Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog

Inspired Jewish Weddings

Rochelle & Rich | Classic White City Chic Jewish wedding at Devonshire Terrace, in the heart of the City of London, UK

by

city-chic-wedding
Being my home city, I make no secret of how much I love  a London Wedding. And Rochelle and Rich’s indoor/outdoor venue of Devonshire Terrace right in the heart of the City and in the shadow of the Gherkin, is just about as spectacular as a London venue gets!

Rochelle is a super beautiful bride, all glowing skin and curly, glossy  locks, and  her and  Rich’s Jewish wedding is simple, elegant, relaxed, and  perfectly executed in Rochelle’s easy-going, laid back manner  (read her advice at the end if you want a stress-free wedding planning experience!).

Sit back with a cup of tea, peruse through her wedding report and enjoy all  of the  wonderful images taken by the  rather talented  Claudine Hartzel  Photography, one of Smashing The Glass’s esteemed  Smashing Suppliers.

Classic White City Chic Jewish wedding at Devonshire Terrace, in the heart of the City of London, UK

Continue ReadingContinue Reading

‘Meet The Blogger’ – my interview for the Save The Date wedding podcast

by

Karen-Cinnamon-interview
Last week I was interviewed by  Aleisha from the  Save The Date Wedding Podcast  and it was so much  fun!  We laughed a lot whilst discussing everything from how to avoid a ‘cookie cutter’ Jewish wedding-by-numbers, to planning a fabulous Jewish (or Jew-ish!) wedding on a budget, to tailoring traditions to your tastes and beliefs and so much more. There’s also snippets from Charlotte York’s Sex and the City Jewish journey,  some  very unusual versions of Hava Nagila, and  lots more goodies.

If you’d like to listen to it, you can do so here  or here.

And yes, that is me pregnant in the picture above! It was taken last week by the phenomenal Laura Babb, and I’ll be reporting on that shoot very soon.

I hope you enjoy the podcast – let me know your thoughts! And  thanks so much for having me Aleisha!

podcast

How to make your friends and family feel extra special at your wedding

by

creative wedding ideas

Smashing The Glass is all about super creative Jewish (and Jew-ish) weddings packed with individuality and personal details so you’ve definitely come to the  right place for inspiration!

I’ve come up with lots of creative ideas for you with everything from innovative ways  to include  friends, family and little ones in your ceremony to making them feel ultra special at your reception

Ceremony ideas

A lovely way to get your closest friends and family involved is to have them contribute to your chuppah design. Ask guests  to contribute different squares (tell them what size is required or  supply a blank piece of square material sized correctly) and patchwork them together to make one big chuppah canopy.

Cheryl and Ernest’s  beautiful personalised chuppah quilt (below) is an example that’s made out of the clothes of the bride’s mother who sadly passed away, and other momentous pieces including her grandmother’s wedding dress and a shirt her mum had kept of her grandfather’s after he had died, but the same quilt style could be used by asking friends and family to each  contribute  a square, and sewing them altogether.

quilted-chuppah
Image: Daniel C. Photography from Cheryl & Ernest’s Jewish wedding

Or do what my husband and I did  where we  asked some of our guests to contribute to our chuppah design by asking them to compose a short message (in English or Hebrew) that we then incorporated into our chuppah canopy design.

This was also a lovely way of including guests from abroad that weren’t able to attend in person. We also chose four significant people to hold each of the four chuppah poles including Sharon, our Irish Catholic mutual friend that set us up (chuppah holders don’t have to be Jewish). Perhaps your fiancà©e’s best friend could do that? Everyone we asked felt very honoured!

personal chuppah
Image: Earthy Photography  from my own  Jewish wedding

Another ‘ceremony’ idea is to replace the traditional  Sheva Brachot (seven blessings) with prayers  by  all your friends personalised for you, then have each friend came up and read their own prayer. Chelm and Jake did that in their Jewish wedding — have a read of their wedding post for  many more ideas of how to involve friends and family. And even if you don’t want to personalise the seven blessings, you can still ask  seven different friends or cousins to read each blessing for you at the chuppah.  People comfortable reading Hebrew can  read the blessing in Hebrew, while non-Jewish friends can always  read an English translation.

