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Carys & Baz | Super glam, super stylish destination Jewish wedding ‘in the desert’ at The Parker Palm Springs, California, USA

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How about we all jet off to Palm Springs to revel in the à¼ber glam destination wedding of Londoners, Carys and Baz?

Carys is half Welsh, half American (with Jewish heritage) and Baz is half English, half Persian, and they had the most exquisite wedding full of stylish, creative details and more than a hint of Palm Springs glitz and glamour.

It’s swoon-inducingly pretty… I just love every element — from Carys’s entire outfit — a divine gown by Israeli wedding dress designer, Berta, a sweeping, full length veil, and glittery Louboutins — to the pink ombre wedding cake, the glittery details, the dreamy flowers, and the Mexican mariachi band that played during the cocktail hour. It’s all just so much fun and beautifully stylised.

One thing that might not have gone so much to plan was the breaking of the glass… A member of the cleaning staff had mistaken the bulb and napkin for rubbish, but fortunately the groomsmen spotted the slip-up at the last minute before Carys and Baz had even noticed, and the equipment was saved!

This wedding proves that you don’t necessarily need to hire a destination wedding planner for a big day abroad. Anything is possible if you have a clear vision, great suppliers, and some helpful friends.

Let’s hand over to Carys for the inside story, but before I do, I must just mention Mi Belle who took all the gorgeous imagery on the page today.

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Jessie & Craig | Spectacular book-themed Jewish wedding at the New York Public Library, New York, USA

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I’m not sure you can get much cooler than Jessie and Craig’s New York City nuptials. Their Jewish wedding has it all. The glamour, the style, the chic, and the unique. I almost died when I first clapped eyes on their chuppah design — I’m telling you, it’s one of the best I’ve ever seen, and you’ll have to excuse me for including so many pictures of it.

Prepare to be green eyed folks as I cannot possibly deny that this W-Day may cause some serious wedding envy, namely because of the exquisite fashion that bride Jessie sported on the day itself. Firstly there are her Christian Louboutin clear heels with silver studs, swiftly followed by her divine Reem Acra dress. Honestly Jessie has the most wonderful sartorial taste.

And what with getting married in the iconic New York Public Library, I haven’t even begun to tell you about how well-executed their literary bookish theme is. I’m talking real-life librarians helping guests find their seats, library card catalogue escort cards, and a chuppah made entirely out of antique books! But wait, it gets better. Their chuppah was topped with hundreds of lightbulbs, so when it came to smashing the glass at the end of the ceremony, the groom picked out a light bulb from their chuppah to smash, and swiftly stamped on it. Have you ever?

So if you want to take a page from Jessie and Craig’s wedding (see what I did there?!), now’s the time, as I’m handing over to the beautiful bride for the story behind her big day. All of the fantastic photography is by the wonderfully talented Dave Robbins, and design is by AaB Creates.

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Sarah & Ben | Jewish Muslim Bangladeshi Wedding at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

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I hope you are ready for elegance, sophistication and a touch of magic this Tuesday afternoon. Sarah and Ben’s’s gorgeous wedding embraces four vastly different cultures (Judaism, Islam, USA, Bangladesh) and has more than a touch of class about it.

It’s a vibrant fusion of culture, tradition and romance, and they absolutely nailed it when it came to creating the perfect balance of rituals. They chose to have two wedding ceremonies back to back so that they could incorporate all their separate traditions and still have one unified moment when they could walk out together as husband and wife. They also tried to incorporate little touches that reflected their personalities, such as having their ring “bear” be a giant stuffed panda that Sarah had given to Ben when they first started dating. What a super cute idea!

Aside from all the wonderfully rich cultural details, I love that their wedding cake and petit fours came from the same bakery that had created Ben’s parents’ wedding cake thirty-seven years ago…

It’s also so lovely to see a non-white wedding dress on STG this afternoon. Sarah really is  the most breathtakingly beautiful bride, don’t you think?

Images come from the fabulous Joy Marie, back with a bang to Smashing The Glass with this wedding. As always, she captured every last detail beautifully — I really struggled to chose the images for this post! Joy Marie is a Smashing Supplier, so can always be relied upon for beautiful images. And at the end of the post there’s the wedding film from Matt Giesler too – watch out for a magical sparkler exit followed by a horse-drawn carriage. Oh my!

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Jenna & Jeff | Sunflowers and seafaring Jewish wedding at Annapolis Marriott Waterfront, Maryland, USA

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Whatever you are doing today and however you are feeling, I’m pretty sure that this wedding will make you smile.

