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A Boho bride for a rustic ‘beer garden’ Jewish wedding at Houston Hall, New York City, USA

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Apologies for the late posting of this morning’s real Jewish wedding – I’m still recovering from last night’s dazzling Brides Magazine Bloggers Dinner. And when I say recovering, it may just have something to do with the fact that Brides had the genius idea of serving a series of cocktails to accompany every course! The whole do was utterly magical from beginning to end — great company, great food, and an exquisite atmosphere in the private dining room at central London’s Haymarket Hotel.

I snapchatted and Instagram-storied live from the dinner so hurry on over and take a look if you want to see what the wedding bloggerati got up to as all the stories will be wiped after 24 hours!

So on to today’s very special real Jewish wedding… Well, where do I even start? Rachel & Robert somehow managed to incorporate a whole host of personal ideas into their Big Day whilst keeping it chic, stylish and super pretty.

There are so many gorgeous touches that I don’t know what to pick out first; there’s Rachel’s special maid of honour — her 91-year old Grandma Betty, the coolest polaroid picture escort cards (you’ll all be wanting to steal that idea!), oh so pretty floral crowns, Louboutins, personalised Converse, a beautifully flowy Nicole Miller beaded wedding dress (this bride has serious style), and a naked red velvet cake.

And instead of just eating leftover wedding cake on their year anniversary; Rachel and Robert have been eating a piece every month, thereby celebrating their anniversary every four weeks… DEFINITELY my kind of couple

Enjoy this one peeps — the day was captured perfectly by The Markows Photography with a glorious film at the end by NST Pictures.

Jewish Wedding Houston Hall NYC_1
How we met

Rachel, the Bride: We met on Match.com. What makes it a good story is that Rob emailed me on Match in September 2012 and I waited two months to write him back! I received his email and I was interested but just not ready to meet someone at the time. It was a good thing he was still single and interested in meeting me two months later…

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A colourful Jewish wedding at Manhattan Penthouse on Fifth Avenue, New York City, USA

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Whilst this is a big day in your life, have perspective. It’s a party, a celebration of you and your significant other’s formal bond — there’s no reason to be stressed because really, it’s a celebration.

Sage advice there from the beautiful Elise in this morning’s super chic Manhattan affair. I couldn’t not open with this mantra because I think it’s all too easy to forget amidst the madness of colour themes and dresses and table plans and favours and centrepieces. That’s not to say that all of these bits and pieces aren’t important but more that it’s about you and your partner and the love you have for each other that’s paramount on your big day.

But of course you all know this already. What you don’t know yet is how epic Elise and Michael’s big day was…but you’re about to find out.

I can promise you the sassiest bride, a super cool Manhattan location, fantastic photography, care of Hales Studio, and the most magnificent colourful blooms. In fact the colours of Elise’s bouquet (created by the super talented Floresta NYC) provided the inspiration for the bridesmaids dresses! Elise sent them a picture of the bouquet and asked them to choose a dress (or wear one that they already owned) that would match the flowers. And how wonderfully does it all come together?

Another thing I particularly love about today’s wedding is that Elise and Michael inviting their parents and Elise’s grandparents, married for 41, 44 and 62 years respectively to dance to her grandparents wedding song (A Sentimental Journey) to recognise the stable, long-lasting and loving relationships that they were lucky enough to be brought up around… Too fabulous, right?

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How we met

Elise, the Bride: Mike and I met on Okcupid! We both had tried online dating in the past – both of us did JDate actually, but in the end we met on the free non-religious site. We went for drinks for our first meeting and to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Italian food for our first official date.

Elise and Michael's NYC wedding_0040

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Indo-Italian-Jewish wedding at The Garden City Hotel, Long Island, New York, USA

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One of my main aims when I started Smashing The Glass was to ensure there would be an abundance of Jew-ish wedding inspiration, by which I mean interfaith wedding inspiration for readers who are marrying out, marrying in (or anywhere in between for that matter) — I call it Jew-ish!

Prior to starting the blog, I remember hearing the same complaint over and over again from friends who were marrying the love of their loves who were of another faith. They desperately wanted a ceremony that embraced both their and their partner’s religion / culture, but there was simply no inspiration, online or offline, for how to create a meaningful fusion Jew-ish wedding.

As a result the blog covers an array of topics from 5 ways to incorporate Jewish’ into a non-Jewish or Interfaith wedding to a diary of a Jewish bride who ‘married out‘, to spotlighting awesome Smashing Suppliers like Rabbi Paul Glantz who has lovingly officiated countless beautiful interfaith Jewish weddings.

It therefore goes without saying that I love blogging mixed faith Jew-ish weddings as part of this focus. I’ve showcased several Indian-Jewish weddings on the blog before, and they are often very colourful affairs, but today’s W Day takes brights and rainbow hues to another level and should definitely be viewed with your sunglasses on!

Ritu, of Indian heritage, and Greg, who’s Jewish, very much wanted a single ceremony versus two separate ones. They found that many of their individual traditions were able to be seamlessly intertwined eg. the chuppah / mandap structure is both a symbol of the home that they would build together (chuppah) and the universe (mandap) and the framework of each is very similar. This blending of both their cultures into one meaningful ceremony meant a lot to them (and by the way, I have a post going live this Friday on how to successfully mix two faiths into one beautiful ceremony… watch this space!).

This entire wedding is magnificent, and not only do we have the images from Priyanca Rao Photography, but also the wedding video from Unique Visions Studio. Ritu’s wedding report is super fun to read too. Don’t miss a beat!

