DIY Jewish wedding Archives - Page 3 of 4 - Smashing the Glass

Abby & Elliot | DIY mid-century woodland Jewish wedding, Sequoia Lodge, Oakland, CA

18/03/2014 by Karen

“Take the time to make the ceremony really meaningful; go beyond the template to something that truly represents your spiritual and personal beliefs.”

That’s the brilliant advice from today’s couple who built in a lot of personal elements, unique to their lives and relationship to create a truly meaningful and memorable, pure and sacred wedding ceremony.

Elliot is a rabbi and Abby is a writer with musical background and together they worked in a lot of spiritual, literary, and musical touches. Their whole W-day was a truly handcrafted affair and the creative couple beavered away on several projects to create their charming mid-century woodland wedding… the exquisite home-made jam favours that doubled up as table numbers, the fifties-style dress, the handmade wedding programs, the challah and cake, the privacy tent (more on that later). Almost every detail was created by Abby, Elliot, or one of their talented family and friends. There was even an appointed ‘decor captain’ so that their woodland theme permeated effortlessly throughout!

Both Abby and Elliot report on their wedding and they have a gorgeous set of images from Miki Vargas that truly capture the emotions and spirit of their day.

Roxanne & Warren | Rustic-Meets-Chic Jewish Wedding at Nitida Wine Farm, Cape Town

27/01/2014 by Karen

This, my friends, is a dream wedding. A beautiful chic meets rustic love-fest set against one of the prettiest backdrops you’ll ever see (and it being my first ever South African wedding on STG, I am particularly excited!) There’s plenty of lovely DIY and it’s all wrapped up in one seriously amazing party. Plus it’s all captured by the *awesome* Darren Bester.

Let’s hand over to our gorgeous and super-creative bride, Roxanne, to relay the story of her w-day.

VENUE
We had our wedding in Durbanville at Nitida Wine Farm in Cape Town. The weather is always beautiful in Cape Town in December and we really wanted an outdoor wedding. It was actually the only venue we looked at – we simply both fell in love with it and booked it immediately.

THEME
We are a laid-back couple so opted for a chilled out, relaxed vibe. We wanted our friends and family to have a good time and most of all we wanted a great big party! We went for a rustic feel using whites and browns and had amazing white fabric draped from the ceiling and fairy lights to give our very big wedding a more intimate feel. We had many candles lit to set the mood. We wanted to create a very relaxed, yet chic play on our rustic wedding.

INVITATION DESIGN
My brother designed our invitation which fitted in perfectly with our rustic theme. I then personalized each invite with brown wooden tags that had the guests names engraved on them. It was a nice touch to the invite and our guests loved them and now use them as key rings.

Emma & Simon | Intimate and Enchanting Garden Jewish Wedding at Home in London

09/01/2014 by Karen

Denis from Denee Motion Boutique Wedding Cinema, one of our Smashing Suppliers, recently contacted me to share one of his favourite wedding films from 2013 and I had to share it with you. It’s an ‘At Home’ wedding, and is full of warmth and lovely intimate creative touches.

As Emma, the bride says, “When it came to the venue for our wedding, we didn’t even look anywhere else but the family home. I knew I wanted my wedding to be a bit different and so being able to have it at home was the perfect way, and made it even more personal.”

“My mum and I spent a lot of time looking for ideas. She is very creative anyway and likes to add her own personal touches to things. We had a shared Pinterest account so we could both save images of things we found that we liked or could use as inspiration.”

“For the tables, rather than having people’s names printed on cards at their places, we wrote everyones names on fresh ivy leaves and placed them on the napkins which were tied with a ribbon which had the wording ‘live, love, laugh’ on. We were going to just use a coloured ribbon that tied into the colour scheme, but when I found the ribbon with the wording on, I felt it really summed up what I thought was important in life and it became a bit of a theme of the wedding as I had it engraved on my husband’s wedding ring and my mum used the wording in her speech.”

