A Delightful Culture-Filled Wedding...

It is SO, SO exciting for me when a bride who follows my blog shares her wedding with me! That is exactly what Dannii did, and let me tell you, her wedding was AMAZINGGGG! Not only was her wedding amazing though, her story is equally as wonderful. She moved from London, England to Israel three years ago, and thank goodness she did! That is where she happened upon the love of her life, Dotan.

I will let Dannii share the rest:

We had an amazingly fun, hot, quirky, dream-like day, at a venue called 'Grandfather's Well' tucked away in a neighbourhood here in Israel called Petach Tikvah. Our wedding was unconventional for all kinds of good and fun reasons - not just our cultural differences (Israelis don't take 4pm tea, or even tea with milk. gasp!) the language barriers between our families (sign language is an amazingly useful skill!!!), but we also chose to have our event on a sunny Friday afternoon! In Israel, we have Fridays off instead of Sunday, so happily for us, everyone was able to make it. My friends and family flew in from all over the world to be with us which made everything SO much more fun and special. My best bit? It could have been the 3 mtre. long candy table, or our awesome photobooth, dancing the day away with my new husband and all my friends... but obviously it was standing under our beautiful chuppah, looking at Dotan and thinking "This is it. We're here. YAHOOOO!"

Two of my bestest, most creative girlfriends made my red polka-dotted LOVE letters which were an AMAZING surprise!!



My fun little birdcage-style veil was a breakaway from the long,traditional veil Jewish brides usually wear and seeing it all come together in the morning was super exciting! I felt amazing all day. Best of all - my pink shoes with roses on, which I found in Ivory at Faith shoes. Am not an Ivory shoes kinda gal, so obviously I dyed them a vintagey fuschia and didn't show anyone until the day of! I definitely enjoyed having my own little surprises on the day.



Dotan and I come from different countries and while we're both Jewish, we actually have very different traditions going on behind the scenes! Given our different cultural backgrounds, we had to focus on the kind of wedding that would be enjoyable for everyone attending, while staying true to our personalities! Weddings in Israel tend to be ridiculously large - sometimes up to 500/600 people - they're huge evening affairs, which frequently descend into trance parties. Totally not our style! Nor was the fuss of a formal, black-tie, British style wedding going to work for us. As we have Fridays off instead of Sundays here, we picked a Friday morning in May - a month before the intense Israeli heat of summer begins, and after the rainy period. Fingers crossed. 
 My vision was simple - a colourful, fresh, outdoorsy day, with plenty of music, dancing, and sunshine. Somehow, this all magically came true!



Our gorgeous green, natural chuppah was decorated with 150 white lillies, the aisle was lined with boxes of fresh white flowers. Our Rabbi officiated and was great. He spoke thoughtfully in both English and Hebrew so that both our English and Israeli guests could all feel part of the ceremony, and he created the exact atmosphere I had hoped for under our chuppah - which was, ultimately, the point of the day. In line with Ashkenazi Jewish tradition, I circled Dotan seven times, and we stood together facing our guests as seven family members came up to bless us. We drank from two glasses of wine, passed to us by our parents and our new parents-in-law, we had our marriage contract read aloud to us in Aramaic, Dotan stomped on a glass and that was it - the deal was sealed!



'Grandfather's Well' ('Ha Be'er Shel Saba') is a uniquely designed venue blossoming with colourful flora and fauna, fountains and hidden rockeries. The highlight is its' shaded orchard, where our guests were seated for lunch in-between trees drooping with ripe, round oranges. Reception was both circulating finger food and other yummyness served at stands - sushi, fish & chips, chicken wrapped in crispy sweet potato... I wish I could tell you more about the food, but Dotan and I hardly got to sample it! This was followed by a luscious meat lunch, with enormous complementing salads and couscous, Israeli-style.



After starting and dropping a ton of different DIY projects, I took some advice I read on a wedding blog somewhere: You're not going to have time to do everything, don't feel bad!! I stuck with the one project I thought would be a little bit of fun for the guests as they arrived, our orange/leaf placecards. They were a hit, and thankfully they also all got eaten up i.e. no unecessary waste of fruit = result!



My dress was designed by the lovely Noga of 'Zoe Brides', an Israeli dressmaker who used to live in London - she 'got' me from the 1st fitting and as we designed my dress together I trusted her vision 100%.



I was in awe of our jazz/funk/jewish music band who rocked out all afternoon to the delight of young and old alike!




Everyone really got into all the fun stuff like our awesome photobooth and props (Good side story: A lot of people didn't realised we would also get a copy of the photobooth pics, so we're left with a LOT of smooching photos - parents' friends smooching? ew! - and the guys running the booth took about 30 inappropriate photos of themselves... yeah, a really lovely keepsake from the day!!)

Some advice from Dani:

Only take on the DIY projects you know you can finish at least 2 weeks before the wedding. Spend your time beforehand with those who have flown/come in especially for your big day, or even just those close to you - they will get you excited for the wedding, make you grateful for having wonderful friends/family, and those are the parts you'll remember, not the placecards or the favours, but all the people who love you, who moved stuff around in their everyday lives to come witness your wedding. Cherish them!

A big thanks and congratulations to Dannii and Dotan! Brides, PLEASE send over your weddings! I absolutely delights me to see them, and I love sharing them on my blog:)

Wedding Vendors:

Photographer: Yonit Schiller/ Venue: Ha'Beer Shel Saba (Grandfather's Well)/ Caterer: Ta'am V'Tzeva (Taste & Colour)/ Hair Piece: Avigail Adam / Jewelry: Bonbi Forest/ Band: Bekarov Etzlech/ Cupcakes: Sharon Schamroth