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Real Jewish Brides – Charlotte: Saying Yes To The Dress

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Charlotte will be marrying James on 26th August 2018 at The Brewery, in London, UK.

THREE FACTS: (1) James proposed to Charlotte in Florence… on her parent’s 36th wedding anniversary (aaaah – we love that!)  (2) They are planning a Jewish urban-rustic wedding in East London (3) They have already decided on their wedding hashtags — it’s #dropitlikeitshart !


We are so inundated with programmes about brides saying yes to the dress nowadays. Admittedly you can find myself, my mum and grandma watching this together. Since both my sister and I became engaged my grandma, who is 93, is totally and completely hooked on watching these programmes. With a huge health scare this year we could not be more fortunate that she is still here and was able to see my sister walk down the aisle. She is completely defying all doctors, and we are all hoping that she is still here to me and James get married next year.

As someone who is hugely decisive about clothes in general, I live and breathe for fashion. I know what will suit me, and really I have been looking at my wedding dress for about six months or more before I actually tried it on. I am not sure I am the most typical bride when I say that I only tried on four dresses.

I had left the one I had been staring and dreaming about until last, and I knew instantly it was the one.


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Real Blogging Brides: Leah – What do you register for when you’ve lived together before the wedding?

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Leah  will be marrying Zak in a Jewish wedding on 1st June 2018 at Masia Notari in Spain. Click here to read all Leah’s planning posts to date.

THREE FACTS: (1) Leah knew she wanted to convert to Judaism long before she met Zak. She feels that having a Jewish wedding is another milestone in her Jewish identity and is an opportunity for some of her family to experience new traditions. (2) Leah & Zak met on JDate (3) Leah and Zak are planning a beautiful black tie destination wedding in Barcelona, Spain


What do you register for when you’ve lived together before the wedding? We found ourselves asking this very question as we faced the prospect of a registry. To make matters harder, I love home goods (and HomeGoods!) and already have many of the items most people typically add to their list. With more and more couples getting married at an older age, many of us are more likely to have the standard blender or crockpot that end up on a typical registry.

Here’s how we attacked the odd concept of picking items we wanted other people to buy us.


Image: The Wedding Shop

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Real Blogging Brides: Clare – My First Time At ‘Brides The Show’

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Clare will be marrying Chris on 5th May 2018 at Laura Ashley The Manor in Elstree, UK.

THREE FACTS: (1) Clare is not Jewish but discovered Smashing The Glass via her Jewish sister-in-law and during her wedding planning journey it has (in her own words!) became her favorite and most useful wedding blog (2) She finds STG refreshing in a sea of wedding blogs as she loves reading stories of couples for whom the ceremony itself is as pivotal as all the other details. (3) Due to falling in love with so many amazing Jewish weddings through the blog, and then booking a wedding consultancy session with STG founder, Karen, it confirmed to her that there were a number of Jewish elements she was going to bring into her wedding that symbolise a lot of things that are very important to her and her fiancà© in their future marriage – she will be having a ‘Jewish-inspired’ wedding!


Heading to ‘Brides The Show’

Having been mentally preparing for my wedding since around the age of five, going to a wedding show was always one of those essential activities that had to be done with my mum. Since getting engaged I had noticed the vast number of shows going on in London with even keener than normal interest.

It was therefore with much excitement that my mum and I went to Brides The Show on October 1st. Waiting to meet mum outside the tube, a constant stream of mums and daughters, sisters, grandmothers were making their way to the design centre in Islington.

Treated like VIPs

When we arrived, VIP tickets in hand I wasn’t sure quite what to expect from this experience. Would it meet my childhood wedding expectation dreams?! The first ten minutes or so were spent navigating our way around the exhibitors, glancing at our maps for those that we had pre planned to visit and taking in the overwhelming amount of dresses, photo booths, wedding cakes, stationery…

Our first stop was to the VIP lounge. We had debated the purchase of the VIP tickets but had decided we would treat ourselves to the promised goods that would be in store. The lounge was busy but with plenty of seating, and a lovely place to have our complimentary glass of bubbles and plan out our hit list of what we needed to see.

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A Jewish-French-Greek-British Animal-Filled Wedding at London Zoo, London, UK

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Jewish wedding London Zoo UK_0077
Before we get started, we need to present today’s bride, Clelia, with a medal for THE most Smashing The Glass-obsessed bride ever to grace these pages. Clelia took an extraordinary amount of inspiration from the blog, including sourcing almost every vendor and having one of our past real brides, Lauren, create her incredible chuppah design.

Helping Jewish brides to plan their weddings is exactly what Smashing The Glass is all about, and Clelia embodies our spirit and ethos and then some! Thanks for making us such a huge part of your journey, Clelia, we are truly honored.

Now back to staring at wedding pretty and getting inspired, which is what we’re all here for. If you’re a fan of adorable monkeys and meerkats (and if you’re not, who even ARE you??) you’ll love today’s into-the-wild venue, London Zoo. We’re SO here for Clelia and George’s animal kingdom selfie competition – what an inspired way to make the most of such a unique venue! 

Clelia and George were full of gratitude for the way their loved ones came together to help make their dream day perfect, and it really shows in the images and Clelia’s moving writeup. We’re all also totally behind Clelia’s words about body positivity and self love, and are so grateful to her for sharing her feelings on this. 

It was also, as we mentioned, a wedding packed with STG Recommended Vendors, including ludicrously talented klezmer band, Shir, wonderful rabbi, Paul Glantz, and ultimate gift-list service, Prezola.

Famed photographer, Laura Babb, and her partner in crime, videographer Peter Wilbourne, did an outstanding job of telling the story of the day through their stunning spread of images and Peter’s cinematic wedding video. We feel like we were there in person! 

It’s finally Clelia’s well-deserved and long-awaited turn to take over the blog for a post. Take it away, Clelia!

Jewish wedding London Zoo UK

Jewish wedding London Zoo UK

Jewish wedding London Zoo UK_0077

Jewish wedding London Zoo UK

Jewish wedding London Zoo UK
How we met

Clelia, the bride: We met in a car park in Northampton when our colleague, Richard, offered to drive us both back to London. Instead of awkward work chat, I asked George every question in the Proust questionnaire. 

When Richard dropped us off at a north London tube station, George asked me out on a date. I introduced him to long haul-holidays, he introduced me to beans on toast and football. I agreed the kids would support Spurs, he agreed the kids would be raised Jewish and proposed under Tower Bridge, a few meters from where he’d first seen me in the office.
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Real Jewish Brides – Amanda: My New Perspective

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Amanda will be marrying Adam on 25th March 2018 in a Jewish wedding at Braxted Park, UK.

THREE FACTS: (1) Amanda & Adam met outside in a bar in Tel Aviv (2) Adam has a ridiculous sense of humor (as described by Amanda!) and we love him all the more for it (3) Amanda & Adam’s wedding is 100% focused on all the people and things that mean the most to them. You can click here to read all Amanda’s planning posts to date.


Eight weddings in 15 months…

It most certainly is wedding season in the Yaffe-Parker household. In the 15 months between our engagement and our wedding, Adam and I will have attended no fewer than 8 weddings and, one manic week in September. We actually attended 3 weddings in 3 different cities, across 2 different countries.

So it really is fortunate that we love attending weddings. There’s something about celebrating the marriage of close friends through song, dance and food that never gets old. In fact, I’d bet that if you watched the highlights of any weddings we’ve been to, you’ll see Adam and I throwing shapes like madmen.

Jewish-wedding
Image: Adam Van Bunnens

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