Happy Birthday, happy, happy Birthday, happy Birthday, happy, happy day! It’s Yenta Alison’s birthday, so let’s all wish her the happiest birthday ever 🙂
And to all other June 7th birthdays, happy birthday to you as well. If you give me a call, I’ll sing you the birthday song ;).
Alison is not only my beautiful partner here at The Yentas, she is also an actress, writer, teacher, loving wife, and mommy to the cutest dog on the planet! I am so honored to not only know Alison, but be able to call her a friend! On behalf of our readers and friends, I wish you a very happy birthday and Yentastic year ahead!!
Birthday weeks are special! In honor of a fun and important week devoted to Alison, we are offering a Birthday Week Special to vendors who are interested in becoming members of our directory! Contact us at info@theweddingyentas.com to find out more about our special rates and join the Birthday Week party!
Happy Friday! Today we are declaring one of our favorite things and offering you a chance to win a gorgeous prize! Read on for the scoop!
Halfway through the wedding planning process, you’re being showered — no, hurricaned! — with gifts. Between showers and bachelorette parties, you are most likely watching your kitchen cabinets explode with new cooking toys and baking gadgets. It’s all very exciting to watch your registry become complete, but this is usually all thanks to the wonderful woman or two or three who host a bridal shower in your honor!
One of the most difficult decisions you’ll make during your wedding planning process is selecting a token of appreciation to give to your shower hostess or hostesses. Most likely, you’ll want to avoid cliche gifts or super expensive ideas, but what woman doesn’t love a great piece of stylish jewelry?
Look no further my gift-giving goddesses!! We have found a new favorite in the land of Independent Jewelry Artists!
Loella Medina is a jewelry designer from New York City who has caught our eye with her detailed pieces that showcase quality stones and current trends. We love Loella’s pieces for their color and sparkle, which are clearly inspired by her Caribbean and Latin American culture; you can almost hear a soulful party emerging from the roots of her designs. Her jewelry has urban and exotic undertones that add pizazz to any occasion, whether festive or formal, making them good choices for any jewelry collector.
These earrings feature amazingly beautiful large eye clean Smoky Quartz faceted heart briolettes topped by a cluster of beautiful Ruby stones in pink and hot pink shades, all wrapped in 24k vermeil headpins and suspended from ornate vermeil ear posts.
Jacklyn Necklace: Beautiful Carnelian gemstones have been wire wrapped to create this dainty necklace. Small Carnelian rondelles were wire wrapped into tiny 14k gold filled chains and the closure is also a part of the pendant (or it can be used with the “eye/hook” clasp towards the back of the neck). All the metal is 14k gold filled.
These earrings feature superb quality, AAA, diamond-shaped Amethyst stones which have been delicately hand wrapped using 18k solid gold wire. The stones have been decorated with a lush cluster of rich orangey yellow colored, faceted AAA quality Madeira Citrine, Hessonite Garnet and Sapphires, each poised on handcrafted 18k solid gold headpins.
This totally awesome bracelet features high quality, eye clean and faceted Citrine briolettes wrapped to decadent lush cluster of gorgeous Tourmalines in shades of pink, yellow, orange, blue and green! There are also 'Watermelon Tourmaline' slices, beautiful stones showing off green and pink Tourmaline. Each tiny Tourmaline briolette on tiny 24k vermeil headpins is hand wrapped. This is a statement bracelet packed full of sparkle! All of the stones have beautiful faceting that makes them sparkle from all angles!
We love the idea of gifting a special piece of Loella Medina‘s jewelry to someone special in your life. Why not share the joy of your special time with a piece of jewelry that looks just as happy as you feel?! These one-of-a-kind pieces of wearable art show you put thought and stylish care into your gift during one of the blissful times of your life, thus sharing the good cheer. Beauty and good moods are contagious, ya know! Not contagious like, you need Bubbie’s matzot ball soup; the kind of contagious that plasters a big, bride-y smile on your face and those around you can’t help smiling with you!
Whether you’re shopping for yourself or great gift ideas for a shower hostess, bridal party, ketubah signer, or cantor, you must visit Loella Medina‘s collection!
We love Loella Medina’s jewelry so much, we are giving away a pair of earrings to a very lucky winner! Enter to win by leaving a comment below, telling us who in your life would love to receive some Loella Medina sparkles! The winner will be notified and announced on Monday! Sweepstakes entries will be accepted through 11:59 on Sunday night! Good luck!!
We’re excited to introduce to you a beautiful and b’shert story! Rebecca and Matthew had traveled on very close paths their whole lives. Once they met, they realized just how many friends they had in common from the past, and that they had shared many of the same childhood experiences while growing up in South Florida. They finally met on the first day of law school. First year law students are assigned a schedule and given a “section” to belong to, which is a group of about 25 people that you have every class with for your entire first year. As fate would have it, Rebecca and Matthew were both randomly assigned to Section 1, which was really quite coincidental because there were not many students from Florida at law school, let alone from FSU!
As law school went on, all of Section 1 became close friends. In fact the other sections often complained that Section 1 only socialized with each other. Matthew and Rebecca became close friends with each other and the rest of the section as the year went on. During the year, Rebecca had made plans to study abroad in Granada, Spain with two other classmates, and at the last minute, Matthew decided to join in the fun and go on the trip as well.
