Offley Place wedding venue Archives - Smashing the Glass

An Enzoani Bride for an Interfaith Jewish Wedding with Tons of Creative Touches at Offley Place, Great Offley, Hitchin, Hertfordshire UK

30/08/2019 by Karen Cinnamon

It’s always a special day when we get to blog the big day of one of our beloved Smashing the Glass Brides Club members, and Shelley’s gorgeous interfaith Jewish wedding is no exception. She and groom and Chris not only crafted an ultra-personal celebration full of creative touches, they used some of our very favourite vendors to pull it off too!

First and foremost, we love that the bride, who’s Jewish, and the groom, who isn’t, chose to work with the wonderful Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Rabbi Paul Glantz (who they found right here on Smashing The Glass!) to craft an individual Jewish blessing that truly reflected the pair as a couple – complete with a lovely floral ketubah reflecting their theme of rustic elegance from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Ketubata.

This wedding is just so full of love and emotion, perfectly captured by Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Rafe Abrook in the exquisite photos. And speaking of photos, we love that Shelley and Chris gave each table an ‘Instagram Challenge’ to complete, with instructions like ‘your whole table must take a photo that recreates a famous movie scene’ – what a great way to get everyone involved and socializing, right?!

Lovely Shelley could not have looked more radiant on the day, and we’re in love with her gorgeous bridal beauty look from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Makeup by Katy. Between the beautiful makeup and perfect gown from Enzoani, it’s no wonder she felt like a princess all day!

And we love that Shelley and Chris worked with the wonderful Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Abby Taubman of Colletts Travel to plan their fab honeymoon to Singapore, Bali and Hong Kong.

We so loved having Shelley in Brides Club and helping her along as she planned this amazing day – if you’re planning a Jewish or Jew-ish wedding of your own and could use a little support, guidance, community, referrals to great vendors, or anything else you can think of that will help make your day the very best it can be – do sign up for your free 30-day trial and join us!

Now over to Shelley…

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How we met

Shelley and Chris, the bride and the groom: It’s Chris writing this part! Shelley and I are teachers, as you probably would have guessed from all the crafty things we incorporated into the wedding! We met training on our PGCE, where I knew that she was the one I was going to ask to be my wife. 6 years, two houses and one cat later, we are now Mr and Mrs Amoss ☺

Alana & Marc | Country Garden Boho Jewish wedding at Offley Place Country House, Hertfordshire, UK

23/09/2014 by Karen

Alana and Marc were introduced by a mutual friend over Facebook (the Rabbi even thanked Mark Zuckerburg during the ceremony), and after a few messages back and forth they met up in a Camden pub, and the rest, as they say, is history!

They had a fantastic marquee-in-the-garden wedding and chose to hold their ceremony outdoors, complete with super-sized balloons lining the aisle, and the BEST bridesmaid entrance you have ever seen. Yes, Alana’s 8 month old niece arrived in a a remote controlled mini cream Fiat 500! EPIC or what?

But that’s not all. I also absolutely adore Alana’s entire outfit — from her exquisite wedding dress to her sensitively designed birdcage veil and headpiece which she accessorises perfectly with a pink and peach Peonie bouquet.

Alana and Marc have written their wedding report together and it’s lovely to hear from a Groom who had so much input into the big day, even though he confesses that “Alana had so many ideas for the wedding that [he] wasn’t convinced by, but “[he has] to admit they ended up being amazing” (And he said that he promises he wasn’t forced to write that either!).

Images come from our fabulous Smashing Supplier, Mark Seymour, back with a bang to STG with this wedding. As always, he captures every last detail beautifully. And there’s an immense highlight film right at the end of the post by Wedding Films London. It really captures the spirit of the day and if you’ve never been to a Jewish wedding but always wondered about the “crazy Jewish wedding dancing thing” scroll to 3 minutes, 5 seconds in and you’ll get a terrific example (WARNING: you’ll feel exhausted just watching!).

THE PERFECT VENUE FOR AN OUTDOOR CEREMONY AND A GREAT BIG PARTY!
Alana the Bride, and Marc, the groom: Our venue was called Offley Place. We dreamed of having the ceremony outdoors and we wanted the venue to have real character to it too. We also needed to find somewhere that could fit our huge family. We had a few venues fall through and we were really finding it difficult to find anywhere that worked for us. When we went to see Offley Place we knew straight away that we wanted to get married there. The grounds were stunning and the marquee had capacity for our huge family. The fact that the manor house had rooms for us to stay in ensured that the party could continue late into the night. Also, the manor house itself was very beautiful. Offley Place had the potential to incorporate all our ideas and the team there were clearly geared up for Jewish weddings already.