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Home > Dan O’Day

Two extraordinary brides for a sumptuous bohemian Jew-ish Wedding at Broger’s End Kangaroo Valley, Australia

10/05/2016 by Karen

Bohemian-rustic-wedding
Today’s wedding  reaches new heights  on the wedding spectrum and  I am entirely and whole-heartedly in love with every little bit  of it. The attention to detail and the  amount of creativity is phenomenal. I hardly know what to talk about first because it’s  such a total feast for the eyes, but what I love the most is that Lara and Cass’s  union remains as the focal point throughout.

On the other side of the lens for a change, Lara is one of the world’s most renowned  creative wedding photographers, and indeed I have  featured her work  on Smashing The Glass several times. She’s a girl after my own heart wearing  not one, not two, but THREE  wedding gowns, accessorised by a simply astonishing bouquet by  Mikarla Bauer + Jardine Botanics  — truly one of the best I’ve ever seen.

So much  originality permeates Lara and Cass’s day from choosing to  get ready and walk down the aisle together, to all sorts of gorgeous DIY like a ‘Guess Who’ game handmade by Cass using their  family members, to  an idea that I’ve never seen before: a flower crown station for the  guests to accessorise with before the ceremony  so that when the couple walked  down the aisle they saw all their guests with flowers in their hair. Love love LOVE!

Sheree from  She Designs Events  blended their two very different loves into one creative  theme which works brilliantly even though it combines everything from  Country & Western  to Vintage Romance! I love the idea of not compromising to one theme but rather merging both your loves.

Our  two brides  come from different religious backgrounds and  chose to incorporate Lara’s Jewish  culture with  some crazy  Jewish Dancing that  really set the tone for the evening.  Lara said:

We had the Jewish dancing  before entering the reception and it really loosened everyone up! We were being thrown up and down on chairs and tossed in the air and running around in circles and forming conga lines around the fire pit! It was a definite highlight.”

And there are so many… You truly have to savour every one of  Dan O’Day‘s astonishing images to take it all in. Oh, and there is a wonderful  film by  Light Noise Films  at the end which you just must watch. What a total treat!

Rustic bohemian weddingbohemian rustic weddingRustic bohemian wedding
Planning the wedding ourselves

Lara: I think I completely underestimated how time consuming planning an entire wedding from start to finish can be, never mind running a business at the same time.

Cass was great as she really let me take full control of everything but was always there when I needed her to bounce ideas with and make final decisions or to get things done.

We had spread sheets and documentation for everything — its really quite overwhelming how many things / vendors there are to keep track of and all the little details to organise — but well worth all the effort in the end.

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A Rue de Seine bride for a Jewish Wedding under the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Simmer on the Bay, Dawes Point, Australia

20/10/2015 by Karen

Jewish-wedding-Sydney
Nikki and Jem are just the coolest couple and their big day from the world-famous Sydney Harbour Bridge embraces the most beautiful Jewish wedding traditions whilst maintaining a totally free-spirited, energetic and fun vibe. It’s been sensationally captured by Australian photographer Dan O’Day whose work I adore — I could have filled this feature with every image he sent me and you’ll probably be able to tell I struggled to stop myself from doing just that!

I love pretty much everything about Nikki and Jem’s Jewish wedding but one of my favourite details (that I’ve never seen done before) is the couple choosing to shelve the idea of traditional favours, and instead place custom ribbons with their monogram and date on them at everyone’s place setting. They then invited guests to create their own bouquets from the gorgeous wild flowers that were in front of them, tie them together with the ribbons and take them home. Such a beautiful and thoughtful idea.

Nikki also bought her bride posse (note, Nikki doesn’t call them bridesmaids!) a pair of Converse each, and left them on their seats with “dancing shoes” tags.

Fashion stylist Nikki looks utterly gorgeous in her Rue de Seine gown — the New Zealand designers make the most perfect boho bridal romantic dresses combining rich beading, intricate detailing and sheer draping, and they just seem to design for the coolest, most stylish brides. If you’re looking for a more modest dress they cater for this brilliantly with many of their designs incorporating high necks and long sleeves.

Right, shall we dive into this super cool wedding then? Trust me, you’re going to love it…

Jewish Wedding Sydney
how we met

Nikki, the Bride: We met in 2009 through a mutual friend who was trying to help Jem and his buddy get a jeans label off the ground. Our mutual friend suggested that I be their first model (because I was the only person small enough to fit in their teeny tiny samples!) I was interning at Cosmopolitan magazine at the time looking to get a career in fashion so it was a common interest for us both I guess. Jem now works in finance but I’m still in fashion. I was not born Jewish, and as our friendship grew, so did my love for Judaism. Once he found out I was looking into converting he also saw it as an opportunity for us to start dating, and the rest is history.
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