Tali & Mo’s Jewish wedding | Art Deco afternoon tea at The Savoy and an evening soirée in Soho, London

Today’s wedding looks like such a fun filled affair – it’s a twist on the traditional hotel wedding: yes, Tali and Mo chose to have the first part of their wedding at The Savoy, but *no*, there wasn’t a sit-down 3 course dinner, or show band in sight.

Instead (partly due to Tali’s pastry chef background) they went for a splendid afternoon tea theme with everything from flowers arranged on cake stands (genius!) to beautiful home made jam favours, to a splendid art deco theme, sprinkled with some lovely DIY details.

Then, to top it off, for the second part of their wedding, they held an  evening soiree at  Kettner’s  in nearby Soho, complete with props and a rocking dance floor, and celebrated their big day with a larger circle of friends.

So let’s partake in some champagne and a macaron or two and be serenaded to The Savoy followed by a night in Soho. What more could you ask for?  Perhaps for the imagery to be by our very own  Wedding Smasher,  Blake Ezra? Oh yes, I’ve got that for you too… we’re in for a treat!

TWO LONDON VENUES
Tali, the Bride: Our choice of venue came down to a few requirements. First of all we wanted to get married in London. It’s where we met, and we are both great lovers of this beautiful city. We wanted to serve afternoon tea at our reception, and as I am a pastry chef it had to be good so we went with the only London hotel that offered in-house milchik kosher catering — The Savoy. Oh what a hardship! Luckily for us around half of the hotel is Art Deco and as we are massive fans of the Art Deco period it was a no-brainer.

We chose to split the day between two venues, we had the chuppah and afternoon tea at The Savoy, and we then moved on to an evening soiree at Kettner’s in nearby Soho. This allowed us to share our big day with a larger circle of friends.

AFTERNOON TEA WITH  AN ART DECO THEME
We were keen to incorporate our love of Art Deco into the wedding, but we also wanted to be a little bit playful with the afternoon tea theme. My choice of colours was simple – I wanted purples and greens in my flowers, and I wanted my bridesmaids in teal. There was also a monochrome element to some aspects and my engagement ring has a lot to do with this!

Being a pastry chef, a lot of people were surprised to hear that we weren’t going to have a wedding cake too. We decided it was unnecessary seeing as there were already going to be so many delicious cakes and treats at the afternoon tea.

INVITATION DESIGN
We asked our invitation designers to work around the Art Deco theme. We were very pleased with the result, and used the design throughout our stationary.

DOING MY OWN MAKE UP
In a past career I was a make-up artist. I knew from the start that I wouldn’t be comfortable having my make-up done by someone else so I did my own makeup. I did however have someone to do the makeup for my bridesmaids and my mum.

I found a lovely hairdresser Michael Franks, who a friend suggested. He did a great job with all my maids who all had different ‘dos, as well as myself and my mum.

A WHITE DRESS WITH A SPLASH OF BLACK
I chose a Caroline Castigliano gown. It was far more classic than what I had in mind. But when I tried it on with the velvet black sash, I knew it was just right.

BLACK BALLET PUMPS
We are both very similar in height so wearing any kind of heel would have made me taller than Mo in the photos. So I wore flats. I was more than happy about this. I was very comfortable all day!

As my dress was full length, and I had bits of black throughout the theme, I decided on a pair of black ballet pumps, which I now often wear, reminding me of our big day every time I wear them.

HOME-MADE HAIR ACCESSORIES
I spent a long time deliberating on what to have in my hair. I knew I wanted to have my hair down and a tiara wasn’t my thing but I just couldn’t find what I was looking for. In the end, I made my hair accessory, and the ones my bridesmaids wore, myself. I made them using silver wire with beads in coordinating colours. Mine featured crystal, white and black beads. My bridesmaids had added splashes of colour

THE MEN
The mens’ suits were all hired from Moss Bros. I was lucky that one of my bridesmaids was working there at the time so we managed to get a discount and have a professional on hand to help the boys tie their cravats.  The groom, groomsmen and both dads wore morning suits with cream waist coats. All except Mo wore teal cravats, Mo’s was cream.

BRIDESMAIDS
My bridesmaids colours were decided very early on. I spent a long time finding the right dress that would suit all of them. My task was a little tricky as one of the girls was living in Hong Kong at the time, but I still managed to find the right dress! I had my maid of honour in a longer length dress of the same style to subtly let her stand out from the rest.

CEREMONY
We had a fairly straightforward liberal ceremony.  Sadly 4 months before the wedding my uncle passed away. We used his Kiddish cup under the chuppah, which was a very nice sentimental touch. Our Rabbi, Neil Janes, had really taken the time to get to know us personally and it showed in his wonderful sermon. That was our favourite part of the ceremony.

CHUPPAH
We both agreed that we wanted our chuppah to be hand held and for our friends to be our pole holders. We bought ourselves the biggest tallit we could find and borrowed the poles from friends who had recently made some for their wedding just a few months before ours.

MUSIC FOR THE CEREMONY
The song choice for the ceremony was an easy one for us. Mo walked into the ceremony to a string rendition of his favourite song ‘Here comes your man’ by Pixies. This is Mo’s favourite band and the song was rather appropriate.

I walked in to ‘Girl from Mars’ by Ash. It is my favourite song and our mutual interest in Ash is what brought us together in the first place.

FLOWERS
I knew I wanted my flowers to be a little unusual, and I knew I wanted purples and greens. We used a florist on recommendation – Flowers by Alina – and I told Alina what colours I favoured and showed her a few examples of what I had in mind. Before we found Alina, I had a little trouble conveying to other florists what I was looking for. My idea to have flowers arranged on cake stands was fully understood by Alina, she delivered.

There was a mix of hydrangeas, wild flowers and green berries and leaves. I supplied Alina with black velvet ribbon to wrap around the bouquets to match the sash on my dress.

FAVOURS
We wanted to give a little something to our guests that tied in with the theme. We decided on placing a small jar of jam at each guests seat for the afternoon tea with a small hand written tag attached.

OUR EXCELLENT PHOTOGRAPHER
We met Blake Ezra through a mutual friend and knew after one look at his previous work that he was the photographer for us! He understood what we were doing and was just as enthusiastic and excited about our wedding day as we were. Blake’s reportage style mixed in with his great sense of aesthetics meant we knew we would get some excellent shots of our big day.

ENTERTAINMENT
As we chose to split the day between two venues it allowed us bring in a mix of entertainment. For the chuppah and afternoon tea we found an excellent string quartet, Status Cymbal, that played a mix of classical and modern renditions. They even adapted our ceremony songs to strings.

For the evening’s entertainment at Kettner’s. Mo created a playlist of all our favourite songs and just hooked up our iPod to a sound system the venue had organised for us.


TALI + MO’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photographer —  Blake Ezra Photography
Venue — The Savoy  and  Kettner’s
Bride’s Dress —  Caroline Castigliano
Hair —  Michael Franks
Groom’s attire —  Moss Bros
Entertainment —  Status Cymbal
Florals —  Flowers by Alina

Wow, what a brilliant wedding! Blake Ezra has a brilliant knack for capturing emotions and this set of images is certainly testament to that. I’m particularly loving those Soho street shots.

Thank you to the awesome Tali and Mo for sharing your wonderfully authentic and truly ‘Smashing’ wedding day with Smashing The Glass – we love it!

KAREN  XXX