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A Valentine’s Day Jewish Wedding in the snow, at The Liberty Grand, Toronto, Canada

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I first saw today’s wedding on photographer Assaf Friedman’s Instagram feed. I was totally smitten by Danielle and Aaron’s couple portraits in the snow, and I just knew I had to feature their entire Valentine’s Day affair on Smashing The Glass.

Danielle and Aaron are a super stylish couple with really great taste — I’m particularly loving their accessories! I’d like Danielle’s leather jacket AND her heart-shaped sunnies please. And Aaron looks dapper with his slick tux, patterned socks, and polka dot pocket square (and he wore the coolest pair of personalised Nike Hi-Tops that Danielle surprised him with too).

Aaron and Danielle chose to engrave each other’s wedding bands with a surprise inscription  and decided that neither of them would see this message until after the ceremony when they were finally man and wife. And would you believe it, they had both engraved each other’s rings with the same beautiful message! These two are meant to be together…

Read on for lots more treats, surprises, advice, tips and a really wonderful account of a truly stylish, luxe Jewish wedding.

A Valentine’s Day Jewish Wedding in the snowA Valentine’s Day Jewish Wedding in the snow
How we met

Danielle, the Bride: Aaron and I met online. We had our first date at a small craft beer bar in Toronto. On our third or fourth date, Aaron asked me if I was dating other people. At that point, we decided to be exclusive. Things moved fairly quickly and I think that after a few weeks of dating we knew that one day we would get married.

A Valentine’s Day Jewish Wedding in the snow

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A dress designed by the bride, for a Jewish wedding with movie tunes and musicals, at Agadata, Israel

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There is so much wonderful individuality in this gorgeous Jewish wedding that I really don’t know where to start. Dena’s wedding report is wonderful, and my goodness is she a bride that knows her own mind.. and style!

She designed and made her own dress and says it was  exactly what she had imagined it would look like since she dreamt about it as a teenager… And how gorgeous is that  Belgian lace  veil? It’s a family heirloom bought in 1926 by Dena’s  great grandmother,  and has been worn by her  great grandmother,  grandmother,  mother, aunt and even  sister before her at their weddings. How  very special is that?

Dena  is a make-up artist and CB is an actor, and they are both very involved in community theatre in Jerusalem. To reflect their shared love of theatre, they enlisted  two musician friends to play songs from the Broadway  musicals, including of course the ones they had  both acted in.

Then, during the ceremony they integrated many songs from the movies, my favourite examples being the groom walking down to the Gladiator theme, and both of them walking  into the theme from  Ghostbusters  for their wedding entrance!

And a first on  Smashing The Glass, Dena and CB  hired a live-streamer instead of a regular videographer, so that all their  family and friends (mostly abroad) who were not able to attend the wedding, would still able to take part in the celebration. I wonder if we will start to witness more and more livestreaming now that families are so often spread far and wide all over  the globe?

Here is their story from the perspective of their wonderful photographer and all-round Mr Fabulous, Herschel Gutman.  Herschel is one of my much-loved Smashing Suppliers and is available to shoot weddings in both the  UK and Israel. I highly,  highly recommend him!

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How we  met

Dena, the Bride: I am a make-up artist for theatrical productions and CB is an actor, and we met during his first production in Jerusalem, HMS Pinafore, a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, in 2012.

I was making up another man and he told CB that there was a cute make-up girl that he should get his make-up done by. So he came into the make-up room and sat in my chair and that is how we met. At first we just started talking and then we started hanging out more and eventually decided to date each other. We broke up after a few months when CB decided to study acting in the US, and only got back together less than a year ago, after not being in touch at all for the three years he was gone!

It was just meant to be! Our proposal  story is the sweetest thing, I think, and I loved it so much and it was perfect for us! It happened right after a show that we watched together. The producer of that show called CB up onto the stage and at first I had no idea what was going on. Then he started talking about me and about us and he then called up the cast of the recent RENT production (We started dating again during the recent production of Jerusalem’s RENT. I designed costumes for them and knew the cast well) to help him ask a question. The cast proceeded to perform Seasons Of Love, with CB singing the solo, and right afterward he got off the stage, down on one knee and proposed. By that time of course I knew what was about to happen, and he invited my best friends, my parents, and his family to be there for the proposal! It was absolutely perfect and magical!

