Girl crush, girl crush!  Oh my goodness,  today’s bride, Claudia is utterly gorgeous, and what amazing fashion choices she made — an astonishing  Stephanie Allin wedding gown  adorned with blue flowers, followed by  a party dress to dance the night away in, not to mention some spectacular jewellery. She made a speech too (a smashing-the-glass-ceiling bride if ever there was one!) and  I could literally write pages about Claudia’s creative talents alone… She’s definitely one clever and very accomplished woman.

But full credit to her dashing groom, Edward, too… Claudia was working as a doctor in Africa for much of their engagement so Edward spent many a weekend wedding planning and venue-hunting with Claudia’s mum. Hat’s off, Edward!

Details-wise, I can’t kick off with anything but that glorious  chuppah… The groom’s  father cut branches off a tree in his Norfolk garden where the couple  got engaged and together with Edward built the chuppah in his  back garden. The delightful  Liz from  Blue Sky Flowers  worked her magic on the chuppah structure with the most sensational blooms, and for the canopy, one of Claudia’s  friends assisted all the  hens in decorating fabric ‘Stars of David’ on the  hen weekend. The stars were then  sewn on  to a simple white tablecloth and it  felt  like the most wonderfully personalised starry sky.

What’s more the couple are  now repurposing the chuppah poles as a gazebo in their  garden and growing flowers up it in time for summer. Perfection!

What makes this wedding all the more special is that both families had known each other long before Claudia and Edward had ever got together. Oh, and as an aside, Claudia has  a twin brother and identical twin sisters — how extraordinary  is that?!) Claudia told me.

During the ceremony our Rabbi asked us to turn around to look at all our family and friends. It was overwhelming…  To have so many people you love all there for you. Our families have been friends for 40 years and lots of people commented that they’ve never been to a wedding before where they love all the people under the chuppah – we are incredibly lucky and were completely surrounded by love all day.

There are  lots more treats, surprises, advice, tips and just a wonderful account of a glorious  day  so if you can get five minutes with a cuppa to sit down and read Claudia’s wonderful words,  as well as look at the stunning photography from  Ria Mishaal,  I promise you will get so much out of  this  wedding story.

With thanks to the lovely Alex from  The Bijou Bride for submitting this very original Jewish  wedding (and although heavily pregnant at the time, spot how ‘on theme’ Alex  was in her beautiful blue and white ‘ceramics pattern’ maternity dress… I love you girl!)

Speaking of which, you’ll see Alex holding an umbrella over Claudia in one or two  of the images. Claudia  quite rightly says, “don’t stress about the weather – it poured with rain all day for us but we had so much fun no-one even noticed and if you’ve surrounded yourself with the right professionals they’ll make the reorganisation needed completely seamless. We walked around the grounds having our picture taken through the rain and you’d never know from the pictures!”

Spot on, Claudia… SPOT ON! Enjoy every last detail of this very special Jewish  wedding.

how we met

Claudia, the Bride:  Our families have been friends forever but somehow Ed and I didn’t meet until a few years ago. We hid our relationship from our mothers for the first few weeks because we thought they’d start planning our wedding after the first date! He took me to the Zetter Townhouse for cocktails, and we ended up in the games room playing Jenga until they closed. When Edward  walked me home, we narrowly missed my brother who I lived with at the time who got home minutes later. He took me for a picnic two days later and cooked me dinner after a set of night shifts later that week and the rest was history!

I’m a doctor and had always planned to work abroad for a year and Ed was unwavering in his support for me doing this even though he couldn’t come with. He proposed in our favourite place in Norfolk just days before I left the country to work in Zanzibar. He didn’t realise he’d signed himself up to months of Sunday lunches with my mum planning and Saturday expeditions to wedding venues!

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