Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog

Inspired Jewish Weddings

Jennifer & Jessica | Wonderfully joyous Lesbian Jewish Wedding at The Old Manse, Concord, and John Pierce House, Lincoln, Massachusetts, USA

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lesbian-Jewish-wedding
It’s not so unusual to feature a wedding with homemade invitations, an extraordinarily meaningful chuppah, and a vegetarian menu… But arriving by canoe, personalised pencil favours, a custom neon sign, and a joint breaking of the glass on the same rock where revolutionists, Henry David Thoreau and Nathanial Hawthorne once sat? Now that is a little more unusual!

Jennifer and Jessica had a very personal wedding like no other. It was so very authentic to them, and they incorporated many wonderful personal and thoughtful details.

I absolutely LOVE their ‘how we met’ story too…

The report today is written by them both, and photography is by the brilliantly talented Prinos Photography.

Lesbian Jewish Wedding at The Old Manse, ConcordLesbian Jewish Wedding at The Old Manse, Concord
how we met

Jessica: I was jumping rope in my apartment on the top floor of a high rise in Manhattan overlooking the East River and I was saying to myself, “I just want to meet my own Jen.” My eldest brother is married to a beautiful Jen with curly red hair and my other brother is married to a beautiful Jewish Jen from New Jersey. Two weeks later I met my Jen and she’s Jewish, from New Jersey and has curly red hair!

Jennifer: We met in February 2007 during a cocktail event at the Asia Society in Manhattan. We had less than fifteen minutes together but there was an intrigue about Jessica that made me want to learn more. I gave her my number, and she called three days later. We both lived on 1st Avenue, she was uptown and I was downtown… We fell in love on the 1st Avenue bus.

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Smashing Wedding Dress Details: Sleeves

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Kate-William-wedding
Left: The Duchess of Cambridge by Hugo Burnand  / Right: Olivia Palermo —  Oliviapalermo.com

by Karen Whybro

One of the most common things we are asked for at the boutique is a dress with sleeves. Thank goodness for Kate Middleton who brought sleeves back in a big way! And since Olivia Palermo showed us that covering up doesn’t have to mean dressing down, wedding dresses with sleeves have been a huge hit. With so much choice out there right now, how do you choose a sleeve which will suit you and your wedding?

Think fabric and vary length

There’s more than one type of sleeve and the choice of length and fabric can change the look entirely. From half cap to full length, the length of sleeve can change the feel and appearance of a gown and the bride within. If, like a great deal of women, your arms aren’t the favourite part of your body, where a sleeve ends will affect how you look and feel on the day.

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Monique Lhuillier dress by The Chriselle Factor via Bridal Musings

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‘Q&A with Karen Cinnamon’ – a return interview with the Save The Date wedding podcast

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Karen-Cinnamon
I had so much fun when I was interviewed last  December for the Save The Date Podcast that I jumped at the chance to meet  Aleisha, the head honcho of  Save The Date, for a sequel.

Aleisha came to  my London home last week to record a special Wedding Q&A episode and I answered everything ranging from  what’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen at a wedding, to my favourite affordable wedding dress designers, to helping a Jew-ish bride-to-be who felt under pressure from her mother to include too many Jewish traditions in her upcoming wedding.

You can listen to the podcast here or here, or by pressing the play button below.  I hope you find it useful and if you’d like me to answer any  other questions, feel free to leave a comment below, or email me at karen@smashingtheglass.com

Thanks for having me Aleisha!

 

Looking for bold, humorous, beautiful Jewish wedding photography?

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I might be a little bit obsessed. Like a serious case of wishing-I-was-still-a-bride-because-he-is-that-good obsessed.

Who am I talking about? None other than  David Morgan, whose photography  I’ve been a fan of as long as I’ve been blogging. Last month  I finally got to talk  to  him in person and not only is he one of the most talented photographers out there, he’s also thoroughly  genuine  and a joy  to be around, which in my books is a must for any wedding professional that I recommend.

I love the way David not only captures couples on their big day, but also the way  he documents  all the fleeting  moments that make up the  entire wedding day. He  takes the kind of photos you want to frame and hang on your wall for everyone to see. Photos that remind you of exactly how happy, beautiful, silly, or loved you felt on  your wedding day.

He  approaches wedding photography with a storyteller’s eye, and his work is full of personality, capturing the vibrancy and  energy of his subjects. As David  says of his work, “my style is completely natural. I shoot the story of what is happening as it unfolds. This means that you will receive completely unique images unlike any you may have seen at other people’s weddings.”

David Morgan wedding photographer
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Ruth & Steven | An ‘English afternoon tea garden party’ daytime Jewish wedding in Israel

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 english-garden-party-wedding
I absolutely adore the sunshine and fun factor of Israeli weddings but they very rarely incorporate quintessentially British traditions like afternoon tea and scones, finger sandwiches, croquet, and (well it’s not quite an english tradition, but) a barbershop quartet!

Ruth and Steven’s phenomenally different Israeli wedding contained all of these lovely ideas and more. In fact, the barbershop singing comes courtesy of the groom who not only sang his bride down the aisle, he also proposed to her with a song he composed and arranged with his barbershop quartet. You must make time to watch it — Steven’s proposal to Ruth is one of the best I’ve seen in a LONG time!

Ruth and Steven’s entire wedding is full of fun-filled, warm, homely details which you will want to replicate. I particularly love the ’round’ chuppah – something I’ve never seen before – and the ketubah, designed and created by Steven’s mother, who picked and dried all the flowers from close to where the couple live to create the most exquisitely beautiful ketubah.

Ruth is a Smashing The Glass reader and she told me that the STG pages were a massive source of inspiration during her planning process. So now, Ruth is here to ‘pay it forward’.

Let’s join the party and enjoy not only her story, but all of the beautiful images from the very talented Dima Vazinovich, together with the heart-warming wedding film at the end of the post by the wonderful Tzachi Asher.

English afternoon tea garden party
how we met

Ruth, the Bride: Long story short, we met through friends – but when Steven came into my flat (brought by said friend) and saw my 3,000 piece puzzle and sat down and immediately found pieces to fit, I had to know more! To say love at first sight is a bit much but definitely intrigued…

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