Jewish Same Sex Wedding Archives - Smashing the Glass

A Beachy Same-Sex Jewish Wedding at Harbour House Oceanfront Venue, Indian Harbour Shores, Florida, USA

06/11/2020 by Karen Cinnamon

What’s better than one beautiful bride? TWO beautiful brides, of course! Tessa and Ashley had the most incredibly heartfelt beach front Jewish wedding, and we are here for it!

This wedding was so full of wonderful personal touches – we love the fact that Ashley’s brother served as the officiant (and, naturally, delivered an incredibly moving speech), and we’re also obsessed with the couple’s gorgeous colorful ketubah from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Nava Shoham, which Tessa and Ashley now proudly display in their home!

And how special is it that, unbeknownst to each other, Tessa and Ashley both ended up selecting stunning fitted lace gowns from local boutique Calla Blanche! Now that’s a first look to remember!

We’ll let Ashley fill you in on the rest…

How we Met

Ashley: They say when you meet the right person, you know. Ironically, we actually grew up about 45 minutes from each other. Our high schools played soccer against each other and our lives overlapped in a few moves across the county in our college years. We found out we had the same groups of friends circles but we didn’t meet in person until three years ago living in Florida through a mutual friend who planned for us to go as a friend group to the Katy Perry concert.

An Awesome Gay Jewish Wedding at Cultura, Tel Aviv, Israel

16/08/2017 by Karen Cinnamon

For those who aren’t aware, Tel Aviv is renowned for its thriving gay scene, with a wide selection of fantastic bars and club, and it’s against this backdrop that Aaron and Lotan met through a dating app (apt, for two software engineers) and fell in love.

Their beautiful same-sex Jewish Masorti wedding took place at a garden venue in the heart of Tel Aviv, with the pair planning every last detail themselves.

We love that Aaron and Lotan designed their invitation together, with motifs that reflected their shared life and interests, and the theme ran throughout their entire stationery suite. They made everything themselves, even pulling together their own centerpieces for the guests to take home.

We also adore the story of the kiddush cup used in the ceremony, but particularly the (coincidentally) rainbow tallit, which was just perfect and carried so much personal meaning.

All of the divine images and film below were captured by Gilad Mashiah, and Gili & Lily Films, and the writeup was provided by both grooms! We hope you love this gorgeous pair’s W Day as much as we did!

How we met

Aaron and Lotan, the grooms: Aaron moved to Israel six years ago from Cincinnati, Ohio where he was born and raised, while Lotan is native Israeli from Barkan.

We met three and a half years ago, on a dating app, where we chatted for about three months before actually meeting each other in person.

Finally, we we decided to go on a proper first date at a bar, and the rest is history.

Sarah & Anne | Super stylish Same Sex Jewish Wedding at Hart House, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada

22/03/2016 by Karen

I couldn’t name this blog anything but smashing the glass. It is THE moment of a Jewish wedding and images like the one above just make me so happy. Two beautiful women, crazy in love, performing this hugely symbolic tradition under a gorgeous chuppah. I’m telling you, one of the best things about this job is definitely how uplifting it is to look at images like these.

And like all the real Jewish weddings on Smashing The Glass, this W-Day is completely refreshing. Both brides chose to forgo the traditional wedding dress style in favour of a two super sleek and contemporary creations by Carolina Herrera and Judith and Charles respectively, accessorised in Anne’s case by the most delicate headpiece.

And that’s not the only thing that has me swooning. There are gorgeous dainty florals and rustic table runners by GLP Events that not only look delightful (Anne wanted a simple arrangement of flowers that reminded her of the fields in the small French village where she grew up), they’re cost-effective too.

And the guests…well if the photos at the end of the night are anything to go by, then it’s clear that everyone had a darned good time!

Back with a bang for his 3rd feature on STG, Niv Shimshon has captured the mood perfectly with these terrific shots. Prepare to swoon.

how we met

Sarah and Anne, the Brides: We met one cold winter’s evening in Montreal and have been together nearly every day since. On the night we met, Anne was sick with a nasty flu. Sarah, a germophobe, knew it was love at first sight because she didn’t want the date to end despite Anne’s coughing, sneezing, and significantly high fever. Anne is calm, cool and collected, and Sarah is witty, funny, and shows pictures of her dog to strangers every time she has a chance.

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Rachel & Nikki | Jewish lesbian wedding with a nature-inspired theme, at Temple Emanuel in Kensington, Maryland, USA

16/06/2015 by Karen

Rachel and Nikki put together a Jewish wedding full of warmth and love with a very personal vibe. Their day was all about sharing, loving and being together, and they designed their entire ceremony so that every part of it was intentional and meaningful. It was based on a traditional Jewish wedding ceremony, with adaptations for their progressive values and the fact that they were two women.

One element I particularly love is that their processional to the chuppah was led by Nikki’s and Rachel’s 97-year-old and 87-year-old (respectively) grandmothers walking hand in hand down the aisle. Apparently there wasn’t a dry eye in the room from that moment on.

Sustainability was also central theme of their big day. For the centrepieces they chose bamboo, orchids, bonsai trees and succulents planted in driftwood. Guests were able to take these home with them and Nikki and Rachel said how wonderful it has since been to visit family and friends after the wedding and see the plants in people’s homes.

Rachel and Nikki are here to tell you more about their special day, along with images from Michael Temchine.

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Yana & Archita | Jewish-Hindu-Indian-Russian multicultural lesbian wedding at Trust, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

19/05/2015 by Karen

Now this wedding is not just special, stylish or merely a good day out – it’s a totally spectacular cocktail of uber-chic modernism, elegant traditionalism, multi-cultural funkiness and fun, all blended and shaken to perfection.

For any of you who are wondering how to mix two completely different backgrounds into one smooth and stylish day — get ready for some serious pinning action.

Yana and Archita seamlessly melded their loves, tastes and cultures together to create a unique day at Trust — a neoclassical styled art and event space gallery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

An art event in itself, our two gorgeous brides amalgamated a colourful and awesome blend of Russian, Jewish, Hindu and Indian traditions against the ridiculously gorgeous, all white, architectural splendour of a soaring 10,000 square foot, turn of the century building. Simple. Ahem.

What could have been contrived or clunky – trying to shoe horn different traditions and styles together — is instead thoughtful and elegant.

But the simplicity really lies in their motivation — to unite two families into one, representing both cultures. Even more, what underlined and defined the wedding was FUN. They wanted a huge, huge party and they got it, right down to the last few bars of Bohemian Rhapsody.

I’m still grinning from ear to ear at the image of the couple being raised high on chairs by friends and family, old and young — all partying together with the help of some homemade “traditional” vodka — to the Black Eyed Peas’ I Got a Feeling!

Even their choice of traditional wedding dresses had a twist… Archita wore a sari, whilst Yana wore a white wedding gown but with a sash around her waist made from the same material as Archita’s sari — a beautiful and subtle symbol to truly demonstrate the bond between the two.

All of the fantastic photography is by Michael and Melissa at M2 Photography. Now over to our beautiful brides…

How we met

Yana & Archita, the Brides: We met in undergrad at Penn at the largest party of the year called “Spring Fling”. To this day we debate about who made the first move. Chita’s friends were having a small party in a dorm room, and Yana crashed it. It was only three weeks before summer break began, so this was supposed to be just a fling… but we fell in love before the summer.