organised  your photographer yet, then today is most definitely your lucky day!

Even if you’re not fortunate  enough to win, Kate would like to offer every couple that enters 15% off their wedding photography if you then decide to go on and hire her  (but you  must book with her before 31st January 2016.)

Thank you so much Kate! Be sure to check out more of her work at  Kate Nielen Fine Art Photography.

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Julie & Abe | Outdoor Jewish wedding, with a vintage botanical theme, at Vineyards at Chappel Lodge, Austin, Texas, USA

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I’m not sure if you know that when I graduated from university back in 1999, I embarked on a career as a graphic designer, having studied graphic arts & design at university. I’ve always had an enthusiasm for great design, and those were the days before digital so it was ALL about interesting paper stocks and beautiful print techniques. I’ve never lost that passion for creativity  (if anything it’s been amplified since starting my design company in 2002 which I ran until Smashing The Glass became my full-time business) and that’s why I so appreciate today’s wedding with its exquisite creative streak and attention to detail.

The craft and care for everything at this wedding is so apparent and I’ve been lapping it all up! I’m blown away by the stationery for starters – it’s magnificent. Luigi Maldonado, the art director at the creative studio in Austin where Julie works, designed the entire suite as a gift to Julie and Abe and it’s beyond beautiful.

And their wedding is a totally outdoor affair! They had their chuppah under an elegant oak tree, and their reception within a unique open-air ‘dinner tent’. It was essentially a tent structure without the tent itself and was decorated with festoon lighting so that guests could dine and party under the moonlight. Er… WOW.

Julie and Abe managed to mix tradition and creativity together effortlessly. Taking inspiration from vintage botanical sketches and illustrations of cacti and succulents, their colour palette ended up taking on a lot of white and greens, and cacti became a foundational element across floral designs, and decor.

Before I hand over to Julie let me just say that I know you’re going to go pin crazy with all the wonderful images by The Nichols. Enjoy!

Outdoor Jewish Wedding
how we met

Julie, the Bride: Abe and I knew each other growing up, and at one time in our teen-aged years, we lived about two blocks away from one another. I left for college in LA, he went to Israel and then to New York and back. Years later, after I had returned to Austin, we ran into each other while he was in town visiting. After that, we started seeing one another on his trips home and kept in touch long-distance. He eventually moved back to Austin full time and we got married a few years later.

Outdoor Jewish Wedding
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