Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog

Inspired Jewish Weddings

Welcome White Dress Films to our Smashing Suppliers

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I am thrilled to welcome White Dress Films  to our  Smashing Suppliers, Smashing The Glass’s handpicked selection of the best brands and services the wedding industry has to offer.

Smashing The Glass hand selects and verifies each Smashing Supplier, and can personally vouch for the fact that every one of them has the ability to turn your wedding day into something truly special.

You can find White Dress Films in the Videography  category of  Smashing Suppliers.

WHITE DRESS FILMS
 http://www.whitedressfilms.co.uk/ We make wedding films; but not just any wedding films. Our films are creative, compelling and beautiful to watch.  Your wedding film will be more than just a video record of your wedding day. It will tell the story of the two of you.

For us your wedding is about capturing the moment as it happens, there’s no staging and no re-runs. You are individual and you are unique. You’re not just another booking in our diary. We like to take the time to get to know you.  We like to know whether your wedding is an intimate affair or a large celebration. We like to know about your choice of venue, the service, music and other details that you have organised for your big day. All the details that make it unique.
Most importantly, your wedding film will be individual, unique and tailor-made to suit you.

After all, it’s all about you…  Please visit our website to see some recent examples of our work.

The best Jewish weddings and Jewish wedding ideas

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jewish-wedding_4 Looking for some fantastic ideas for your Jewish wedding? Well, in the run-up to my wedding day in April 2013, I was, and I grew increasingly frustrated with the fact that there was nowhere online to find creative, inventive and original ideas for Jewish (or Jew-ish) weddings. So the Smashing The Glass Jewish wedding blog was born with the aim of being chock full of ideas and inspiration for planning unique and creative Jewish weddings.

I curate all the real Jewish weddings that are submitted to the site to bring you only the most creative, unusual and detail-orientated weddings — ones that I’m sure will inspire you, such as this super- chic Jewish wedding, or this one full of loads of DIY loveliness, or these two that meld and embrace both the bride and the groom’s cultures beautifully: a Jewish/Greek wedding and a Jewish/Celtic wedding. I’m in awe of the creativity and originality that are part of every beautiful real Jewish wedding on the site — and I cover everything from city chic Jewish weddings to destination Jewish weddings, country house Jewish weddings, DIY Jewish weddings, garden theme Jewish weddings and of course lots of Israeli weddings. Have a look though them all for lots of inspiration and ideas.

Aside from browsing through the real weddings, perhaps you’re looking for inspiration to create a meaningful and beautiful chuppah? Well the chuppah ideas page has tons and tons of ideas and is constantly updated with gorgeous chuppot. Chuppah There’s also lots more ideas, inspiration and tips in the Ideas for your Jewish Wedding section, everything from ketubot to food & drink ideas to really original guest books, table numbers, name cards, invitations and stationery, and really useful tips and tricks from real brides.

For music ideas, you might also like to check out the top 10 chuppah entrance songs and the best non-traditional versions of ‘Hava Nagila’ london-zoo-wedding-ketubah If you’re marrying out, or marrying in (or anywhere in between for that matter – I call it Jew-ish!) there are loads of real interfaith Jewish weddings to be inspired by, in addition to a wonderful article entitled ‘The diary of a Jewish bride who married out‘ and on top of that two really useful posts by the awesome Michele Schwartz on the subject of converting and interfaith marriage. Also if you are UK based you may want to contact Rabbi Paul Glantz, one of our awesome Smashing Suppliers, who has married many interfaith Jewish couples.

Talking of Smashing Suppliers, let me tell you a little more about them. They are my handpicked selection of the best brands and services the wedding industry has to offer. I select and verify each Smashing Supplier, and can personally vouch for the fact that every one of them has the ability to turn your Jewish wedding day into something truly special. jewish-wedding_5
Finally, I wrote this piece in December 2013 on the The Top 5 Dos and Don’ts for the perfect Jewish wedding for Pulse Magazine, and if you want even more Jewish wedspiration, follow Smashing The Glass on Instagram,  Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

And don’t forget, when you do get married, I’d love you to send me your wedding submission afterwards! It’s my awesome readers who ultimately make Smashing The Glass so inspiring and I would absolutely love to hear from you.

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Natalie & Oren | Spectacular Jewish wedding at The Great Synagogue + Villa Cora, Florence, Italy

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florence-wedding
I kid you not. The moment I laid my eyes on this magnificent wedding captured by David Bastianoni, I was speechless. As in, my mouth was unable to form words and my brain was unable to make sentences. And as a wedding blogger, that can be kind of a problem. But stare for even one minute at the array of images in this post, by the amazing David Bastianoni, and you’ll be doing the  exact same thing.

