When two competitive dancers tie the knot, you know it’s going to be something special! Tori, a musical theatre performer, and Shawn, who works in financial planning, met on the ballroom dance team at the University of Utah, and though they now live in NYC, they decided to return to the state where they met for their interfaith Jewish wedding.
Needless to say, their wedding was quite the party – including an epic first dance that the bride and groom spent three months choreographing and perfecting!
As an interfaith couple – Tori is Jewish, while Shawn isn’t – the duo knew they wanted to plan a ceremony with traditional Jewish elements that would be accessible to all of their guests. They found the perfect ketubah from Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Rachelle of The Delicate Brush, centered on a Tree of Life design with Hebrew on one side and English on the other. Tori and Shawn adored having their ketubah at the wedding, and they love it even more now that it’s on display in their home! Don’t miss it in the wonderful images by Courtney Blair Photography.
There’s so much else to say about this joyous wedding – how fun is it that the couple organized a photo scavenger hunt around the venue for guests, with pics of the bride and groom growing up?! – but we’ll let Tori take it from here…
How We Met
Tori, the bride: Shawn and I met in 2013 on the ballroom dance team at the University of Utah during my freshman year of college! We never danced together on team because of our height difference, but we were drawn to each other. We started dating, got engaged in 2019, and now here we are married!
A Utah Wedding
We got married at Louland Falls in Salt Lake City, Utah! Although we live in New York City, we decided to get married in Utah because it’s where we met and has some incredibly beautiful views. We found Louland Falls online, heard great things about it from friends who had also gotten married there, and booked our date!
Wedding Colors
Shawn and I planned our wedding completely on our own and had a day-of coordinator from the venue, Amy Mawhiney! We chose the colors of green, gray, black, and white because we liked them!
Invitations
We designed everything ourselves for invitations and stationery!
Hair + Makeup
I worked with Edlin Mendivil for my hair and makeup and she was fantastic! I brought her some ideas in our initial meeting and she created an absolutely beautiful look on the wedding day!
Dress
I bought my dress from The Bridal Studio in Utah! It was the first dress I tried on in all of the wedding planning in May 2022 and when I put it on at the store, I could feel it was the one. The style is called Sky (which is funny, because those are my husband’s initials) and it had six layers (my favorite number), so it was meant to be.
The dress ticked off all of the boxes of what I was looking for – A – line, not super revealing but a bit sexy with a deep V neck, lace florals, a big skirt, and definitely great to dance in. I felt so beautiful in it!
Accessories + Shoes
I bought my earrings from Amazon, got my veil at the wedding dress shop, and bought my shoes from ASOS!
Bridesmaids
I had two maids of honor (my two older sisters) and three bridesmaids! They wore floor length emerald green dresses of their choice – my only requirement was the color!
Ceremony & Chuppah
Since we are an interfaith couple (I’m Jewish, Shawn isn’t), something I really wanted for the ceremony was for it to be Jewish. We didn’t want it to be crazy traditional, since most of the attendees wouldn’t understand the Hebrew, but we wanted to have some traditional elements.
We worked with Rabbi Sam Spector from Congregation Kol Ami in Salt Lake City, Utah to create a ceremony that had some specific traditions, explained all the ins and outs for those not of the faith, and us both smashing the wedding glass together. I loved getting to do that together!
For the chuppah, we utilized the pergola already on the premises at our venue and placed a cloth over where we would be standing during the ceremony.
Ketubah
Our ketubah was designed by Rachelle of The Delicate Brush! Shawn and I had found a similar design to her Tree of Life online (we loved the idea of having a tree in the middle with Hebrew on one side and English on the other – it felt like it really fit us as a couple and bringing together our two worlds) and when looking further for one with my mom, she actually found Rachelle’s website. We loved it at the wedding and now love having it in our home!
Our music choice
We had a DJ for our wedding, Silver Tie Sounds! We wanted our wedding to be a party, so we worked with Brandon to create a playlist that had great variety in older and newer songs.
Flowers
I worked with Kaitlynn from Sweet Afton Floral for our flowers! I wanted a lot of texture for the flowers, looking for smaller blooms to bring that to life, while having some larger flowers in my bridal bouquet, the bridesmaids’ bouquets, and our centerpieces. I also wanted to add some color to them, so there were blue-ish / green painted flowers and pink flowers as well!
Photographer and videographer
Our photographer was Courtney Blair Photography and she was incredible to work with! When we initially searched for wedding photographers in Utah, hers was one of the first websites to show up and I just loved how she captured weddings through such an artistic eye.
Our day was captured so beautifully because of her! I honestly wish we’d had even more time with her to get more photos. Our videographer was Robert Tanner Cinematography! He was great to work with on the day and we can’t wait to see the video once it’s all finished with editing!
Food and cake
Catering was done by the venue! Our cake was from The Cake Batter by Rosario! She was wonderful to meet with for our initial cake tasting and provided a delicious and beautiful cake on the day of!
Extra Details
Shawn wanted to have a photo scavenger hunt around the venue that had photos of us growing up! It was a great way to get our guests to see the entire venue (there was a small hike) and showed us through the years. We had a beautiful chalk art painting created by Shawn’s cousin of one of our engagement photos!
Shawn and I choreographed our first dance to our song, ‘Can I Have This Dance’ from High School Musical 3! It’s the only song we’ve danced to together in a small performance and when we were thinking about the wedding, we knew we had to choreograph something ourselves to it. We spent about three months putting it together and rehearsing it and everyone absolutely loved it!
Shawn also did a fun mashup dance with his mom for their mother / son dance, since they both didn’t want to do just slow dancing. It started off with that and then launched into a bunch of different popular line dances!
We had lawn games throughout the whole evening, as well as a photo booth.
We wanted our wedding to be a real party, so we had dance music playing the whole evening. We also did an anniversary dance, where the DJ shouted out for couples to stay on the dance floor for however long they’d been together for. For our exit, Shawn had the idea to do bells instead of sparklers or ribbons, which I loved!
Wedding Registry
We used The Knot to keep track of everything for the wedding and set up our honeymoon fund wedding registry through them!
Honeymoon
We’re planning on going to Japan for our honeymoon! We are thinking sometime next year but want to save up some more money for it and can’t wait!
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
Roll with the changes as they’re happening on the day! We had some light rain right before the ceremony and our rabbi was running late so right before the ceremony, there were some moments of stress. I took a deep breath and thought about how everything would work out fine, and it did! The rain only lasted for a few minutes and we were able to have an amazing day.
TORI & SHAWN’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography – Courtney Blair Photography
Ketubah – The Delicate Brush {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Videography – Robert Tanner Cinematography
Venue – Louland Falls
Bride’s dress – The Bridal Studio
Bride’s shoes – ASOS, Amazon
Hair + Makeup – Edlin Mendivil
Flowers – Sweet Afton Floral
DJ – Silver Tie Sounds
Catering – Louland Falls
Cake – The Cake Batter by Rosario
Registry – The Knot
Rabbi – Rabbi Sam Spector
Smash The Glass Pouch – Smashing The Glass Etsy Shop {or join Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club and get one for free!}
If you’re a Jewish or Jew-ish bride-to-be, you’ll want to join Smashing The Glass’ Brides Club. Guided by the world’s number 1 Jewish wedding expert, Karen Cinnamon, Brides Club is the private community for Jewish and Jew-ish brides that removes wedstress and indecision and gives you what you need to plan with confidence during these uncertain times. Join our Brides Club here.
