Bloomingdales Archives - Smashing the Glass

A Jewish Micro Wedding with the Most Breathtaking Floral Chuppah at Jacob’s Pillow, Becket, Massachusetts, USA

31/05/2021 by Karen Cinnamon

We see a lot of cool chuppahs around here, but the one Gaby, a life and career coach, and Michael, an investment advisor, dreamed up for their big day at Jacob’s Pillow in the picturesque Berkshires really takes the (wedding) cake. Filled with gorgeous flowers, centered on an otherwise empty stage overlooking the mountains surrounding the venue, it’s really, truly, 100% #chuppahgoals. We’re absolutely obsessed with the dreamy photos by Lauren Foley of 309 Productions, and we’re guessing you will be too.

Gaby and Michael had initially planned a 200-person wedding, but when the pandemic hit they had to scale their day down to just 20 guests. Luckily, the couple had incredible wedding planner Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Tara Consolati on their team to redesign the day to perfectly fit their new, smaller event. Together, they came up with a unique “interactive” ceremony that included participation by 32 guests (including some of the 300 who attended virtually via Zoom)! Friends and family gave musical performances, mini speeches, and blessings, and lit memorial candles. What an incredibly special way to make guests really feel a part of things – especially those who are physically far away!

Another wonderful touch is that Gaby’s step-sister Rachel painted the most gorgeous border on the ketubah they purchased from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor ketubah.com, incorporating lots of personal touches with special meaning to the couple.

There’s so much more we could say about this fab day (did we mention that Gaby found her dress by chance off the rack at Bloomingdales, for 1/10 of the price of the bridal gowns she’d been looking at?), but we’ll leave it to the bride to fill you in on the rest…

How we Met

Gaby, the bride and Michael, the groom: Gaby and Michael met on the dating app, Hinge, in the summer of 2018! After only a few messages back and forth they met for drinks at La Pecora Bianca in Midtown Manhattan. The night was perfect and was filled with many laughs, stories and glasses of wine. Even more fitting, Gaby went to her family home in the Berkshires the weekend afterward, a place that proved incredibly important to our relationship given we lived there for nearly 7 months during the pandemic.Continue Reading

A Maggie Sottero Bride for a Beachy, Bohemian Jewish Wedding at La Costanera Montara, California, USA

22/12/2017 by Karen

Alright folks, we’ll level with you – a few tears were shed in the editing of today’s real wedding, and we suggest you reach for the tissue box, because Melinda and Tobin are so ludicrously cute, we guarantee you’ll well up at least once.

Melinda and Tobin took a leap of faith, and moved in together after a long-term relationship was born during a volunteering trip to Israel. Their heartfelt and family-oriented Jewish wedding day was a real reflection on their obvious adoration for each other.

This is also evident in the beautiful vows Melinda has shared with us, at the bottom of the post. If you’re dry eyed after reading them, then we don’t know what will crack you!

Not only was it an emotional day, but the beachy, bohemian vibe and shades of lavender and purple color scheme made it a real visual treat, too. From the floristry to the bridal party, everything looked absolutely picture perfect.

The couple opted for an equality-driven ceremony, with both bride and groom circling each other and smashing a glass, which, as regular readers will know, we’re crazy in favor of! We also love that the wedding celebrations included volunteering, which is a wonderful way to start married life, by giving something back.

Melinda was the belle of the ball in her Maggie Sottero gown, with a dreamy back showed off by her side swept hair and carefully chosen accessories. Just gorgeous!

All of this was captured magnificently by Stacy Able Photography, as you can see in the divine spread of images below.

We’ll leave you with Melinda for the full writeup. Like we said – it’s a weepy one! You have all been warned!

How we met

Melinda, the bride: Tobin and I met in Israel while working at a clinic for African refugees. Tobin went to medical school in Israel and was doing a rotation at the clinic, and I was volunteering there as a nurse. I had taken a leave of absence from my job in Seattle to volunteer in Israel as a nurse for six months. We both coincidentally are originally from California.

I met Tobin the last month I was in Israel and never thought I’d see him again. We stayed in touch, visiting each other often once he started his residency in Indiana. When I decided to move to Indiana, I had never lived in the same place as him except that one month in Israel, so I was taking a big risk. Glad it all worked out!

An Elegant, City-Chic Monochrome-with-Metallic-Accents Jewish Wedding At The Roundhouse, Beacon, New York, USA

22/09/2017 by Karen

Start spreading the news – we’re leaving today… to head to NYC for Julie and Noam’s city chic Jewish wedding!

Shot by extraordinarily talented photographer and our fabulous recommended vendor, Ben Kelmer, the happy couple opted for an elegant monochrome theme with metallic accents and a hint of a rustic aesthetic.

Beautiful bride, Julie, a fitness and wellness brand strategy consultant (which, incidentally, is how she met fitness instructor to the stars, Noam), looked like a Hollywood A-lister in her stunning lace-illusion Pronovias gown, and meaningful family heirloom jewelry.

The wedding was filled with heart and soul, particularly with the attention paid to the meaning of the ceremony, and the importance of having three generations of family under the chuppah.