Wedding reception  ideas

A lovely  way to make your guests feel super special is to incorporate another detail that I did for my wedding. My husband and I  knew we wouldn’t have a lot of time to talk to everyone on the day, so we spent some time before the wedding writing personal notes to everyone at the wedding which we then had printed underneath their names on their menus / name cards. It took a bit of time but we really wanted each and every guest to realise how much we wanted them there and what they meant to us.

personal wedding messages
Images: Earthy Photography  from my own  Jewish wedding

Continue ReadingContinue Reading

Julie & Zak | Gold and blush Parisian magnificence for a Jew-ish destination wedding at Maison des X, Paris, France

by

Paris-wedding
Julie and Zak’s destination wedding comes to you from one of the most romantic cities in the world, the magnificent Paris, France. This is timeless glamour at its very finest. Soft feminine gold and blush decor, scenic Parisian backdrops, and did somebody say Wang?

Yes folks. Julie wore the fluffiest, dreamiest Vera Wang dress I’ve ever clapped eyes on.

Truly Wangtastic. But wait, there’s more … there is the deep love of friends and family who celebrated with Julie and Zak for close to a week in Paris, with trips on the Seine and to the Moulin Rouge. And watch out for Julie’s peacock blue suede Louboutins. I’m just a little bit in love with those.

Oh la la.

Today I’m also delighted to be debuting one of my favourite photographers, the supremely talented Polly Alexandre, who lovingly captured all of the shimmer, the sophistication and the sexy.

Take it away Julie.

Gold and blush Parisian magnificence for a Jew-ish destination wedding at Maison des X, Paris, France
a destination wedding in central Paris at Maison des X

Julie, the Bride: Once we decided that we wanted to plan a destination wedding in Paris, we worked with Nancy from Fete in France to find a space that captured what the beauty and magic of Paris meant to us.

We booked Maison des X unseen with the understanding that it was originally a private home in the middle of the city that retained a great deal of its Parisian charm and needed only some flowers and candlelight to transform into the venue we had imagined. We loved Nancy’s description of the space as many spaces in one — formal indoor, gardens outdoors, and a club-like atmosphere in the wine caves for dancing until dawn with our closest friends and family — and ultimately decided on the venue for the complete package that it was. I told Nancy I wanted the venue to look golden and glowing, and she ran with the color scheme and theme from there. We ended up with the most beautiful candles, glowing mercury glass accents, and exquisite pale pink and white floral arrangements that didn’t look too precious. It was perfect.

Gold and blush Parisian magnificence for a Jew-ish destination wedding at Maison des X, Paris, France

Continue ReadingContinue Reading

What’s the correct processional order for a Jewish wedding ceremony?

by

Jewish wedding question
To begin with, I want to say that “there is no such thing as a ‘generic’ Jewish wedding — no matter what the rabbi tells you, no matter what your mother tells you, and no matter what the caterer tells you”.

That’s not my quote, that’s Anita Diamant’s, from her wonderful book, The New Jewish Wedding. And I start with it, as it’s important to know that just like all other aspects of a Jewish wedding, the processional order will vary with how religious you are, and your local practices, but it will still follow this basic order:

The wedding party enters in this order:

  • Rabbi and/or chazan (cantor) on Rabbi’s right.
  • Bride’s grandparents (or they can choose to be seated beforehand)
  • Groom’s grandparents (or they can choose to be seated beforehand)
  • Ushers in pairs (shortest to tallest)
  • Best man and / or Best woman
  • The groom, escorted by his parents (father on his left, mother on his right)
  • Bridesmaids (individually or in pairs)
  • The bride, escorted by her parents (father on her left, mother on her right)

Jewish-wedding-ceremony-processional-order

Continue ReadingContinue Reading