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An Ava Rose Hamilton Bride for a Rustic Country House Jewish Wedding at Merrydale Manor, Manchester, UK

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We’re in love with London couple Lillie and Conor’s rustic country house Jewish wedding! The pair wanted to wed in countryside splendor near the bride’s hometown of Manchester, and did Merrydale Manor ever fit the bill!

The couple decided to keep their décor simple, playing up the rustic greenery of their surroundings, and we especially adore what they did with their chuppah – check it out in the photos by Rob Clayton.

When it came to music, Lillie and Conor knew they needed a knock out band with lots of Jewish wedding experience. In the end, they settled on Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Ambassador Band, and they couldn’t be more thrilled with the choice they made. From the chuppah, where Yair from the band sang Lillie and Conor down the aisle with melodious Israeli classics, to the party, where Ambassador Band’s 9-piece kept the dance floor packed, the music set the tone of the day so perfectly.

We were also delighted to hear that Lillie and Conor decided to set up their wedding gift list with Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor The Wedding Shop – but we’ll leave it to the bride herself to share more about that, and all the rest of the details of this fabulous day…

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How we Met

Lillie, the bride: We met back in the summer of 2012 where we were both spending the season working at a summer camp in California, but it wasn’t until we both decided to return to the same summer camp the following year that we got together! I am a marketing manager for a charity and Conor is a food taster for Tesco working in their insight team. Continue ReadingContinue Reading

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

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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

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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

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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

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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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