Rabbi Paul Glantz 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 ☺

An Essense of Australia Bride for a Jew-ish Wedding at Poundon House, near Bicester, Buckinghamshire, UK

14/12/2018 by Karen Cinnamon

One of the things we most love here at Smashing the Glass is hearing how we’ve helped couples plan the Jew-ish wedding of their dreams. So when lovely bride Philippa (who just happens to be a member of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club) told us she found STG while looking for interfaith wedding inspo, it melted Team STG’s collective heart — and even more so when she told us reading other brides’ writeups of their Jew-ish weddings “made me realise we weren’t the only ones out there!”

So you can only imagine out delight in finding out that she and groom Jerome booked their officiant, Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Rabbi Paul Glantz, via STG! Rabbi Paul helped the couple — Philippa is Christian, Jerome’s Jewish — craft an ultra-personal ceremony that reflected both of their backgrounds and traditions, complete with plentiful description of the Jewish parts of the ceremony so everyone could follow along, plus an explanatory order of service crafted by the bride. This is such a smart idea if you know you’ll be having guests who are unfamiliar with Jewish wedding traditions!

We also love that toward the end of the ceremony, after the rabbi recited the traditional Jewish seven blessings in Hebrew, the couple invited some friends and close family to give seven humanist blessings in English!

And with Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor the Function Band performing, this wedding was no slouch from an entertainment standpoint either. The Function Band are renowned far and wide for their ability to get the party started, and we’re not surprised that guest after guest came up to the couple to tell them how awesome the band was!

We haven’t even gotten to the fab rustic elegance aesthetic, the gorgeous floral chuppah, or Philippa’s stunner of a dress from Essense of Australia, but we’ll leave it to the bride — with some support from the fab photography by Pascal from Reportage, and videography by Cedar House Productions — to fill you in on all of that…

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How we met

Philippa, the bride: Jerome and I both work in the media industry – I’m a producer at a creative agency making commercials and promotional content, and Jerome is head of strategic development at a creative studio, working in VR and CGI.

We met through a mutual friend whom Jerome lived with at the time and we finally got together on a big group trip to Ibiza where we started kissing in the middle of a Hardwell gig at Ushuaia! We didn’t stop kissing after that. It didn’t take long for us to realise that it was meant to be and we moved into together after 3 months.

A Romantic English Country Garden Jew-ish Wedding at Northbrook Park, Surrey, UK

15/01/2018 by Karen

Today’s real Jew-ish real wedding is a very special one and we’re ridiculously excited about it, as lovely Caroline and Robbie were one of editor Karen’s fabulous consultancy couples and to see their wedding come to life has been a total and utter joy! One of our favorite things about Smashing The Glass is the way we so often feel involved, directly or indirectly, in our couples’ big days, and this is particularly true today!

In fact, Caroline and Robbie were so delightful to work with, that they are one of 12 very special guests at our ‘Your Jewish Wedding Your Way’ Smashing Summit on the 31st January 2018 which we are SO excited for! Mindy Weiss, Monique Lhuillier, Ron Ben-Israel, Galia Lahav‘s Chief Designer, Duke Photography, Bruce Russell, Blake Ezra, Food Story, and a whole host of wedding industry superstars will talk live, covering everything (and we mean EVERYTHING!) you need to know to plan your Jewish (or Jew-ish) wedding your way. It’s going to be unmissable so make sure you reserve your (totally free!) front seat today here.

So onto today’s truly fabulous totally dreamy and romantic English country garden Jew-ish wedding! Caroline and Robbie, with so many international connections, could have tied the knot in many places, but chose picturesque Northbrook Park in Surrey, an area with family connections for the happy couple.

Beautiful bride Caroline absolutely rocked her bold, unique and jaw-droppingly gorgeous Liz Martinez gown, with its stunning plunge neckline and layers of fairytale tulle.

There were no fewer than three of our much-loved recommended vendors involved in Caroline and Robbie’s wedding. The Function Band, who created magical moments with their music and kept the party going into the early hours, Philippa Louise whose epic makeup skills brought out Caroline’s best features and Rabbi Paul Glantz, who worked with the couple to create the perfect traditional Jew-ish ceremony.

All of the delightful decor details and happy moments were captured by fabulous photographer Philippa James.

It’s finally beautiful Caroline’s turn in the spotlight on the Smashing The Glass pages – please give her a very warm welcome!

