Massachusetts Jewish Wedding Archives - Smashing the Glass

A Berta Bride for a Magical Lakeside Jewish Wedding in Webster, Massachusetts, USA

11/10/2021 by Karen Cinnamon

We’re absolutely obsessed with the glorious lakeside Jewish wedding of Jenna, who works in HR, and Noaam, in property technology and residential real estate! What a fantastic spot for a wedding – made even more special by the fact that the New York-based couple made the lake retreat their primary residence during the pandemic. When you see it in Studio Nouveau’s photos, we’re pretty sure you’ll agree.

Knowing what a gem of a location they had on their hands, Jenna and Noaam decided to keep the focus on their luscious surroundings, opting for delicate touches to enhance the natural beauty of their surroundings. We’re especially in love with their hand painted ketubah from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor The Delicate Brush. The custom watercolor features verdant greenery that captures the feel of their wedding spot so perfectly!

We’re also crazy for Jenna and Noaam’s gluten-free/dairy-free kosher vanilla and lemon cake from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor By the Way Bakery, which their florist decorated simply with fresh flowers.

There’s so much more to say about this wonderful day, but we’ll leave the rest to the bride, who looked positively ravishing in the Demi gown from Muse by Berta…

How we Met

Jenna, the bride: I had been living and working in NYC for 10 years when in the fall of 2018, Noaam, who was living in Boston at the time, decided to visit New York for a few weeks during his slow season of work. While there, we matched on the dating app Hinge and Noaam asked me to meet him for a drink. A couple days before we were scheduled to get together, Noaam revealed to me that he actually lived in Boston, not NYC, but wasn’t looking for a short term fling. I wasn’t interested in a long distance relationship and I made up an excuse to cancel at the last minute. Noaam was disappointed but persistent and came back to NYC the following week and asked me out again! That time I agreed.

We met at a bar near my apartment on the Upper East Side and we laughed the entire date. I was also happily surprised that when I told him that I had two cats, he wasn’t put off and he wasn’t allergic!

We then continued to see each other, traveling back and forth between Boston and New York, and in a short amount of time became exclusive. After a year of long distance dating, Noaam moved in with me in NYC.

In March 2020 Noaam proposed privately at our apartment and organized a beautiful and intimate engagement party right after with our closest family and friends. Little did we know that only one week later NYC would shut down due to COVID! As soon as the shutdown was announced, we decided to pack a couple of bags and drive to his family’s lake house in Webster, Massachusetts with the intent of staying a few weeks until things settled down in NYC. Fast forward, and we’ve been living full time at the lake house ever since!Continue Reading

A Jewish Micro Wedding with the Most Breathtaking Floral Chuppah at Jacob’s Pillow, Becket, Massachusetts, USA

31/05/2021 by Karen Cinnamon

We see a lot of cool chuppahs around here, but the one Gaby, a life and career coach, and Michael, an investment advisor, dreamed up for their big day at Jacob’s Pillow in the picturesque Berkshires really takes the (wedding) cake. Filled with gorgeous flowers, centered on an otherwise empty stage overlooking the mountains surrounding the venue, it’s really, truly, 100% #chuppahgoals. We’re absolutely obsessed with the dreamy photos by Lauren Foley of 309 Productions, and we’re guessing you will be too.

Gaby and Michael had initially planned a 200-person wedding, but when the pandemic hit they had to scale their day down to just 20 guests. Luckily, the couple had incredible wedding planner Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Tara Consolati on their team to redesign the day to perfectly fit their new, smaller event. Together, they came up with a unique “interactive” ceremony that included participation by 32 guests (including some of the 300 who attended virtually via Zoom)! Friends and family gave musical performances, mini speeches, and blessings, and lit memorial candles. What an incredibly special way to make guests really feel a part of things – especially those who are physically far away!

Another wonderful touch is that Gaby’s step-sister Rachel painted the most gorgeous border on the ketubah they purchased from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor ketubah.com, incorporating lots of personal touches with special meaning to the couple.

There’s so much more we could say about this fab day (did we mention that Gaby found her dress by chance off the rack at Bloomingdales, for 1/10 of the price of the bridal gowns she’d been looking at?), but we’ll leave it to the bride to fill you in on the rest…

How we Met

Gaby, the bride and Michael, the groom: Gaby and Michael met on the dating app, Hinge, in the summer of 2018! After only a few messages back and forth they met for drinks at La Pecora Bianca in Midtown Manhattan. The night was perfect and was filled with many laughs, stories and glasses of wine. Even more fitting, Gaby went to her family home in the Berkshires the weekend afterward, a place that proved incredibly important to our relationship given we lived there for nearly 7 months during the pandemic.Continue Reading

A Pronovias Bride for a Sustainable Backyard Jewish Micro Wedding in Somerville, Massachusetts, USA

24/05/2021 by Karen Cinnamon

Today’s fantastic couple, Alana and Leo, are always up for an adventure – whether that means marking their 10-month dating anniversary by taking part in The Amazing Race or retooling their plans for a three-day summer camp-style wedding extravaganza in the Berkshires to an intimate micro affair in their very own backyard!

And do we ever love the way these two ended up leaning into their homey, sustainable low-pressure celebration. From a gorgeous simple chuppah built by a friend a wedding gift to a ketubah handcrafted by a designer friend featuring hand-pressed wildflowers from the couple’s own garden, this Jewish wedding is just chock full of meaningful touches.

We’re in love with Simi Rabinowitz’s luminous, joy-filled photos of the day. And though only a handful of the couple’s original guest list could attend in person, thanks to the professional live streaming services of Bob Antonelli friends and family around the world were able to take part.