“My mum did a lot of the flowers outside of the marquee herself as she has a flower business and she even integrated pictures of myself and my husband growing up into some of the displays.”

“The wedding itself was a traditional Jewish wedding, but it was lovely again to be able to add personal touches into the ceremony by having our brother’s hold the poles of the chuppah, with one of my husband’s brothers actually taking part in the ceremony, as he is a Rabbi.”

Robin & Joe | Intimate + whimsical ‘dinner party’ Jewish wedding, Washington DC, USA

07/11/2013 by Karen

Today’s bride, Robin, has the most exquisite bridal style. As her wonderful wedding photographer, Piper Watson, puts it, “a mix of old school classy gal and modern minx”. Her stunning black and white ensemble is achingly chic and in fact, the couple’s whole event manages to be simultaneously stylish and elegant, yet warm and homely.

In their own words, Robin and Joe say they had a very non-traditional wedding by design. They truly wanted the feel of a of an informal dinner party, where two people happen to be getting married. They didn’t have many of the traditional wedding staples – only 45 guests, no flowers, bridesmaids, or first dance – and this gave the evening a truly intimate, unique and personal feel.

Their wedding report is a joint effort written by both the bride and groom, and the beautiful set of images produced by the lovely Piper Watson, will ensure that all those fantastic memories stay fresh and vibrant for many years to come.

AN INTIMATE VENUE + BLACK & WHITE COLOUR SCHEME
Robin the bride and Joe the groom: Ultimately, we wanted our wedding to feel like a dinner party (with a ceremony beforehand) for our closest family and friends. It was very modern and a bit whimsical; it was really a perfect reflection of our sensibilities and who we are as a couple.

The ceremony was held at Joe’s cousins’ (Martha and Bob) house in Washington, DC. She and her family have an amazing house that had been fully redesigned. Martha is an interior decorator and it shows! The reception was at Elizabeth’s on L, a converted town house in downtown DC which added to the intimate feel we were going for.

Our colour scheme was black and white (to match Robin’s dress) and green as an accent colour.

HAIR + MAKE-UP
Robin and Joe’s long time stylist, Gregg, did the hair for Joe, Robin, Joe’s sister Rachel, and Robin’s mother Ann. Robin had a really unique hair style at the time and only her stylist was good enough to style her hair. Robin’s makeup was done by a woman named Keisha from beautiful.flawless.face makeup. She was fantastic! Robin wanted to look like a more glamorous version of herself, but still look relatively natural. She made Robin look like herself, only better and also did the makeup for Ann and Rachel, who looked fantastic as well.

Sara & John | Incredible ‘Granny Chic’ vintage Jewish wedding, Kidbrooke Park, Sussex

28/10/2013 by Karen

Sara is one incredibly beautiful and creative bride. And I’m talking creative with a capital ‘C’ folks. Yep all the amazing decor and imaginative touches you see in the pictures below were all hand made by Sara. It’s one big explosion of colour and thrills with lots of vintage prettiness everywhere!

As the bride herself says, “With our wedding it was more “what did you leave alone?” than what did you create! It was the biggest project of my life but I was so happy with the way it all came together!”

Sara and John met at work in Sara’s first ever contract job as a copywriter. She left the job pretty soon afterwards but kept a special souvenir!

Over to Sara for the story of her gorgeous W-day.

VENUE
Sara, the Bride: Our wedding was at Kidbrooke Park in Sussex. We chose this venue because it’s actually my old school. At first I’d ruled it out because I thought it would be strange to get married just outside the room in which I sat all of my exams, but the first venue we booked fell through when they insisted we use their preferred caterers who priced us right out of our own wedding and wouldn’t do a simple meal for us citing colours and presentation (or something silly).

After that I revisited the idea of getting married at my old school and suddenly felt like it would be really great to say “I do” somewhere so close to my heart. There is a beautiful, crumbling outdoor theatre which is covered with flowers in the spring and summer, and I suddenly had a vision of making my entrance through the doors of the theatre. It was such a nice daydream that I booked immediately!

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