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Sara & Elliot | Scottish Castle Jewish Wedding, Dundas Castle, Edinburgh

12/08/2013 by Karen

In today’s castle weekend wedding we have bagpipe players, custom made Gina shoes, a seriously breathtaking castle venue, and the best favours / name plates I have ever seen: personalised tubes of chocolate Rolos with each guests’ name on them. I’d have loved one of those!

For this wedding, I’m thrilled to welcome photographer extraodinaire, Claudine Hartzel, to Smashing The Glass whose wonderful images capture the occasion perfectly. Happy Monday all, I know you’re going to enjoy this one.

VENUE
Sara, the Bride: We didn’t want a typical “Jewish Wedding” as we both aren’t religious. We wanted something different and also wanted to try and make a weekend of it. We didn’t wanted to get married in London and had gone to Edinburgh for Hogmanay in 2009 and loved it there. I started to research castles and stately homes to get married in in Scotland, Ireland, France and Italy.
Dundas Castle in Edinburgh was the first venue that appeared in my search and nothing else came close to it. When we visited it, we both fell in love with the Castle and not just because everyone who worked there was incredible and couldn’t do enough to help, which made organising a wedding quite far from where you live hardly stressful at all!

CEREMONY Our Rabbi had us facing the guests during the whole ceremony which was lovely albeit a bit scary! We didn’t know he was going to do this and had he suggested this beforehand, I probably would have said no, but in the end it was a very special touch. We wanted our wedding to be really modern and not be long and bore anyone but also have some traditional touches like me walking around Elliot seven times (with the giggles!).

For me, my favourite part of the ceremony was the badeken as it was so personal and emotional. Also our Rabbi was amazing with his brilliant sense of humour, his personality and the most incredible voice you have ever heard. I don’t think there was a dry eye whilst he sang.

Kiruna & Gareth | Wedstock Festival Theme Jewish Wedding at Holton Lee, Poole

02/07/2013 by Karen

This is such an awesome wedding on so many levels. First of all, Kiruna’s amazing couture wedding dress is made almost entirely from paper! (mostly with the pages of an old copy of Alice in Wonderland together with that of an erotic novel). Secondly with an actress and a comedian marrying each other the relaxed feeling and originality that shine through this ‘wedstock’ wedding is just fabulous.

Kiruna Stamell, originally from Australia, and Gareth’s paths had crossed a couple of times over the years but as is so often the case, the timing wasn’t right. When a mutual friend re-introduced them in 2011, everything felt like it was meant to be and Gareth proposed to Kiruna after just 4 months.

They meticulously organised a weekend Wedstock wedding that took place in September 2012 complete with a fish ‘n’ chips van, camping, tipis, chill-out tents, a fabulous cake competition, and lots of crafty and DIY details all made by the very talented Kiruna herself!

Kiruna, the Bride: We wanted a relaxed, bohemian party and Holton Lee, our chosen venue, delivered our festival dreams and then some! Our wedding lasted an entire weekend with guests camping onsite with us. Holton Lee is actually a not-for-profit charity so you’ve got these beautiful camping fields and wonderful facilities but also disability-friendly buildings right next door which was essential as we were hosting several disabled guests who needed accessibility.

THE VENUE + THEME

I wanted a pretty picnic lovely camping theme inspired by my experiences at English music festivals but with more of a civilised touch. I was amazed at how much discrimination I came across when I first started looking for a disability-friendly venue but Honeybells who supplied our romantic and chill-out tents came to the rescue with the suggestion of the beautiful Holton Lee and it ticked all our boxes.

We both wanted a ‘picnic festival’ even ‘Woodstock’ feel. We wanted to create a social / non-wedding / relaxing afternoon during daylight on the Saturday and then we would have this shift as the Sabbath went out at sunset on Saturday evening and it turned into the wedding element of the weekend.

The venue was a godsend and it was wonderful to know that the money we spent was going into their not for profit ethos.

DIY CREATIVITY

Paper was a massive part of my theme which is why most of my wedding dress was made from paper.

I love the nostalgic element of brown paper packaging and string and as well as collecting lots of it I asked my local cafe to save the coca cola bottles to be my vases on the table and saved loads of money by making all the flowers myself out of paper.

The brown paper was the starting point and I then started collecting recycled scraps of paper in different colours to make festival bunting, and other artefacts in the months leading up to the wedding. The table centres were newspaper-covered K’s and G’s that I also made.

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Karen & Jeremy | London Jewish Wedding at the Wallace Collection Art Gallery, London, UK

19/06/2013 by Karen

As the founder of Smashing The Glass it’s only right that I share my own wedding day, and all the creative ideas that were behind it, with you.

I love so many of the centuries-old Jewish traditions such as the hora, the beautiful songs, the chuppah, the smashing of the glass etc. but what my now-husband and I very much didn’t want was a party that followed the typical London Jewish-wedding-by-numbers formula… ie. fancy hotel, too many guests, the same kosher caterer that everyone uses, the same band etc…..

VENUE

I had always dreamt of an outdoor summer wedding and that’s one of the reasons why I love Israeli weddings – the chuppah under the stars, the all-night party vibe, the abundance of food and having the ceremony and party all in one venue. But when it came to organising our wedding it meant the world to us to have Jeremy’s 97 year old grandmother there and as she is unable to travel, a wedding abroad with guaranteed summer weather was out of the question.

London, our home city, was our next choice and the criteria for a venue was to have a feel of being in the outdoors without worrying about the unpredictable British weather spoiling the party, and a stylish, intimate venue, preferably with an arty slant to reflect our creative sides.
The Wallace Collection, once a family home, and now a stunning art collection, in the heart of the West End was our perfect choice. The stunning Courtyard flooded with natural light and dotted with trees and sculptures felt utterly al fresco, yet protected us from the elements with a phenomenal glass roof. Breathtaking and intimate at the same time, it ticked all the right boxes.

We wanted to have both the chuppah ceremony and the dinner dancing in the Courtyard to really feel as if the majority of the wedding was outdoors. We also loved the idea of the changing daylight from the hopefully sunny (and it was!) afternoon to the starry night sky. In between the ceremony and dinner our guests were able to look around all the artwork on the first floor of the house where all the galleries were open to our guests to meander round as they chatted, imbibed and grazed on Zafferano‘s (our chosen caterers) delicious canapà©s.

In terms of getting ready and spending our first night as a married couple, we stayed at the gorgeous Home House in Portman Square just a few minutes walk from the Wallace Collection.