New York City Jewish Wedding Archives - Page 7 of 8 - Smashing the Glass

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

23/02/2016 by Karen

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

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.

Ava & Josh | Super-glam Art Deco inspired Jewish wedding at 501 Union, Brooklyn, New York City, USA

20/07/2015 by Karen

Sometimes New Yorkers just reach a level of perfection mere mortals can only imagine. This is one of those instances. Ava and Josh married in the 501 Union space in Brooklyn and theirs is an Art Deco-inspired day, serving the associated glamour, luxury and exuberance in spades. It’s stylish and polished beyond belief, yet family and their own union remains as the focal point throughout.

As an event producer, it was no surprise that the Ava, the bride, decided to orchestrate the entire day herself. In her own words, Ava ‘liked the idea of balancing organic, lush greenery and florals with fancy champagne towers and glamour golds’ — Let’s face it, this is not a run of the mill bride here — this lady knows her stuff.

And of course Ava was spot on – the organic and the glitz do work spectacularly together — diametrically opposed but so complementary. Have a look at the family style dinner amidst glamorous palms and champagne towers. The simple chuppah (incorporating her father’s tallit) and the beautiful hanging florals in the ceremony room and then, in the evening, guests partied under a gold ticker tape/snow globe effect on the dance floor.

In fact, I’m going to have to track down one of those industrial gold confetti machines, I’m not sure I can celebrate my next birthday without it. How did I not know they existed?!

While I’m at it, I might have to pinch Ava and Josh’s leaving gift ideas too — bagged coffee, late night snacks and Berocca. How super cool is that!

Ava and Josh found their photographer by browsing various wedding blogs — that’s why I love STG — I get a chance to showcase the works of the most amazing photographers and you have the opportunity to reach out and snap them up for yourselves!

Check out Kelly Kollar Photography’s photos below – and remember Ava and Josh are a very discerning couple!
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Jessie & Craig | Spectacular book-themed Jewish wedding at the New York Public Library, New York, USA

02/04/2015 by Karen

I’m not sure you can get much cooler than Jessie and Craig’s New York City nuptials. Their Jewish wedding has it all. The glamour, the style, the chic, and the unique. I almost died when I first clapped eyes on their chuppah design — I’m telling you, it’s one of the best I’ve ever seen, and you’ll have to excuse me for including so many pictures of it.

Prepare to be green eyed folks as I cannot possibly deny that this W-Day may cause some serious wedding envy, namely because of the exquisite fashion that bride Jessie sported on the day itself. Firstly there are her Christian Louboutin clear heels with silver studs, swiftly followed by her divine Reem Acra dress. Honestly Jessie has the most wonderful sartorial taste.

And what with getting married in the iconic New York Public Library, I haven’t even begun to tell you about how well-executed their literary bookish theme is. I’m talking real-life librarians helping guests find their seats, library card catalogue escort cards, and a chuppah made entirely out of antique books! But wait, it gets better. Their chuppah was topped with hundreds of lightbulbs, so when it came to smashing the glass at the end of the ceremony, the groom picked out a light bulb from their chuppah to smash, and swiftly stamped on it. Have you ever?

So if you want to take a page from Jessie and Craig’s wedding (see what I did there?!), now’s the time, as I’m handing over to the beautiful bride for the story behind her big day. All of the fantastic photography is by the wonderfully talented Dave Robbins, and design is by AaB Creates.

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Claudia & Felix | uber-stylish and creative urban Jewish wedding with a rustic twist, Studio 450, New York City

08/09/2014 by Karen

The Manhattan wedding of Claudia and Felix, two professional ballet dancers, is the perfect way to ease you into your Monday. It’s bursting with style, creativity, fashionable touches, and super original ideas.

They picked a clean, crisp, white canvas NYC loft space, and warmed it up with a farmhouse, rustic feel. As Claudia herself puts it, they wanted to match up their city slicker selves with their dream of a country wedding, and it works brilliantly. They also incorporated lots of meaningful and amusing Jewish, American, and Dutch traditions (Felix hails from The Netherlands) so that their guests had lots of little surprises throughout the day. One of my favourite idea of theirs are the kippot (skullcaps) supplied for every guest with “my mother was right” inscribed on the inside. You get why I’m loving this wedding!

Claudia and Felix also managed to create the most original I’m-not-sure-I’ll-ever-see-anything-like-that-ever-again escort cards / favours — but I’ll let Claudia surprise you with those.

Finally I love Claudia’s Vera Wang dress and Valentino heels more than dark chocolate. And I like dark chocolate A LOT.

The sublime images come from the fabulous STAK Photography who captured every last detail beautifully.

AN URBAN LOFT VENUE
Claudia, the Bride: Our wedding was at a beautiful loft called Studio 450 in midtown Manhattan. The venue has amazing 360 degree views of the city but especially incredible views of the Hudson River. The space itself is industrial yet very clean and entirely white. It also had a lovely upstairs space and some terrace space.

Our initial idea was to get married upstate at a big old house in Rye, NY but as Felix and I are both urbanites at heart and with many out of town guests it seemed impractical. When we came upon Studio 450 we knew it was the perfect space to marry our city slicker selves with our dream of a country wedding.

Dana & Stuart | Autumn city rustic Jewish wedding at the spectacular Angel Orensanz Foundation, Lower East Side, New York City

19/06/2014 by Karen

Dana and Stuart’s wedding has Autumn completely wrapped up. Long farm tables with flowers and candles, orange and cream colours with pops of russet inspired by Dana’s amazing auburn hair, and a total sense of joy, warmth and tenderness thoughout.

Our bride is so very elegant but at the same time clearly having the time of her life… That smile – it’s so infectious! And what’s one of my favourite moments? When Dana swaps her jewelled Manolo Blahniks for white low top Converse when the former falls off during the Hora – so down to earth! I also love the little creative details like classic movies of their favourite Hollywood icons playing in the background during the cocktail hour.

Oh… and have you ever heard of ‘Dudesmaids’?! Dana had two – see them posing with the girls above?!

All the fantastic photography is by the one and only Karen Wise.