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A Pronovias Bride for a Glam Garden Party Jewish-inspired Wedding at Laura Ashley The Manor in Elstree, Hertfordshire, UK

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  Jewish wedding Laura Ashley The Manor Elstree, Hertfordshire, UK_0028
Squeal! Proud mom moment… yes, another one of my beautiful blogging brides is married! I’m so sad to say goodbye to lovely Clare, but also delighted to share her GORGEOUS Jew-ish wedding with you today…. and my goodness doesn’t she look gorgeous?!

Clare, a nursery school teacher, and Chris, a planning manager for a property developer in London (#onclouddeeks), started off their Smashing The Glass journey with a session with me as part of my wedding consultancy service. We worked together to to help bring her vision to life for what would eventually become her spring garden-themed day, and Clare reports that gained some incredible vendor recommendations from this session too — awww – that’s the best news!

Neither Clare nor Chris is Jewish, but the couple have Jewish family and opted to incorporate some traditions they found especially meaningful. I love the modernized, personal rewriting of the seven blessings their friends and family read to them (some of the blessings guests came up with are pretty hilarious!) and, of course, the magical birch chuppah with lanterns and candles strewn around the base.

Speaking of candles… the couple made liberal use of luxe scented candles throughout the day, which not only made their venue smell amazing but also made for wonderful memories: Clare reports that every time she smells, say, Jo Malone’s ‘wild fig and cassis’ (one of her picks), it immediately brings her back to the big day. Such a clever idea!

Photographer Catherine Carter and videographer Jeff Woods captured all the emotion — not to mention the fab creative touches — to perfection, and Clare looked beyond stunning in the exquisitely beaded fishtail-style Pronovias dress she purchased from STG Recommended Vendor The Wedding Club in South Kensington (where she had “the most amazing experience” — not that we’re surprised).

Okay, enough from us… take it away, Clare!

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How We Met

Clare, the bride: We met in 2014 by swiping right!

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Real Blogging Brides: Clare – Advice to myself to get me through my final two weeks of wedding planning!

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Clare will be marrying Chris on 5th May 2018 at Laura Ashley The Manor in Elstree, UK.

THREE FACTS: (1) Clare is not Jewish but discovered Smashing The Glass via her Jewish sister-in-law and during her wedding planning journey it has (in her own words!) became her favorite and most useful wedding blog (2) She finds STG refreshing in a sea of wedding blogs as she loves reading stories of couples for whom the ceremony itself is as pivotal as all the other details. (3) Due to falling in love with so many amazing Jewish weddings through the blog, and then booking a wedding consultancy session with STG founder, Karen, it confirmed to her that there were a number of Jewish elements she was going to bring into her wedding that symbolise a lot of things that are very important to her and her fiancà© in their future marriage – she will be having a ‘Jewish-inspired’ wedding!

As I write this it is only a couple of weeks until my wedding day. I cannot believe the time has gone so quickly. Having a near two year engagement I assumed everything would be done really easily, I’d be stress free, have my dream body for my wedding and be totally ready for the big day. 

Oh how wrong I was! 

I’ve definitely been experiencing the stress and pressure in the last few weeks. I’m not sleeping well, every moment is taken up by thinking about weddings and the minutiae of my day. 

So as I considered what I could write about at this stage in the day, when I don’t want to give much away regarding what the actual day will look like; I decided to give myself a bit of a talking to and some good advice to get me through the next couple of weeks as stress free as possible. In doing this I called to mind all the many pieces of wedding advice and wisdom that have been passed on to me by friends, family and anything I have read that has stuck with me. 

So here is a summary of the advice I have come across. The good, the bad, and the bits I might have ignored!


Image by Shane and Lauren Photography from Taylor and David‘s Jewish wedding

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Real Blogging Brides: Clare – Choosing Outfits for the Groom and Groomsmens

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Image by Aga Tomaszek from Rachel and Alex’s Jew-ish wedding (florist Mary Jane Vaughan and videographer HD Moments are STG Recommended Vendor)

About Blogging Bride Clare: She will be marrying Chris on 5th May 2018 at Laura Ashley The Manor in Elstree, UK.

THREE FACTS: (1) Clare is not Jewish but discovered Smashing The Glass via her Jewish sister-in-law and during her wedding planning journey it has (in her own words!) became her favorite and most useful wedding blog (2) She finds STG refreshing in a sea of wedding blogs as she loves reading stories of couples for whom the ceremony itself is as pivotal as all the other details. (3) Due to falling in love with so many amazing Jewish weddings through the blog, and then booking a wedding consultancy session with STG founder, Karen, it confirmed to her that there were a number of Jewish elements she was going to bring into her wedding that symbolise a lot of things that are very important to her and her fiancà© in their future marriage – she will be having a ‘Jewish-inspired’ wedding!

