A Jewish Wedding and a Cruise Down the Thames

Becky is a really, really beau­ti­ful bride. Becky’s shared her story of the day — and there are some bril­liant tips in there for all you brides– and grooms-to-be. So I’ll hand over to Becky to tell you about the day, and to reportage wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Mark Carey to share the won­der­ful pictures.

Enjoy. xx

“My wed­ding dress was a Dizzie Lizzie, style — BIG! Ivory, full skirt with flower detail and train. From The Wed­ding Dress Shop, Colch­ester. It was the first dress I tried on.

Shoes — sim­ple lace kit­ten heel from Deben­hams, it was impor­tant to me that I was comfy! Jew­ellery a present from the Groom — beau­ti­ful bracelet from Swarovski, invis­i­ble chain neck­lace with a sin­gle drop dia­mante — bought on E-bay

We both love Lon­don. My favorite view in the world is Tower Bridge from any angle. We wanted a wed­ding that rep­re­sented every­thing we love about our city and some­thing sophis­ti­cated and inter­est­ing, dif­fer­ent from all the other wed­dings we’ve been to. We are both Jew­ish and whilst not espe­cially obser­vant, our cul­ture, our her­itage, our shared val­ues and his­tory is impor­tant to us and so we decided to marry in a synagogue.

I had a lace bolero made at The Wed­ding Dress Shop in Colch­ester, to cover my chest and shoul­ders dur­ing the reli­gious wed­ding cer­e­mony. I wanted to keep this tra­di­tional, due to the age of the Syn­a­gogue (Bevis Marks is the old­est in Britain) and it’s Ortho­dox prac­tice. My bolero reminded me of Grace Kelly, with a high neck line. I had a veil with a cream trim, long enough to touch the floor. Also from The Wed­ding Dress Shop.

Joel wore a black Hugo Boss Suit, with a beau­ti­ful oys­ter Duchamp shirt, bur­gundy tie, and red patent shoes from Jef­frey West

I had vis­ited Bevis Marks for a jew­ish hol­i­day and fell in love with it. It’s a spir­i­tual place of great his­tory. Tony Blair has once vis­ited! We were mar­ried at Bevis Marks at 2.45pm in around 30 degrees of heat. It was the hottest day of the year so far and I was wear­ing the equiv­a­lent of a duvet.….whilst I LOVED my dress on reflec­tion a sum­mer wed­ding needs a sum­mer dress.…

The Ortho­dox Jew­ish wed­ding cer­e­mony is dif­fer­ent from some other reli­gions, since the bride is already mar­ried before she’s arrived! Joel had signed the “Ketubah”, the reli­gious mar­riage con­tract (legally bind­ing) before I entered. The Ketubah is his com­mitt­ment to me — he agrees to feed, clothe, pro­vide for and respect me, in the pres­ence of the Rabbi and the con­gre­ga­tion. This becomes my property.

The ser­vice was fab­u­lous once I arrived too, as Joel pre­sented me with a ring (an unbro­ken band to rep­re­sent eter­nity), Joel smashed the glass (rep­re­sent­ing the fragility of life and to keep Jerusalem in our minds) and we con­tem­plated our lives together beneath the Torah (Old Testament).

After the wed­ding ser­vice Joel and I sneaked off for 10 min­utes to have a few pho­tos with our pho­tog­ra­pher Mark Carey. We chose Mark to doc­u­ment our wed­ding on rec­om­men­da­tion — his reportage and artis­tic style com­ple­mented our vision for the day and we were not dis­ap­pointed! The guests hopped on to a wait­ing coach and then on to a boat from St Katharine’s Dock, The Eliz­a­bethan, a pad­dle steamer. We took a leisurely cruise down the Thames.

Cham­pagne was so wel­come by this point! The cruise was a great addi­tion to the day, those from out of town got to see some of the most beau­ti­ful parts of the city from a spa­cious and inter­est­ing boat (lots of place to go — loads of indoor and out­door space).

We went under Tower Bridge, past Tower of Lon­don, the May­ors build­ing, The Wheel, Big Ben chimed 6.00pm as we sailed past, MI5 (is it MI5 or 6?!) Build­ing, and then we docked at the pri­vate dock at West­min­ster Boat­ing Base in Pimlico.

We had some deli­cious canapes and (more) cham­pagne and Pimms in the gar­dens. We had organ­ised a car­i­ca­tur­ist to draw car­toons of the guests at this point, which I think was a good idea as peo­ple started to need an activity.

Our most mem­o­rable moment of the day was look­ing out across the Thames from the boat, and lis­ten­ing to the chimes of Big Ben at 6pm. We were mar­ried, we’d done it and it was HOT WEATHER! That was a truly mag­i­cal moment.

At 7.30pm we had a fab­u­lous 3 course din­ner, accom­pa­nied by a relax­ing jazz band in the beau­ti­ful func­tion rooms at the Boat­ing Base (I strongly rec­om­mend back­ground music dur­ing din­ner). This room has almost panoramic views of the Thames, with deck­ing and benches all around — peo­ple relaxed out­side with their wine glasses through­out the courses.

Then the speeches.…a few tears (me) a few bad jokes (the Best Men), a few embar­raass­ing sto­ries (The Best Men, my Mum, Joel…) and lots of laugh­ter. We then enjoyed the DJ and drinks around the venue, look­ing out across Bat­tersea Power Sta­tion and the MI5 Build­ing towards Vaux­hall. It was a balmy evening, with the water all around, gorgeous!

The evening ended some­where in the morn­ing with MORE drinks in the amaz­ing Court­yard at the Crowne Plaza Buck­ing­ham Gate.

The one piece of wed­ding advice I’d give is to RELAX! I could kick myself for wor­ry­ing so much. What will be will be, and with all your plan­ning, noth­ing can really go that wrong! No one else notices anyway.

Becky and Joel’s rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers

Wed­ding venue – Bevis Marks (Jew­ish Wed­dings don’t get any better)

Pho­tog­ra­phy – Mark Carey (we would get divorced and re-married just for more of his amaz­ing pics!)

Thames Lux­ury Char­ters for the boat hire (amaz­ing, pro­fes­sional, efficient)

West­min­ster Boat­ing Base for the recep­tion (Pete Selby is a fine gen­tle­man, very flex­i­ble and rea­son­ably priced for dry hire or catered events

Toby Levy Cater­ing (Kosher cater­ing — Bev­er­ley Bersch at Toby Levy also made our wed­ding cake)

Just Minia­tures — for indi­vid­ual sin­gle malt whisky favours with a bril­liant car­i­ca­ture of us on the bot­tle! Perfect.

Lenora M — for engraved wooden hand fan wed­ding favours — all excel­lent quality.

DJ – pro­vided by West­min­ster Boat­ing Base as part of the hire charge

Trans­port — Thames Lux­ury Char­ters (the best on the Thames)

Sta­tion­ary — Daniel Clark www.transformgraphics.co.uk (Dan and I have been friends 12 years and his work just gets bet­ter and better)

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Thank you to Becky and Joel — for a won­der­ful wed­ding report and for being on Eng­lish Wed­ding Blog — and to reportage wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher Mark Carey for shar­ing his fab­u­lous images with us today.