For a start, there are sunflowers by the bucketload, possibly the happiest flowers of all time. And if there’s ever a bride and groom that have beamed from ear to ear with infectious smiles for the whole of their wedding day, then it’s Jenna and Jeff.

Jenna and Jeff (or J ² as they call themselves) toyed with the possibility of getting married on the beach, but for various reasons they didn’t, and instead, they brought the beach to their rooftop venue. They had a barefoot-toes-in-the-sand wedding, as beneath the chuppah was a box full of sand with J ² etched into it. I absolutely love the fact that Jeff put one shoe on to smash the glass, and then he and his new wife walked back down the aisle barefoot…except for Jeff’s one shoe!

Regular readers know what a fan I am of personalised details and I am in raptures over today’s chuppah which was hand-crafted by a family friend. The pole structure was inscribed with Jenna and Jeff’s initials, as well as the initials of their parents, and their wedding date, and even an anchor to support their nautical theme. The fabric covering was Jenna’s grandmother’s lace table cloth.

Being a nautical-themed W day, I must also mention that Jenna and Jeff literally tied a knot… a seafaring “fisherman’s love knot”!

So let’s take a look. I’ve got the breathtaking images from Tiltawhirl Imagery, as well as the beautiful wedding film from MM Film Studio at the foot of the post. Jenna and Jeff have written their wedding report together.

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A waterside venue that ticked all our boxes

Jenna, the Bride, and Jeff, the Groom: Although we didn’t have a specific venue or setting in mind for the wedding, we knew two things were important — being married by the water and having our toes in the sand. We initially thought about a destination wedding in Florida (where we met) or at the Outer Banks of North Carolina (where both our families have vacationed for entire lives.)

Ultimately, we decided to get married closer to DC to help accommodate certain guests that were essential to the weekend but would have had trouble travelling. It was also important to us to get married in a state that recognised marriage equality and neither North Carolina, Florida, or Jenna’s home state of Virginia did at the time. As residents of Maryland, and voters of the successful marriage equality bill, we thought that somewhere around Annapolis could work perfectly.

After checking out only one other venue, we selected the Annapolis Marriott. It allowed us to have both the ceremony and reception in the same spot, was right on the water, and allowed our guests to experience a unique city that many had never visited before.

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Danny & Aaron | Extraordinary Gay Jewish Wedding, with the Couple Arriving on a Unicorn, at Paramount Studios, Hollywood, Los Angeles, USA

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OK guys, we are starting the week at TRULY EPIC on the wedding spectrum. Are you ready for what I have in store for you?

The truth is, I actually don’t know where to start with all the love that I have for Danny and Aaron’s immense Jewish wedding. And by the time you lot are through you won’t know what to do with yourselves either.

To begin with these two rode down the aisle to their chuppah atop a tallit-wearing horse dressed as a unicorn (or Jew-nicorn, as they dubbed it!) to the tune of Madonna’s Like a Virgin. What’s more Joss Stone (yes, the Joss Stone) undertook the role of cantor, singing Circle of Life as Danny and Aaron circled each other under the chuppah, and a 16 person gospel choir was on hand for a few of the ceremony songs as well.

When I asked Danny and Aaron what advice they’d give to brides and grooms currently planning their Jewish wedding, they told me, “be unique to your personalities. You can create new Jewish traditions by adding a personal flare to more traditional Jewish rituals, making your wedding unique to you as individuals and as a couple”, and boy did they live up to their own advice!

Danny and Aaron certainly know how to throw a phenomenal party. And throw a party they did. At their reception, John Legend, Ciara, Joss Stone, and Korean rapper, Psy (aka Mr. Gangnam Style!) performed live  keeping guests entertained till well into the small hours. But as much as there was world-class entertainment and flamboyant gestures, Danny and Aaron’s W Day was absolutely all about sharing, loving and being together. An ethos that the pair stood from the very start as they decided not to uphold the traditions of being apart until the ceremony, instead opting to get ready together — sharing every single moment of their wedding day.

Thank you to Danny, Aaron and Maya Myers Photography for letting me give you the most incredible start to your Smashing The Glass week!

Gay Jewish Wedding at Paramount Studios, Hollywood, Los Angeles
Choosing Paramount Studios in Hollywood as our wedding venue

Danny and Aaron, the Grooms: We both work in the music and television industries. We wanted to have our guests experience a Hollywood studio and wanted to create a grand overlaying look of our wedding and so Paramount Studios was a perfect fit for us. We wanted to design the whole room.

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