With TV shows like Say Yes To The Dress and numerous amount of time in wedding magazines and blogs given to brides finding the perfect dress, it can somewhat take over the wedding preparations. 

Any engaged girl will know that the amount of times you get asked ‘Have you got the dress yet? ‘or any number of other dress related questions just never stops! So what about the men in the wedding? 

I found that as we went through our long list of ‘to-do’s’ for the big day, choosing my fiancà©’s outfits and the groomsmen attire was getting pushed until quite near the end. For many brides, this may be an area they are happy to hand over to their man, but as a little bit of a wedding control freak (different to bridezilla I promise!) I definitely had to be involved in ensuring the overall look would suit the rest of the day.

When choosing outfits for the males in the wedding party there’s actually a lot more choice than I first imagined. The decision of black tie, morning suits or lounge suits before you even factor in colours and fabrics…

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Image by Blake Ezra (STG Recommended Vendor) from Sam and Jonny‘s Jewish wedding

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Real Blogging Brides: Clare – putting the ‘Jew’ into our very ‘ish’ ceremony

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Image: Lin & Jirsa from Alina and Raphael’s wedding on Smashing The Glass
 

Clare will be marrying Chris on 5th May 2018 at Laura Ashley The Manor in Elstree, UK.

THREE FACTS: (1) Clare is not Jewish but discovered Smashing The Glass via her Jewish sister-in-law and during her wedding planning journey it has (in her own words!) became her favorite and most useful wedding blog (2) She finds STG refreshing in a sea of wedding blogs as she loves reading stories of couples for whom the ceremony itself is as pivotal as all the other details. (3) Due to falling in love with so many amazing Jewish weddings through the blog, and then booking a wedding consultancy session with STG founder, Karen, it confirmed to her that there were a number of Jewish elements she was going to bring into her wedding that symbolise a lot of things that are very important to her and her fiancà© in their future marriage – she will be having a ‘Jewish-inspired’ wedding!


Beautiful rituals

Now with only three months to go until our big day the planning has reached a crucial stage of multiple to do lists and a constant state of panic – have we forgotten something/someone/got enough time left to create the day of our dreams?!

All of the big things are now booked and it’s only the finer details to be arranged. One very important factor to be confirmed though is our ceremony plan.

Back in 2016 when Chris and I were first engaged I began to search high and low for the right person to perform our ceremony. We wanted a very personal ceremony, incorporating different traditions that were meaningful to us.

Chris and I both have some similarities in our religious views and backgrounds but neither of us are ‘practicing’ anything as such. I have always been fascinated by others beliefs and have been known to be extremely quizzical of other people’s backgrounds. Weddings in particular are a wonderful opportunity to gain insight into some beautiful cultural traditions.

Whether it’s been Catholic weddings, Jewish, Hindu, or a combination, I have often observed certain rituals that I think are really beautiful and thought to myself – I’d really like to do that one day. Regardless of how or where you were brought up or of your ideas on religion, many of the rituals from different religions can contain meaning and symbolism for any couple.

Image by M2 Photography from Yana and Archita’s multicultural wedding
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Real Blogging Brides: Clare – My Prediction for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Royal Wedding

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{Clare will be marrying Chris on 5th May 2018 at Laura Ashley The Manor in Elstree, UK — Click here to read all Clare’s planning posts to date}

Speculating On The Royal Wedding…

Since the announcement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s engagement I have been watching with extremely keen interest. For a while there, whilst we waited to find out when this Spring wedding would actually take place I panicked that Meghan and I would be wedding twins. This was far from ideal. I need to be watching that wedding live. I will be waiting with bated breath to find out every fine detail. That, and the fact that I really would have liked to have seen what Meghan went for, in case I could pick up any last minute inspo, meant that I was keeping it all crossed that the big day would fall before my own on May 5th 2018. 

Well, as luck would have it, Meghan and I are not sharing the same wedding day, so I will at least be able to enjoy hers live; but I do sadly have to go first and will not be stealing any of the royal wedding plans for myself!

So, as I get into my final stages (eeeekkk) of wedding planning, I have been speculating (with a little bit of help from some questionable sources of research) on what the (second!) wedding of the year is going to include!

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