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Real Jewish Bride: Sarah on The Emotional Side of Postponing

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Sarah will be marrying Rich on 20th June 2021 at Tikitano Beach, Marbella, Spain. Click here to read all Sarah’s planning posts to date.

THREE FACTS: (1) Sarah knew Rich was the one when he brought a gift of dog treats for her toy poodle Nuala along to their fourth date! (2) They are crafting an amazing destination wedding weekend in Marbella with beloved Smashing The Glass Recommended vendor optimum weddings as their planner. (3) Sarah is a member of  Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club!

So, since my last blog post was written and published in March, a lot has changed! I look back now and find it surreal that I was writing about being optimistic about sticking to our June 2020 date and how it would all be ok. Needless to say, that is not exactly how it played out in the weeks that followed.

A few weeks ago Richard and I had to make the hardest decision yet, to postpone our wedding. We initially spoke to our amazing wedding planner Dyana from optimum weddings and we decided to pencil in September 2020.

However, after looking at the somewhat bleak possibility of Covid-19 being resolved by then, the chances of everyone being able to fly to Marbella and the general stress of being in the “will it or wont it’ category (known as wedding limbo), we decided to do what was best for our guests’ health and our sanity and we postponed until 20th June 2021.

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An Allison Webb Bride for a Gluten-Free Jewish Wedding at El Caribe, Brooklyn, NY, USA

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We’re so excited to be blogging the beautiful Jewish wedding of STG’s very own features writer, Sam Levitz! We got to know Sam as a beloved member of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club, and based on her talent for writing, wise words of advice, and great sense of humor, we realized she was just the person to join Team STG.

Sam, who in addition to serving as STG’s features writer works in publishing, and Ethan, a patient coordinator, had a totally gorgeous, 100% heartfelt wedding that also happens to have been 99% gluten free! Both bride and groom are GF – and Sam, who’s been allergic to wheat her whole life, never thought she’d be able to eat cake at her own wedding. But thanks to the baking wizardry of Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor By the Way Bakery, the pair were able to have their (gluten-free, dairy-free, and kosher pareve) cake and eat it too! They can’t stop raving about what a delight By the Way’s owner Helene was to work with – or how scrumptious the cake was! Plus, how cute is that rubber duck cake topper, which now sits proudly in Sam’s prized rubber duck collection?!

Lest you think this wedding was all about the food, Sam and Ethan also had an exceptionally moving ceremony. The two incorporated lots of personal touches: they wrote and read their own vows, were wrapped in the groom’s late father’s tallis under the chuppah, and instead of Sam circling Ethan seven times per tradition they each circled each other three times and then simultaneously did a circle together – symbolizing their equal partnership. We also love the beautiful Lori Loebelsohn ketubah they ordered from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Ketubah.com.

We’ll leave it to Sam, who looked positively ravishing in her Allison Webb gown, to fill you in on the rest…

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How we met

Sam, the bride: We met on OkCupid right before New Year’s Eve going into 2017. We were a 98% match, but because of different traveling obligations we couldn’t meet up for almost 3 weeks after meeting. After that first date we were pretty much inseparable.

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Real Jewish Brides: Erin’s Corona Edition

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Erin will be marrying Josh on 1st November 2020 at Congregation Beth Israel, in Charlottesville, VA, USA. Click here to read all Erin’ planning posts to date.

THREE FACTS: (1) Erin and Josh are planning an outdoorsy fall wedding on a budget in Virginia’s Shenandoah mountains. (2) Erin recently completed her conversion to Judaism, and she and Josh are looking forward to filling their big day with Jewish traditions while keeping it enjoyable and understandable to friends and family from all backgrounds. (3) Erin is a member of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club!

Every day we’re getting new updates about the Coronavirus, and we’re learning how to adapt to each new change.

Being in the midst of wedding planning is a strange place to be. How do you plan for a wedding when you don’t know what life will be like in the next few weeks or months?

I’ve seen brides making tough decisions to postpone their weddings and try to pick new dates in the future. I’ve seen brides go through with their weddings, albeit much altered from what they planned on doing. Both of these decisions have shown me how strong and brave these people are, and at the end of the day, how love is what matters most.

