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Home > Paul Toeman Photography

A Stella York Bride for a Winter Jewish Wedding Filled with Warmth at The Grove, Chandler’s Cross, UK

08/05/2023 by Karen Cinnamon

Sophie & Josh, The Grove, UK

We love it when a couple assembles a fabulous team of Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendors to make their Jewish wedding the day of their dreams – and that’s exactly what today’s couple did.

Sophie, who works in account management for a marketing agency, and Josh, a chartered accountant working at a fintech company, made it official at The Grove in Hertfordshire, a local spot that was truly the perfect fit for their glam winter wedding.  

Their overarching goal was “a stylish wedding with a room filled with love and warmth” – and judging by the moving photos by Paul Toeman and video by #STGvendor Denee Motion – both of whom Sophie and Josh adored working with – they achieved it and then some.

#STGvendor Big Day Designs “were so helpful and produced the most stylish and beautiful stationery and invitations,” and two fabulous #STGvendors came together for an epic night of music: Eitan Freilich served as Sophie and Josh’s chazzan, and The Function Band handled the rest. Both were “absolutely incredible.”

In Sophie’s words, “Eitan helped us with options as we were not sure beforehand what we would like, although we did know we wanted to have the songs to tunes of songs that we know.”

As for The Function Band – the lead singer of which happens to be Josh’s first cousin – “they really went over and above what we were expecting for us both and our families,” not only providing the kind of music that kept guests on the dancefloor all night long but also helping in coordinating the day.

There’s so much more to say about this beautiful wedding, but we’ll turn you over to Sophie – who looked so elegant in Stella York – for the rest…

Sophie & Josh, The Grove, UK Sophie & Josh, The Grove, UK Sophie & Josh, The Grove, UK Sophie & Josh, The Grove, UK
How we Met

Sophie, the bride: We met in our first year of uni (Nottingham Trent) and started going out in second year. We have been together for 8 and a half years and bought our first home together in January 2021.Continue ReadingContinue Reading

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Real Jewish Bride: Sarah on the Last Two Years of Wedding Planning

09/06/2021 by Smashing The Glass

Sarah will be marrying Rich on 19th June 2022 at Tikitano Beach, Marbella, Spain. Click here to read all Sarah’s planning posts to date.

THREE FACTS: (1) Sarah knew Rich was the one when he brought a gift of dog treats for her toy poodle Nuala along to their fourth date! (2) They are crafting an amazing destination wedding weekend in Marbella with beloved Smashing The Glass Recommended vendor optimum weddings as their planner. (3) Sarah is a member of  Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club!

As I sat down to write this, my last blog as a blogging bride for Smashing the Glass (I will still be a member of Brides Club), I took a quick minute to reflect on the past two years. I say two years because that was when I first became a blogging bride and signed up to Brides Club. I was full of excitement talking about all things wedding related, learning about dress fabrics, booking dress shopping appointments, booking flights to Spain to find our wedding planner and venue and creating multiple spreadsheets to keep track of the infamous wedding budget. It was summer 2019 and it is safe to say that I had no idea what 2020 would bring!

So, on that note let’s take a little trip down memory lane and reminisce on the good, the bad and the lessons I have learned over the past two years!

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Real Jewish Bride: Sarah on Finding the Perfect Dress

14/04/2021 by Smashing The Glass

Sarah will be marrying Rich on 19th June 2022 at Tikitano Beach, Marbella, Spain. Click here to read all Sarah’s planning posts to date.

THREE FACTS: (1) Sarah knew Rich was the one when he brought a gift of dog treats for her toy poodle Nuala along to their fourth date! (2) They are crafting an amazing destination wedding weekend in Marbella with beloved Smashing The Glass Recommended vendor optimum weddings as their planner. (3) Sarah is a member of  Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club!


I was looking through my previous blog posts for Smashing the Glass and realised, much to my amazement, that I had never written about my experience dress shopping! Considering that I am a pretty typical girly girl, I don’t know how I let this quintessential wedding prep experience escape my blog posts! Anyway, nearly two years later (thanks Covid-19) I have had the pleasure of reminiscing over my dress shopping experience for this blog post, so read on and enjoy!

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Real Jewish Bride: Sarah on Postponing for the Third Time

17/02/2021 by Smashing The Glass

Sarah will be marrying Rich on 19th June 2022 at Tikitano Beach, Marbella, Spain. Click here to read all Sarah’s planning posts to date.

THREE FACTS: (1) Sarah knew Rich was the one when he brought a gift of dog treats for her toy poodle Nuala along to their fourth date! (2) They are crafting an amazing destination wedding weekend in Marbella with beloved Smashing The Glass Recommended vendor optimum weddings as their planner. (3) Sarah is a member of  Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club!


In my last blog I mentioned how we had decided to get a backup date in place for 2022 and how we hoped it was just a “formality”. Well, the good news is that it was a sensible idea, the less exciting news is that it was less of a formality and more of a necessity! In January of this year we made the difficult decision to postpone our wedding one last time.

Needless to say, neither Richard or I can predict the future, but we felt that it was the safer option for many reasons. We have waited so long for our dream wedding, so in reality, one more year is not the end of the world to us.

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Real Jewish Bride: Sarah on a Chrismukkah Miracle

17/12/2020 by Smashing The Glass

Sarah will be marrying Rich on 20th June 2021 at Tikitano Beach, Marbella, Spain. Click here to read all Sarah’s planning posts to date.

THREE FACTS: (1) Sarah knew Rich was the one when he brought a gift of dog treats for her toy poodle Nuala along to their fourth date! (2) They are crafting an amazing destination wedding weekend in Marbella with beloved Smashing The Glass Recommended vendor optimum weddings as their planner. (3) Sarah is a member of  Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club!


Since my last blog post a lot has happened! Last month I was busy co-ordinating with my wonderful wedding planner (and now boss!) Dyana to get a third backup date in place for June 2022. I wasn’t sure where we would be Covid wise, but I knew that with the number of new weddings and postponed ones, I didn’t want to leave getting our desired date in place to chance. All of our providers have afforded us incredible generosity and flexibility and I am enormously grateful for that.

Needless to say, I hoped and still do hope that this date is just a cautious formality. November really was a month filled with ups and downs, the world had some great news (a breath of fresh air for 2020) with the election of President Elect Joe Biden and in less exciting news, the UK was plunged into lockdown round two.

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