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Real Jewish Brides: Leah – Flying To Spain To Plan My Wedding

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Leah  will be marrying Zak in a Jewish wedding on 1st June 2018 at Masia Notari in Spain. Click here to read all Leah’s planning posts to date.

THREE FACTS: (1) Leah knew she wanted to convert to Judaism long before she met Zak. She feels that having a Jewish wedding is another milestone in her Jewish identity and is an opportunity for some of her family to experience new traditions. (2) Leah & Zak met on JDate (3) Leah and Zak are planning a beautiful black tie destination wedding in Barcelona, Spain


The difficulties of planning a wedding from afar

I’ll admit, wedding planning has been the furthest thing from fun for me. My family and friends live a 2.5 hour flight away, and my wedding venue is thousands of miles away, which makes planning very hard. When we chose a destination wedding, we didn’t consider that we wouldn’t have the traditional experiences.

Zak and I wouldn’t be going to taste cakes or try our wedding food, meeting with my florist wouldn’t be in person, and I would have to put a whole lot of trust in my planner, Becky of Barcelona Brides, who I had never actually met in person.

The process was becoming overwhelming for me, so I scheduled a trip to Barcelona in November to meet with my vendors and help narrow down a caterer and live music. Zak wouldn’t be able to make it as it’s the busiest time of the year for him, so I planned to go alone.

When I mentioned to one of my bridesmaids, Cristin, that I had found a cheap ticket to Barcelona, she opted to come with me. Later, I mentioned to my other bridesmaids and couldn’t believe it when they all took time off work and opted to come with me to Spain! Becky and I scheduled a full wedding planning day to cross as many items off my list including: a hair and makeup trial, two full menu tastings, a visit to the venue, and meetings with a DJ, my florist and the videographer.


Picture of my girls and I with Becky

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Real Blogging Brides: Leah – What do you register for when you’ve lived together before the wedding?

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Leah  will be marrying Zak in a Jewish wedding on 1st June 2018 at Masia Notari in Spain. Click here to read all Leah’s planning posts to date.

THREE FACTS: (1) Leah knew she wanted to convert to Judaism long before she met Zak. She feels that having a Jewish wedding is another milestone in her Jewish identity and is an opportunity for some of her family to experience new traditions. (2) Leah & Zak met on JDate (3) Leah and Zak are planning a beautiful black tie destination wedding in Barcelona, Spain


What do you register for when you’ve lived together before the wedding? We found ourselves asking this very question as we faced the prospect of a registry. To make matters harder, I love home goods (and HomeGoods!) and already have many of the items most people typically add to their list. With more and more couples getting married at an older age, many of us are more likely to have the standard blender or crockpot that end up on a typical registry.

Here’s how we attacked the odd concept of picking items we wanted other people to buy us.


Image: The Wedding Shop

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Real Jewish Brides – Leah: 8 Months Until Our Destination Wedding… Update

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Leah will be marrying Zak in a Jewish wedding on 1st June 2018 at Masia Notari in Spain. Click here to read all Leah’s planning posts to date.

THREE FACTS: (1) Leah knew she wanted to convert to Judaism long before she met Zak. She feels that having a Jewish wedding is another milestone in her Jewish identity and is an opportunity for some of her family to experience new traditions. (2) Leah & Zak met on JDate (3) Leah and Zak are planning a beautiful black tie destination wedding in Barcelona, Spain

When Zak and I got engaged, we hadn’t really put a lot of thought into the details of our wedding beforehand. Immediately we were flooded with questions asking when and where we would be wed, especially since our family and friends are spread out throughout the country. One of our favourite things to do together is travel, so it didn’t take us long to decide that we wanted a destination wedding, but we didn’t realize how many small hurdles we’d have to overcome by planning a wedding from afar.

Finding an Officiant

Finding someone to officiate our wedding was harder than we originally thought. It’s important to both of us that we have a more traditional Jewish ceremony but finding a rabbi in a predominately catholic country proved difficult. Luckily for us, our wedding planner, Becky from Barcelona Brides, was able to help us locate a wonderful rabbi that we began working with to help us craft a custom ceremony that is meaningful to us. Thank goodness for modern technology as we are able to have Skype sessions with our rabbi leading up to our wedding. This was one of our top priorities after choosing a venue and I urge others to begin this process early if their options are limited.

