When Alana and TJ, both American entrepreneurs living in Mexico City, set out to plan their Jewish wedding, they knew they wanted to use it as an opportunity to share their beloved adopted hometown with their family and friends – and they found the most perfect venue in Hacienda de Cortes, a gorgeous hotel full of character with space to accommodate guests.
We love how the couple opted to embrace the natural beauty of their venue, opting for a color scheme of all greens when it came to flowers and décor and a wooden chuppah adorned with more greenery – with some disco balls thrown in for good measure!
And we’re especially obsessed with Alana and TJ’s fabulous ketubah from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Tchotchke. In Alana’s words,
All of the designs are things that you’d want to keep on display year round because they’re so beautiful, and we wanted a ketubah we’d love to have up forever. We looked on Etsy and other websites and didn’t love the super traditional options.
Then we found Tchotchke, founded by Adam Paskow, who designed gorgeous menorahs, mezuzah’s and more, and it was hard to pick one as they were all fantastic. Ultimately, we decided on the “shapes” design by Emunah Winer, who has a creative agency, rum and tequila brand. We didn’t know how cool she was before we picked it, but we should have.
Don’t miss it in the stunning images from Efege Photography.
Read on for all the details of this very special day in Alana’s words…
How We Met
Alana, the bride: We met at a dinner in Mexico City! I had been in the city for 4 years and TJ a few months when a 5 person dinner turned into a 17 person dinner and we sat next to each other. Our friend Kate eagerly asked what I thought of him after the dinner as she thought he could “match my energy,” and we exchanged numbers.
We saw each other two nights later, though both were entertaining friends from out of town, and then I invited him to a party, and to my house for a pre-party, which was 8 mostly Spanish speaking women and TJ. Despite not speaking Spanish well yet, he did great. We had a great time at the party and went on a date before he left Mexico to move out of his San Francisco apartment and planed to be back in a month.
During that month we kept chatting and he invited me to join him and his friends in Napa for a birthday trip. Since we barely knew each other I didn’t know what to say or do, so I did nothing. Then he took the pressure off, Kate assured me I wouldn’t get murdered, I decided to go on the trip, it was fantastic, and we’ve been together since!