Erin and Josh

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Brides Club: Supporting You and Your Jewish (or Jew-ish) Wedding through the Coronavirus Crisis

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Ever since I launched, Smashing The Glass’s members-only Brides Club – a group for Jewish and Jew-ish brides looking to lower the stress and maximize the fun of planning a big day that’s totally, 100% you – I’ve firmly believed creating the group is one of the best things I’ve ever done.

Brides Club has grown into an incredible, strong community of Jewish and Jew-ish women all over the world, who celebrate each other’s triumphs and support each other through challenges – and never has the community come through more strongly than over the past few weeks. 

With so many of our members faced with incredibly tough choices – things they never would’ve imagined even a month ago – and many forced to postpone their long-planned weddings, the community has come together in the most beautiful way.

The positivity and love exuding from my screen every time I pop into the very active Brides Club Facebook group is just unbelievable. 

While Smashing The Glass’ Brides Club is an incredible community and resource in calmer times, in this crisis it’s truly become a one-stop shop for everything from pandemic wedding planning guidance to social distance socializing and beyond – read on to hear about just a few of the ways we’re supporting our members through COVID-19, and how you can try it for yourself free for 30 days. 


STG Brides Club members came to my home for a Challah Bake a few months ago.. so much fun and so many treasured connections were made!

Wedding Planning Solved, Weekly

For the duration of the coronavirus crisis, we’ve upped the frequency of our Wedding Planning Solved live monthly group chats to once per week. Every Sunday, I’m chatting with you live about any and all wedding planning questions/concerns/struggles you’ve got – related to the pandemic or otherwise. This is a wonderful opportunity to talk through anything – truly, no concern is too large or too small – with me 1:1, as well as to receive support and wisdom from your fellow #coronabrides.

So much positivity and action-taking have come about as a result of these calls and I urge you to join STG Brides Club for this feature alone!

Join our Brides Club for free here to benefit from 1:1 help with your wedding plans.


Some of our members have gotten so close they’ve attended each other’s weddings!

Social Distance Socializing 

Since we’ve had to put our local in-person group meetups on hold, instead we’re hosting a weekly virtual happy hour via Zoom. Brides Club members from all over the world are grabbing their quarantinis and logging on to chat with each other about anything and everything – from the craziness that is the world today to engagement stories to Passover plans. 

We’re even throwing virtual Zoom birthday parties for our members who are missing out on their usual out-of-house celebrations! 

Join our Brides Club for free here to join us at our bride-to-be and newlywed virtual Happy Hour!


If you sign up and join Quarantine Camp, this could be you! Our beloved member Jenna, who led this in-person challah making meetup in NYC last summer, is bringing her skills to you virtually in one of our (many) sessions.

Quarantine Camp

Our members are an exceptionally talented – and varied – bunch, so to keep us all entertained and learning during this time, we decided to tap into the Brides Club hivemind and recruit our members to teach us some new skills as we self-isolate. We’ve got upcoming live video sessions teaching us yoga, challah baking, positive psychology, singing, basic French, beginner weightlifting, and much, much more. 

I’m also joining in teaching a session on how to turn your passion into profit and make money online.

Join our Brides Club for free here to benefit from all the Quarantine Camp sessions!

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Real Jewish Brides: Orli On Finding A Moment Of Peace Amongst The Crazy

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Orli will be marrying Ben on 6th September 2020 at St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, London, UK. Click here to read all Orli’s planning posts to date.

THREE FACTS: (1) Orli and Ben met on Jswipe. (2) Although their venue, the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, couldn’t be more quintessentially London, Orli and Ben are going for a countryside feel. (3) Orli is a member of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club!

Coronavirus In Our Lives

It’s hard at the moment for the coronavirus not to be at the forefront of everyone’s mind. You get on the train and you grab a Metro and it’s on the first page in bold. You look at your phone first thing in the morning and BBC news pops up with the latest figures.

You check your Instagram and someone’s talking about it, Facebook it’s the same. We catch up with friends, we talk to colleagues and we find ourselves slowly broaching the subject, how are they feeling about it. I am guilty of refreshing BBC news every half an hour or so to find the latest information. Yet the more I look, the more I know, the more I feel in control of the situation but the more I know the more I realise it is.

Now this post is not about the coronavirus, it’s really about what we can do to take a step away from all of the news and to find a mindfulness moment, a moment away from the stress of the news and a moment to breathe.

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