Echoing the sentiments we’ve heard from so many couples who’ve married during the pandemic under circumstances very different than the ones they’d expected, Alana says, “We wouldn’t have done our wedding any other way. It was true to us, and felt like a real celebration of our friends and our neighborhood!”

Over to you, Alana!

How we Met

Alana, the bride: We met on Tinder in January 2018! And then, right after moving in together six months after we met — all our friends thought we were crazy! — we did something even crazier and applied for The Amazing Race on a whim … and we were cast! It was such a whirlwind. We actually started the first leg of The Amazing Race on our ten-month anniversary!

Racing around the world together wasn’t what convinced us we were meant to be (we’d known that probablyyyy since our third date) but it was such an affirming experience. After you’ve done such wild things with someone and been in such high-stress situations, getting married is a no brainer. We got engaged on our one year anniversary at Walden Pond in Massachusetts.Continue Reading

A Pronovias Bride for a Jewish Micro Wedding at Pierce House in Lincoln, Massachusetts, USA

18/01/2021 by Karen Cinnamon

To look at this gorgeous Jewish wedding, you’d never know it was planned in just two months! Boston couple Alisa, a product manager, and Evan, an architect, got engaged in August, and knew they were ready to move forward with building their future together – pandemic or not.

With just a few months to plan a COVID-safe outdoor celebration before the New England winter set in, Alisa and Evan knew it was time to call in the big guns. In this case, that meant Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Primavera Dreams, who helped them pull together the day of their (socially distanced) dreams, stat. Within three days of the couple’s engagement, founder Luba set the pair up on venue visits, and a couple weeks later they’d booked all their key vendors. Alisa and Evan say they couldn’t have done it without Luba’s expertise.

The couple’s number one goal was to plan a day where their friends and family would stay safe, and so they opted for a short guest list, socially distanced seating arrangements, table-side bar service, additional cleaning staff at the restrooms, and sanitization stations throughout, among other touches. They also opted to livestream the ceremony for those who weren’t able to attend in person. Because a dance floor wasn’t allowed due to COVID restrictions, Alisa and Evan went with a classical string duo for the ceremony and a jazz trio for the reception for their entertainment.

Photographer Kataram Studios did such a beautiful job capturing the day. Don’t miss all the gorgeous details, like the couple’s Enya Keshet ketubah, which they found online at Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor ketubah.com. With a multilayered cut paper design, gold leaf, and Swarovski crystals, it’s truly a work of art.

We’ll turn you over to the bride – who looks gorgeous in the Pronovias dress she found just days after getting engaged – for the rest…

How we Met

Alisa, the Bride and Evan, the groom: Despite living less than a mile from each other in Brookline, Alisa and Evan’s paths never crossed. Like many 21st century relationships, theirs started by “swiping right”. After a week or two of texting, Alisa and Evan finally met for a drink after work in Copley Square.

The date went well, and they scheduled another shortly after. After the second date, Evan wanted to let Alisa know how special she was – so he sent flowers to her apartment. Evan knew this was a bold move, but he also knew he needed to let her know how he felt. He proceeded to send flowers to the wrong apartment, that got course-corrected with a help from the security desk.

In early March of 2020, Evan cleared out a large portion of his closet and Alisa brought an entire car-load of her stuff over to his place. One week after moving in, the world changed, and they were quarantined together.

Alisa and Evan went from spending most of their time together – to spending ALL of their time together. Fortunately, the relationship thrived, and they became closer than ever. During quarantine, they could only see their parents, and spent most of the weekends in 2020 visiting each other’s families. In a span of 6 months, Alisa & Evan spent less then 24 hours apart.

An ASTR Bride for a Jewish Micro Wedding Pulled Together in Just Two Weeks at Endicott Estate, Dedham, Massachusetts, USA

11/09/2020 by Karen Cinnamon

As if we weren’t already in awe of all the many couples who are pulling together beautiful Jewish weddings during the pandemic, today’s couple brings it to the next level: both bride Yvonne and groom Gabriel are physicians in Boston – working exactly the kind of crazy hours you’d expect – AND they managed to pull together the bulk of the wedding in just TWO WEEKS prior to their date of July 25, 2020. Yep, you read that right… two weeks!

How’d they do it? With the help of a fantastic planner, the mega-talented Luba of Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Primavera Dreams. Because of their time constraints, the couple opted to take a hands-off approach to planning, putting their full trust in Luba to execute their dreams for a simple, elegant, intimate (the two invited just immediate family and one friend on each side) outdoor wedding. After just a few Zoom meetings with Yvonne and Gabriel, Luba was off and running – and she pulled everything together perfectly, as evidenced in Alex Gordias’s stunning photography.

Yvonne and Gabriel didn’t begin planning until February 2020, so they knew from the start that COVID would have an impact on their day – and they were able to build this intimate day from the beginning rather than having to back out of plans for a bigger wedding. They were able to pick their venue, Endicott Estate, based in part on the fact that they could have not only an outdoor ceremony but an outdoor dinner, too, and Yvonne knew from the getgo she wanted to forgot the traditional bridal salon and alterations experience for safety reasons and so instead opted to order lots of white ready-to-wear dresses online, finding the perfect fit in a simple, lightweight number by ASTR the Label.

Read on for the rest of Yvonne’s account of this very special day – we truly could not be any more impressed!

How we met

Yvonne, the bride: We met in 2014 through a mutual friend (his medical school friend and my residency friend). When the mutual friend found out Gabriel was coming to Boston to train as a fellow in trauma surgery, he immediately said that we should meet and the rest is history!