How we met

Caroline, the bride: Robbie and I met five years ago in Sydney, Australia. I was a backpacker on a year’s work and holiday visa, while Robbie was working there as a junior doctor for the year. We met completely by chance in a nightclub in Sydney’s famous Surrey Hills neighbourhood, and the rest is history!

We spent our first three years together traveling the world, including a few months’ journey on the Trans-Siberian Express through China, Mongolia and Russia, and living in Australia and South Africa. Two years ago, we relocated back to Robbie’s hometown of London and have been here ever since.
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An Inbal Dror Bride for a Vintage Glamor Jewish Wedding at Essendon Country Club, UK

10/01/2018 by Karen

Lovers of vintage glamor, take note – today’s stunning, old Hollywood-style Jewish Essendon Country Club wedding is definitely one for you!

Set in a barn and accented with gold tones, Laura and Gio’s wedding stayed true to the couple’s motto: ‘keep it simple’, while still looking insanely chic and luxe! Oh, and there were personalized cocktails, just in case you weren’t already at peak FOMO!

We love Israeli designers for their sense of subtle but smoking hot sex appeal, and Inbal Dror gowns truly tick these boxes. Bride Laura looked like an A-lister in her gorgeous and ridiculously flattering embellished, gold-tone dress, with some seriously on fleek hair and makeup game going on, too!

The loved-up couple, who actually met over the phone during a work call, and hit it off so well that they stayed in touch, made sure the day was about them and their adoration of one another, sneaking off regularly to really take in their surroundings.

A true Smashing The Glass wedding, there were three Recommended Vendors involved in making the day so incredible. Wedding band, Totem, totally rocked the reception, and earned a glowing writeup from bride, Laura.

Rabbi Paul Glantz, another much-loved Recommended Vendor led the moving ceremony, and the story of the day was told in the beautiful, documentary-style spread of images by phenomenal RV, Paul Rogers. What a dream team!

It’s definitely time to let Laura loose on the blog to fill us in on all the big-day details, so take it away, Laura!

How we met

Laura, the bride: We meet the phone years ago when Gio was in recruitment. I called up (the company I was working for was looking to employ) and ended up speaking to Gio. We began a phone and email friendship and one day decided to meet up in person, and that was it, the voice over the phone ended up being the love of my life. Continue Reading

Facebook Live Catch Up: Jewish Wedding Ceremony Q&A – with Rabbi Paul Glantz

16/11/2017 by Karen

On Monday evening I went live on our Facebook page with the legend that is Rabbi Paul Glantz – a truly modern inclusive Rabbi, and much-loved STG Vendor who has graced the real Jewish wedding pages of Smashing The Glass many times.

It featured possibly my favorite Facebook Live moment ever (at 4 mins 25 secs) with Rabbi Paul on the phone to his brother on the Live – go check it out!

We covered so much during the 4o minutes from ways to personalize your ketubah, badeken, chuppah, and sheva brachot, to the best kind of glass to smash to Jewish wedding dress codes – full breakdown below! If you missed it, you can still catch up by watching the replay above.

4:25 – Rabbi Paul Glantz on the phone to his mother asking her to tune in (classic Live moment!)
8:10 – Do you need to have a registry office wedding as well as a Jewish wedding?
10:06 – Breakdown of the Jewish wedding ceremony
11:20 – How to personalize your ketubah
13:45 – Ways of personalising the Badeken
16:55 – Ways of personalising the Sheva Brachot (Seven Blessings)
18:00 – Egalitarian Jewish wedding ceremony ideas
19:53 – What is the meaning of the circling in the Jewish wedding ceremony
21:25 – Can anyone get married under a chuppah?
23:20 – What’s the wedding dress code for a Masorti wedding?
24:41 – Music for the Jewish wedding ceremony
28:07 – Are there any parts of an Orthodox Jewish wedding ceremony that cannot be photographed?
28:44 – How many, and what kind of, people can sign the ketubah?
29:58 – As an interfaith Jewish couple can we get married under a chuppah?
32:21 – Can you get married on a Friday?
33:47 – Can you have engraving on your wedding ring?
29:43 – What is the best kind of glass for smashing the glass?
35:10 – Does the wedding band need to be made of silver?
36:08 – How do you know what time to start a Saturday night wedding?
36:59 – How can you make a wedding in a venue with non-kosher catering, with a United Rabbi