As Matthew and Rebecca spent more time together in Spain, they realized that there was an undeniable connection between them. In fact, Matthew later confessed that he’d had a crush on Rebecca for a while, and she confessed that she’d thought the same about him. The first weekend in Spain, the group of students traveled to Morocco. Matthew and Rebecca like to joke that their first date was to Africa, which is not a claim that many couples can make! The next weekend they went on a romantic getaway to Rome, just the two of them. They had a wonderful time exploring the city and stayed at a cute bed and breakfast that they loved. The following weekend they went to the South of Spain with a group of friends and rented a beach house where they had a great time! As their time in Spain came to a close, Matthew and Rebecca were sad to leave their fun European haven, but excited for what the future held for them back in the States.
So from law school to Spain to Morocco to a wedding, we wish a hearty mazel tov to Rebecca and Matthew!
You and your groom got through the ceremony. The glass is broken. You spent time alone. The guests are enjoying cocktails. It’s time for your grand entrance. You’ll probably show off your first dance. And most likely, right after, you and of your closest family and friends will gallop onto the dance floor and the Jewish instinct kicks in “Fiddler On The Roof”-style: you and your wedding guests grapevine your way into a festive hora dance.
Dance has always been a part of the cultural element of Judaism, usually incorporated into celebratory occasions as early as Exodus 15:20, which was when Miriam led the women in rhythmic dances after the crossing of the Sea of Reeds from Egyptian slavery to freedom. Today, dance also inspires spiritual expression.
So, it’s no wonder that the hora is the norm-a at Jewish weddings. It’s a time to celebrate and honor traditions!
The hora, also sometimes spelled, horah, is danced in 6 beats, usually to the song “Hava Nagila”:
Form a circle with your guests and hold hands
Step out on your left foot
Put your right foot behind your left
Step out on your left foot again
Kick your right foot out
Kick your left foot out
Repeat until you’re pooped!
Have you ever mushed up a bunch of Yiddish-sounding words and faked the lyrics, because, really, you have NO idea what the words are? Admit it, you have no idea. Thanks to the Yentas, now, you can dance and sing the right words:
Hava nagila (Let’s rejoice)
Hava nagila (Let’s rejoice)
Hava nagila v’nismecha (Let’s rejoice and be happy)
Hava neranenah (Let’s sing)
Hava neranenah (Let’s sing)
Hava neranenah v’nismecha (Let’s sing and be happy)
Uru, uru achim! (Awake, awake, brothers!)
Uru achim b’lev sameach (Awake brothers with a happy heart)
Uru achim, uru achim! (Awake, brothers, awake, brothers!)
B’lev sameach (With a happy heart)
Somewhere during the dance, your cousins or the fathers or even some shnockered groomsmen will grab some chairs, lift you up, and toss you around while you hold on for dear life. This makes for some fabulous photos! Word to the wise: Have your venue set aside two arm chairs near the dance floor just for this portion of the evening. Emphasis on the ARM chairs. You’ll want something to grab on to. Trust us!!
A mother or an aunt will probably toss a napkin at you. This is not because you have chicken skewer sauce on your face left over from cocktail hour. This is because there’s an Orthodox rule that women and men, including the bride and groom, cannot touch, therefore, dance together. When the bride and groom hold on to each end of the napkin, they can “dance” together up in the chairs without touching. Conservative and Reform couples usually incorporate this tradition in their hora dances due to its festive nature, even if they’re not having an Orthodox wedding.
And now we leave you with a video of a hora at a wedding by Perspective Video. It’s such a fun way to get the party started!
These two lovebirds come in the form of Badgers. University of Wisconsin-Madison Badgers! Sandy and Chris met in college and they continued dating through grad school, getting PhDs in physiology/neuroscience from UW-Madison in 2008. These smart cookies moved to San Diego to pursue their post-doctoral projects at UCSD and the Salk Institute. In 2009, after 8.5 years of dating, Chris proposed and obviously Sandy said “yes” or these two cuties wouldn’t be featured on today’s blog!
We love that Chris and Sandy incorporated special people from their lives into the wedding ceremony. Chris’s fraternity brother became certified as a deputy marriage commissioner for a day (this is allowed in California to perform civil marriages). They also included a pre-wedding ceremony ketubah signing together with the kiddushin lead by Sandy’s father.
Personal touches were all over Chris and Sandy’s wedding and that just makes us kvell. They home-built their own huppah out of bamboo pole, to symbolize building a home and a life together. They also used a family wedding tallit for the canopy. Also, since Chris and Sandy are foodies who love preparing elaborate meals, eating and drinking, they custom designed the entire wedding menu to reflect their favorite flavors. They even served fried cheese curds and Hook’s aged cheddar as appetizers as a tip of the hat to their Wisconsin roots. Instead of table numbers, they used names of favorite vineyards in Santa Barbara County, placed on top of pomegranates to fit their color scheme and seasonality. They created a table display of family wedding photos from great grandparents, grandparents and parents. Sandy and Chris’s hobbies and family heritages were clearly included in the wedding details, which is why we’re so excited to feature their wedding.