Reviva-Weddings-Destination-Weddings-in-Spain_1293

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Real Jewish Brides – Leah: My Top Tips for Wedding Dress Shopping

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Leah will be marrying Zak in a Jewish wedding on 1st June 2018 at Masia Notari in Spain.

THREE FACTS: (1) Leah knew she wanted to convert to Judaism long before she met Zak. She feels that having a Jewish wedding is another milestone in her Jewish identity and is an opportunity for some of her family to experience new traditions. (2) Leah & Zak met on JDate (3) Leah and Zak are planning a beautiful black tie destination wedding in Barcelona, Spain


I’m the first of my (close) friends to get married. Yes, at nearly 30, most of my friends aren’t married. A decade or two ago, we would be considered oddities…like a unicorn that just crossed your path, but here we are in our unwedded-ness. Understandably, there has not been a lot of wedding dress shopping amongst us…

Most of my friends and family live over 1000 miles away, so I scheduled my first dress shopping appointment alone (to my mother’s dismay).

After, my mom flew to Dallas and I scheduled an entire weekend of appointments with her, here is what I learned:

Wedding-Dress-Shopping
Image: Kate Nielen Photography

1. Have a dress shopping experience by yourself

I went to LeAnn’s Bridal by myself and it was wonderful. I was able to express what I was looking for, and what I envisioned myself in, without anyone else there to interject. It was liberating and fulfilling and I couldn’t have been more excited.  

2. Wear what makes you feel good to your appointment

When you feel good, your entire attitude changes. I made it a point to actually wear a little makeup, plus clothes that I felt comfortable and beautiful in. It made me feel more confident and self-assured going into my appointment which then translated into every dress I tried on. Continue ReadingContinue Reading

Real Jewish Brides: Introducing Leah + Zak… How They Met to the Present Day

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Today on the blog we’re introducing our 6th amazing bride from our crop of 2017 and 2018 Real Jewish Brides! Please give a warm welcome to Leah who will be marrying Zak on 1st June 2018 at Masia Notari in Spain.

THREE FACTS: (1) Leah knew she wanted to convert to Judaism long before she met Zak. She feels that having a Jewish wedding is another milestone in her Jewish identity and is an opportunity for some of her family to experience new traditions. (2) Leah & Zak met on JDate (3) Leah and Zak are planning a beautiful black tie destination wedding in Barcelona, Spain

REAL-JEWISH-BRIDES_Leah
How We Met

Now that we’ve been together over 4 years (and are engaged!), we are so much more open to admit that we met on JDate. In the early days of our relationship, whenever anyone would ask how Zak and I met, we’d often look at each other, shrug, and mumble quickly “online… JDate…” and hope to move on to a different line of questioning. This was pre JSwipe, Tinder, Bumble, etc so admitting that we met online wasn’t as normal as it is now.

I had just moved to North Texas for work and after moving four times in less than three years (all for the same company) I told myself I was going to try to settle in and make somewhere feel more like home. I found a shul where I felt comfortable and finally committed to something I always knew I wanted to do: converting to Judaism.

Around this time, a friend of mine was telling me about all of her awful JDate experiences. I figured I’d give JDate a try and worst case scenario if the dates were bad, we could laugh about them! Believe it or not, Zak was the second date I ever went on! I had seen his profile come up a few times and was intrigued when he messaged me. We messaged back and forth on JDate and finally when I was certain I wanted to talk to him, we exchanged numbers. 

Our First Date

I still remember the day he called me and asked me out to dinner later that week. A proper date?! Yes, please! I knew it was a good sign when we didn’t want the conversation to end at dinner and kept talking for hours after.

The very next day, Zak called me and asked me out again! We went to a movie and out for coffee after and talked for so long, they shut the restaurant down around us!

At the time, we lived 25 miles away from each other and we both left on trips soon after our second date which forced us to spend more time talking on the phone. I was so childishly excited to see him when we got back! There was never a day after that I wanted to be with anyone else!

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