So let’s hand over to our gorgeous bride, Natalie, to provide you with all the delicious detail of the day.
Florence Villa Cora Wedding 95 Florence Villa Cora Wedding 37
VENUE
Natalie, the Bride: We had our ceremony at The Great Synagogue of Florence.  I lived in Florence for 9 months in 2002 and I always remembered the synagogue being remarkable. Upon re-visiting the synagogue I knew I wanted to get married there. We even decided to keep the ceremony at the synagogue despite it being an open house day where the synagogue was open to visitors throughout the day. Needless to say we had a lot of bystanders and ”extra” guests at our ceremony but we didn’t mind.
Florence Great Synagogue Wedding
The reception was held at Villa Cora.  The hotel was redone a few years ago and the main salon is breathtaking. As soon as I saw the main salon at Villa Cora my mind was made up. As you can see in the photos, the room speaks for itself. We ended up having more people than we expected and we used an adjoining room which was equally as gorgeous but with a totally different style (Moroccan).
Florence Villa Cora Wedding A
AN ELEGANT WEDDING DRESS
I chose a dress by Marisa,  New York. I knew I wanted something lace and I wasn’t looking for white. The material underneath the lace was a champagne color. When I saw my dress I knew it was the one as it had the perfect bustle (which we added to a bit) and an elegant lace overlay.

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Gaby & Mike | Urban Chic Jewish Wedding at ARIA Warehouse, Minneapolis, USA

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Cool Wedding Venue This may well be one of the coolest and most stylishly decorated venues that I have ever laid my wedding blogger eyes upon! Yes, Gaby and Mike found a venue that reflected the look and feel that they were after – a warehouse venue with original brick walls, cavernous ceilings, crystal chandeliers, whimsical art work (including loads of original Andy Warhol’s), decadent furniture and dramatic lighting. This wedding is full of  fun and creativity, but one of the stand-out ideas for me was the ‘Vodka Social’. Since the groom is Russian,  different flavoured vodkas flowed throughout this wedding and we are talking some really *awesome* flavours such as ginger, spiced pear, raspberry, caramel, tiramisu and horseradish! More on that later on. First of all let me hand you over to our lovely bride on how and why she chose the venue. Minneapolis Jewish Wedding 33 VENUE Gaby, The Bride: Mike and I had several important non-negotiable items as we started our wedding planning, and one of them was the venue. The venue sets the tone and influences the look-and-feel of the wedding, and is the backdrop for the ceremony, cocktail hour and reception. It’s where we’ll take a majority of our photos, and where our friends and family will celebrate the most special and important symbol of our love and commitment to one another. We knew we wanted something unique, spacious, modern and truly unforgettable for our wedding. We wanted it to be a reflection of us and our taste, and most importantly, we wanted to infuse our vision in the space…rather than the vision of the space taking over the wedding. We’ve been to so many weddings in hotel ballrooms, where the look is always the same: cream colored walls, gold neo-baroque sconces and floral or damask-patterned carpets. While there’s nothing wrong with that, we wanted something unlike anything we’ve seen before. We wanted something modern and sexy, but also understated and simple. We also knew we had our work cut out for us as many venues in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul areas have exclusive relationships with vendors, making it very difficult to work with the vendors we had already picked out and meet our Kosher food requirement. Minneapolis Jewish Wedding 26 Minneapolis Jewish Wedding 30 We looked at no less than two dozen venues and called at least another dozen more…and each time, we came back to ARIA at the Jeune Lune. It was a favourite of ours from the start. In fact, I had my heart set on the Jeune Lune even before we were engaged! While celebrating the 2011-2012 New Year, Mike and I and a few friends went to a New Year’s party hosted at the Jeune Lune. It was the venue’s inaugural debut from being a theatre to becoming a premier venue hall in the Theatre District of downtown Minneapolis. I remember walking in to the Jeune Lune and being completely mesmerized by the space! I leaned in to Mike and whispered in his ear: “This would be the perfect spot for a wedding.”

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Welcome Zenith Cinematography to our Smashing Suppliers

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I am thrilled to welcome award-winning wedding film-makers  Zenith Cinematography to our  Smashing Suppliers, Smashing The Glass’s handpicked selection of the best brands and services the wedding industry has to offer.

Smashing The Glass hand selects and verifies each Smashing Supplier, and can personally vouch for the fact that every one of them has the ability to turn your wedding day into something truly special.

You can find Zenith Cinematography in the Videography  category of  Smashing Suppliers.

ZENITH CINEMATOGRAPHY
 Zenith Photography We are a multi award-winning studio just outside of London formed by a group of passionate filmmakers who believe in making a different type of wedding film. A film that is more personal and that captures the emotion of the day in cinematic perfection. A film you will want to watch over and over and cry every time because is as real as your wedding day.

In our journey we have travelled all around the world and have done weddings from all kinds of denominations and sizes. From a small wedding in the Seychelles islands to large weddings in India, we are ready to tell your story the best way it can possibly be told.

We’ll let our work speak for itself. Here is a Jewish wedding which received an award from the IOV this year. We hope you enjoy it and look forward to hearing from you.