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A Lazaro bride for a Hollywood-glam Jewish wedding at a private residence in Los Angeles, California, USA

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Every inch of this Los Angeles wedding is oozing old Hollywood style glamour from the private residence near Malibu where it was held (that only hosts one wedding per year!) to the bride’s incredible one-of-a-kind Lazaro gown.

Positioned on a top of a cliff, with breathtaking views across the beach and the Pacific Ocean, the residence is normally used for filming and photo shoots (I’m talking Rihanna’s cover shoot for Vogue no less) and it’s impossible to imagine a more beautiful or romantic setting for a wedding. The ceremony took place on the beach right by the shore, under a stunning chuppah and one thing’s for sure, if you’re planning a romantic, dreamy beach-y wedding, this post will be taking over your entire Pinterest planning board!

Unusually for a Jewish wedding, the whole event took place on a Saturday, so the ceremony had to take place after sunset. This meant for a an unconventional order of events, with the cocktail reception happening prior to the ceremony. As I always say on Smashing The Glass, it’s your wedding, do it your way — Ali and Duncan certainly did…

Everything about this W Day brings a modern twist to old Hollywood glamour and Marianne Taylor‘s photography captures it all brilliantly — some of these shots could be taken from a glossy magazine! I know you’re going to adore the decor with an abundance of candles everywhere and pretty accents of soft whites, metallics and copper thrown in for good measure…

Without further ado, I give you Ali and Duncan.

Lazaro Bride Los Angeles Jewish WeddingLazaro Bride Los Angeles Jewish Wedding
Choosing to get married in Los Angeles by the ocean…

Ali, the Bride: We chose to get married in a private home in the Huntington Palisades in Santa Monica because what is a California wedding if you are not near the ocean! We chose this house because we felt it was the quintessential Los Angeles wedding venue. We wanted to be married on or over looking the ocean and this house gave us that old Hollywood feel while also being on the water.

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

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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

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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.

Green Building Brooklyn wedding

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Sara & Ben | Gloriously Colourful and Creative Jewish Wedding at Castle Green, Pasadena, California, USA

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Sara is a true Smashing The Glass bride — she did it her way (to paraphrase old blue eyes). For Sara, this meant a traditional Jewish ceremony with some of her and Ben’s own egalitarian touches added in. It meant a beautiful home-made chuppah, created by her mother, that integrated small pieces of her and Ben’s past, and it meant listening to her instincts when she felt weird, alternate pressure to create something quirky and cool, and needed a middle ground. Ben was great at helping her to acknowledge when she needed to relax and let it go, and he did much of the work, making a lot of small details happen.

The end result is a wedding full of personality, astonishing detail straight from the heart, intimacy and gloriously magnificent colour. What could be be more perfect?
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The gorgeous couple first met in Israel whilst Sara was living there and Ben was visiting on holiday. She was taking classes in Jerusalem, and while Ben was in town he wanted to sit in on a class, since he had attended the same school a few years earlier. One morning in January, Sara walked into her usual class and Ben just happened to be sitting next to her regular seat. They struck up a conversation and ended up being chevruta (study partners), but spent most of their study time chatting and getting to know each other. By the end of that day’s class, they had exchanged emails and after Ben returned to the US they started getting to know each other first on email and Gchat, and then long hours over the phone. Several months later, when Sara arrived back in NYC, Ben was waiting for her at the airport with a bouquet of flowers. That was three and a half years ago…. I’ll now hand over to the lovely Sara to tell the story of her and Ben’s wedding day from June earlier this year.

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VENUE + LOCATION

Sara, the Bride: We were married in Pasadena, California, which is a city in Los Angeles county. I’m from the Pasadena area, and although I moved to New York City seven years ago, I still feel very connected to Southern California. My family and many of my dear friends still live there.

Ben is from the Bronx, and likewise, feels very connected to his city, NYC.  Since we both live in NYC, and our lives are anchored there now, I really wanted a wedding that would change the centre of gravity a little. California is such a huge part of who I am, and therefore it felt like an authentic place to officially declare our love. In addition, I wanted my family to feel connected and involved. The fact that I live in NYC often means they can’t be involved in the details of my life, and I wanted to change that.

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