There’s so much to love about this perfectly cohesive and wonderfully themed big day (we’re looking at you, magnificent, florally adorned chuppah!) but one thing that really stood out for us was the absolutely fantastic idea of having a note jar for a guest book, for the couple to read on their first anniversary. We’re sure plenty of couples will be stealing that one for themselves.

We’ll pass you over to Julie now for the full writeup of her and Noam’s very special day. Take it away, Julie!

How we met

Julie, the bride: We met through a friend who asked me if I knew him because we worked and lived in similar circles. It started as me trying to get Noam/TS as a client, but at our first meeting it was clear that we had a connection and the rest, as they say, is history.

We realized we both grew up close to each other, we both lived in Israel at one point, had family there and actually at one point lived on the same street in NYC and never knew each other.

A ‘Mediterranean meets rustic South’ DIY Jew-ish wedding in the woods in rural Tennessee, Nashville, USA

05/10/2016 by Karen

Michelle and Joseph’s wedding is one of the loveliest I have ever set eyes on. Their wedding concept was ‘Mediterranean meets rustic South’, and was inspired by a blend of the bride’s Israeli heritage, with its rich, vibrant colours, and the groom’s Southern American roots reminiscent of the lush, vibrant greenery of summers in his native Tennessee. What a gorgeous mix!

They were lucky enough to get married on Joseph’s family property that has been home to four generations of his family, and being two graphic designers, there are so many gorgeous creative details to lap up.

One of the most striking is their chuppah which the two of them built from scratch to match the rustic surroundings. I love that they added in golden paper lanterns as a reference to the golden-dome buildings throughout old Jerusalem. They also hung multicoloured tassels from the ceremony chairs and planted Moroccan-style lanterns around their chuppah to tie back into their theme of ‘Mediterranean meets rustic South’.

Read on for all the fabulousness — you won’t want to miss the amazing serendipitous stories of how Michelle found her super cool dress, AND how she and Joseph found their photographers… Clue: it has something to do with a chance Uber Pool ride in San Francisco — yes, seriously!

Without further ado, I give you Michelle and Joseph and their dreamy pictures by The Image Is Found.

How we met

Michelle, the bride: Joseph and I met in Half Moon Bay, just south of San Francisco, during a freelance gig. We were both freelance designers at the time and also tied up with other significant others. But we had both just recently moved from the South–me from Atlanta, GA, Joseph from Chattanooga, TN–within a week of each other and bonded over our mutual transitions to this new city. Eventually we realised there was so much more there, and got together romantically. We became musicians together, started a band, raised our dog/fur-baby together, and six years later we were married 🙂

A Modern Trousseau Bride for an intimate ‘dinner party-style’ Jewish wedding at Kettle Cove and Five Fifty-Five Bistro, Maine, USA

13/09/2016 by Karen

Lauren and Aaron met online (they’re actually one of several online dating success stories featured on STG!), and Lauren says she knew by the second date that she wanted to meet Aaron under the chuppah… 😉

…And when it came to deciding how they would celebrate that eventual meeting under the chuppah, they knew they didn’t want a traditional wedding with bridal parties or first dance formalities. All they truly wanted was simply to marry one another with the people they love close by their sides.

I love it when couples make their weddings a representation of who they are and feel free to remove anything that just doesn’t fit them, and Lauren & Aaron’s Big Day is exactly that — a wedding that reflects who they are and what they wanted, which was a truly intimate outdoor ceremony on the water, followed by a small ‘dinner party style’ reception at a local restaurant.

From the farmhouse they rented in Southern Maine that housed their closest friends for a week,to the intimate ceremony on a peninsula jutting out into the foggy Atlantic, and the cosy dinner in downtown Portland, Maine where they could turn in their chairs to talk to anyone in attendance, their entire wedding was an intimate, homely, warm affair.

And since their wedding was held in a public park (Kettle Cove), they knew that they needed a simple chuppah that they could transport, put up, and take down easily. They ended up purchasing four tall birch branches and using Aaron’s tallit for the top of the chuppah. Aaron is great at engineering solutions and mechanical design, so he created a tension-free system using twine, the tallit, and four small hooks in each of the birch branches to create the chuppah of their dreams. Who said Jewish boys are no good at DIY?! (Oh, and if you want to build your own chuppah for your wedding, there’s a lovely tutorial on the blog, right over here).

Lauren and Aaron joke that their wedding theme was a “wedding-themed dinner party.” They knew that they wanted to be able to spend quality time with their families and closest friends, and wanted their ceremony to incorporate the beauty and experience of the outdoors, with a cosy reception with great food where they could spend time appreciating their family and guests.

All the pretty and emotion has been captured perfectly by Sarah V. Martinez. Enjoy!

How we met

Lauren, the Bride: Aaron and I met via a dating website and exchanged a few witty emails before meeting in person at a coffee shop called ‘The Thinking Cup’, right off of the Boston Common. After coffee and tea, I asked Aaron if he was hungry, to which he replied “of course,” and we walked through the Common to a pizza shop on Charles St. The rest is history…