Indo-Italian-Jewish wedding at The Garden City Hotel, Long Island, New York, USA Indo-Italian-Jewish wedding at The Garden City Hotel, Long Island, New York, USA
How we met

I am not sure this story makes me look all that good! My friend (and eventual bridesmaid) Claudia and I were at a party for The Brooklyn Rugby Club’s final game of the season. I was a little hesitant about going in the first place… I had been sorta casually spending time with one of the rugby players and that dalliance had recently ended in a full on crash and burn! But Claudia convinced me to accompany her. And then I met the new guy on the team — Greg Aguele. He followed us to another bar and struck up a conversation with me. I was definitely stand-offish — I didn’t want to be the Brooklyn Rugby Groupie! But I will never forget him saying “I get it. But listen, I am a nice guy, and I think we should get to know each other”. And so we did.

Indo-Italian-Jewish wedding at The Garden City Hotel, Long Island, New York, USA
The perfect  Venue

You know how often the first dress a bride tries on is  THE dress? Well that was the the case regarding our venue. The Garden City Hotel was actually recommended by my father. The second I met with the team there, led by Jerry Rizzo, I was in love. We wanted a place that was close to where we both grew up and where both our families could easily get to. And we loved that all of our events (an Indian wedding can have quite a few) could be in one central place where all guests could also stay.

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A Reem Acra bride for a whimsical Jewish wedding at 632 on Hudson, West Village, New York City, USA

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Get ready to gasp! I genuinely struggled to keep my chin off the floor whilst putting this post together as Sabrina and Nick’s Jewish wedding just exudes SO much style and originality.

For starters their choice of venue is 632 on Hudson — a private home in the West Village and an artful renovation of an 1847 townhouse. By combining the best of several eras, the venue literally sparkles with style and imagination and makes for an astonishing ceremony backdrop — certainly one of the most original I’ve ever seen. The ceremony took place in the 40-foot Atrium (topped with an Italian Renaissance ceiling) with their guests lining the spiral staircase, looking down through the cleverly designed chuppah by Chuppah Studio.

There is so much to swoon over and take in, including of course our utterly adorable bride and groom who look super stylish in their attire (Sabrina in breathtaking Reem Acra, Nick in bespoke Doyle Mueser).

There are some genius (but brilliantly simple) favours, fabulous jewel-coloured flowers, and the sleekest letterpress stationery with a wonderful melding of elegance and pizzazz.

There’s also a generous helping of advice by French-American Sabrina in her brilliant wedding report, in particular where she talks about the importance of  finding chemistry with your vendors. On another note I just have to single out this line of Sabrina describing how she wanted her make up to look: ‘I just wanted to look like myself, but slightly Photoshopped!”. Love it!

Mademoiselle Fiona has captured each and every moment to sheer perfection and she just may have taken the best group shot in the history of Smashing The Glass. This wedding is definitely one to be bookmarked so you can enjoy swooning over it time and time again. I know I will be!

Jewish wedding at 632 on Hudson West Village New York
how we met

Sabrina, the Bride: Nick and I met in college when we were 18 but didn’t start dating until after graduation when we moved to Bangkok together to teach English for a year. He was certainly more gifted than I was as a teacher but you get to know someone really well when you’re living in a country 5000miles away and don’t speak the language.

Jewish wedding at 632 on Hudson West Village New York Jewish wedding at 632 on Hudson West Village New York

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A Johanna Johnson bride for Supper club inspired interfaith Jewish wedding at The Green Building, Brooklyn, New York City, USA

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I love Danya’s mum – she told her about Smashing The Glass and shared the blog with Danya a few months before her wedding. Danya told me how much of a help it was for her as she planned her interfaith Jewish wedding to Andrew, and that makes me one very happy smiley blogger.

Danya and Andrew are a really creative couple who blended  their heritages (she’s Jewish, he’s not) and their hobbies to start a pop-up restaurant inspired by Jewish culture. Their pop-up supper club was a big inspiration for their wedding ceremony and celebration as they wanted their guests to feel at home and as if they were at a really intimate, delicious, fun dinner party.

The attention to detail, craft and care for everything at this wedding is so apparent — the couple mixed age-old traditions together with individuality effortlessly, with a gorgeous Autumnal colour palette and lots of personalised details.

I also love this: Danya and Andrew asked two of their friends to decorate their apartment so that when they came home to it after the wedding (it was only a few roads away from the venue) it would feel celebratory and special. Their friends strung paper decorations and placed beautiful flowers and candles throughout the apartment together with a late-night snack plate of crackers, cheese, and champagne. Just wonderful!

Danya and Andrew were married in October 2015 at The Green Building in Brooklyn, an incredible warehouse / loft-style venue in the heart of Brooklyn. All the stunning images are by Chris Gifford from Weddings by Two

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The background to our wedding

Danya, the Bride: I’m an East Coast Jew who loves neutral colours and socialising to relax. My husband is a Christmas-loving, West Coast guy who’s never met an outdoor sport he didn’t like. We wanted to combine our backgrounds in a way that felt authentic to us and in a way that our families would recognise, and we lucked out big time with a brilliant and quirky rabbi who totally got what we needed (Rabbi Jim Ponet, a close family friend and Yale University’s rabbi for 30 years – his first ever intermarriage was Chelsea Clinton and her husband!). We spent a lot of time coming up with an original, explanatory, sometimes funny program.

Green Building Brooklyn wedding

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