Planning a Traditional Jewish Wedding in Florida

Congratulations to Liora and Ben for tying the knot! Before embarking on their big July wedding weekend in Florida, Liora wrote this great pre-wedding post about what it’s like to plan a traditional Jewish wedding. Plus, she’s got a killer DIY wedding Welcome Bags that you’re going to wish you’d thought of…

I met Ben through my childhood friend at the end of sophomore year at university. I thought he was cute and liked that he was very tall (6 foot 5 inches) because I am tall myself (5 foot 8 inches) and it’s hard to find someone who I can stand next to and still wear high heels. We dated through college, both got jobs in NYC, and moved after graduation.

The night we got engaged, Ben made dinner Monday night as I had class till 8pm. He kept texting when I would be home but I didn’t think anything of it as he usually made dinner when I had late classes. I got home exhausted and starving and he had me sit down and brought the food. During dinner he told me a story how his dad came over to drop something and left a bottle of champagne that he had gotten from a client that he didn’t want. I just said “cool” and said we should use it for our Chanukah party which was planned for the next week. I continued to eat…but then he brought the bottle of champagne and said ‘so is this a good one?’

I was so exhausted I just said ‘I don’t think so let’s keep it for Chanukah’ he then went back to the kitchen and came back and said ‘let’s drink it now’ and handed my a champagne glass… I was surprised because we had never had champagne glasses in the house….then I looked down and saw a ring in the glass! He asked me to marry him, took out the ring, and put it on my finger and then opened the champagne for us to drink. We spent the night drinking the champagne and calling friends and family — it was perfect.

In regards to our DIY projects, my mom and I made our welcome bags. We are having the wedding in Boca Raton, FL (my hometown) and, as Ben’s family and a lot of my family aren’t from Florida, we planned a whole weekend of activities at the hotel we are having the wedding. We put together welcome bags with supplies for the guests to use at the beach. That includes beach bag, towels, sunscreen, sunglasses, reusable water bottles, candy and trail mix. My amazing friend is the designer for a New York based stationery and wedding paper company (suitepaperie.com) and we came up with cute tags for each item..

There are many special Jewish traditions that we will be having on the wedding day. In many Jewish orthodox weddings there is a cocktail hour before the ceremony in which the bride is in one room and the groom in another. The bride and woman in both families sit on special chairs and guests come to greet them and the bride gives guests blessings if they are Ill or in need of help. The groom is in another room with the rabbi and the men singing the Jewish marriage contract (ketubah) and celebrating this special day. A buffet of food is available for guests to enjoy.

Right before the ceremony, groom is marched in with singing to where the bride is and he comes and covers the bride with a veil (this is a biblical custom from when Jacob married the wrong sister (Leya) when he really wanted to marry Rachel. By putting the veil over the bride, the groom says: “This is my bride” and then he is danced away with music and the guests head to the ceremony.

During the ceremony I want to use WeddingMix to capture all the family walking down the aisle and then myself circling Ben seven times… This creates a home around us. Also I want to capture Ben putting on my ring and the blessing he makes when doing so. Also I want to capture Ben breaking the glass and lifting my veil.