Author Archives: Alison

Yenta-quette: Ask Desiree, Edition 1

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Alison in From the Expert, Inside Scoop, Planning, Yenta-quette

The Wedding Yentas is so excited to introduce Yenta-quette, a new installation of questions and answers about wedding etiquette from a Los Angeles foodie, social butterfly, and former Real Weddings bride, Desiree Jacobs. Be on the lookout for Desiree’s column that will share real answers to real questions about the why and how of wedding planning!

Desiree, more than anything, enjoys coming home from work and putting on pajamas. She loves to eat Mexican food and sushi (not together) and couldn’t live without chocolate. She’s got a penchant for reality tv and 90s music. She lives with her husband Richard and the cutest dog that ever lived, Breaker. She wears a size 7 shoe and would love the entire current Sam Edelman collection and black Louboutains. Feel free to send them her way! Oh and Kate Spade bags are also appreciated. If you love Yenta-quette and you’re like, “I NEED MORE OF THAT” visit her blog at www.bundtsofsteelblog.com.

**************************

Are you required to ask a friend to be in your wedding if you were in hers?

My dear, your wedding is one of your most special of days. I’m sure you were flattered, or perhaps you were surprised when your friend asked you to be in her wedding. Every bride and every couple has unique circumstances that will impact their wedding. Your wedding should be exactly that, UNIQUE and reflective of you as a couple. I wish I could say you aren’t “required” or obligated to do anything you don’t want to for your wedding, but of course we all have to make compromises here and there. However, choosing members of your wedding party should not be one of them!

You should surround yourself with the people who are the most important to you, the most supportive of you, and people who you feel will be there for you in the years to come. No one wants to look back at their wedding photos and not still have those friends who stood at the chuppah with you not be in their life anymore. That would be so sad. Maybe you were closer with your friend around the time of her wedding and you’ve grown apart. Maybe she chose girls based on different criteria than you are selecting bridesmaids on, and maybe she had every single girl she has ever met in her wedding party. Either way, you meant something to her at that point in her life, but maybe she holds a different place at this point in your life.

There are things we sometimes do to make parents happy for our weddings, but your bridesmaids should be friends or family that are chosen without any obligatoin. Ask your girlfriends to stand up there with you because you can’t imagine them not there with you, not because you were in her wedding. Her feelings might be hurt, yes, and my wedding wish for you is that she is mature enough not to make you feel badly about your choices and that she attends and dances the hora at your wedding because she is nothing but happy for you!

What’s the protocol for food selection? Do I have to give an option of chicken or fish or can I just choose one entree for my guests with vegetarian options on hand that night for those who don’t eat meat?

Alas, food: one of my favorite topics in life! I have been to my fair share of weddings and I honestly don’t remember the food from the majority of them. Just like the kitchen is the heart of the home, the food can be a high point of your wedding. Don’t get stuck in the chicken or fish trap! Have fun with this, please! Your guests will thank you. If it’s an economical choice, by all means, choose something affordable. But if budget is no issue, have filet, have jidori chicken, have loup de mer, have a fabulous truffled mushroom ravioli. Please, no blah steamed vegetable sides! Push your caterer to present you with foods that represent you as a couple and how you want your wedding to feel. The food at your wedding is a great time to make a statement about the new Mr. and Mrs. Maybe you’re having a rustic fete in a vineyard? Find a caterer who uses locally sourced produce and let them do their thing. Don’t ever feel like you need to conform to some traditional chicken or fish option. Of course, be courteous and offer something for guests with dietary restrictions and preferences, but don’t base your menu around your picky Aunt Sarah or stuffy Bubbe. PLAY IT UP! What do you love to eat? Serve your most favorite foods and your wedding will only be more YOU because of it. Have fun with this one!

How do I determine a guest list for my rehearsal dinner? What about for our brunch the day after our wedding?

Your rehearsal dinner is the first big kick off to your wedding and it’s a really exciting event! It’s basically your wedding pre-party. The bare minimum of who to invite would include everyone who attended the wedding rehearsal which includes your wedding party and parents, and perhaps close family. It is also polite to invite guests who are traveling from out of town to be at your wedding. These guests have spent a decent amount of money to be with you for the weekend and it is nice to feed them the night before the big day. It will give you the opportunity to spend a little more time with these guests and will make the night even more festive with some extra company. If you are able to accommodate even more guests, you can more extended family members, close family friends, and good friends of the couple who are not in the wedding party, but who mean a lot to you. It is also nice to include any hostesses who threw you showers in this list if your budget and the venue can accommodate them.

If you are hosting brunch the morning after your wedding, you should definitely invite any guests who have stayed overnight after the wedding, the wedding party, and close family. Again, if there are others that live close to the venue that you would like to include, you can, but you shouldn’t feel obligated. This meal is really for those who stayed over after a night of partying and celebrating the new Mr. and Mrs!

What Yichud Is All About

Posted on May 31, 2012 by Alison in Inside Scoop, Jewish Traditions, Tales from the Veil

I endearingly called May 25, 2008 The Wedding Olympics. No one was competing for any scores. There was no torch to light and pass. A Beatles medley played in place of national anthems. However, the day was full of events that had us leaping from place to place and it was tiring. We made it through on adrenaline and love, so the long jumps and the synchronized swimmings and badmintons of the day did not feel too exhausting. So as true athletes do (ohmygosh, I just had the audacity to compare my husband and myself to athletes… true ones, even), we basked in our glory and winnings (each other) and enjoyed some nice, quiet alone time after the ceremony, otherwise known as the yichud.

I’ll explain the traditional significance of the yichud, but I’m telling you now, that’s not exactly what we did!

The yichud translates in Hebrew to the word seclusion. Traditionally, unmarried men and women should never be secluded together so, in theory, the wedding day is the first time this ever happens between the bride and groom. This law came about after the rape of King David’s daughter when she was left alone with her half brother. It was then that David and his high court extended this prohibition to all unmarried girls. Typically, the laws of yichud are followed by Orthodox Jews but all Jews may interpret the laws to fit their ceremony or beliefs. In early historical times, the yichud was when the just-married couple would consummate the marriage and witnesses would be there to guarantee privacy and verify that it indeed happened because technically, this was a legal and required act.

Fast forward to 2012. Modern day traditional brides and grooms leave the chuppah and go directly to a private area or room for their yichud. For couples who chose to fast on their wedding day in order to start their life anew, this is when they would also break the fast and exchange gifts. Typically, the bride will bless the groom, saying “May you merit to have a long life, and to unite with me in love from now until eternity. May I merit to dwell with you forever.”

Not every modern Jewish couple chooses to enjoy a yichud after the ceremony, and that’s okay, too! Some just want to get right to the party or have to continue with photographs. My groom and I chose to do a very short and sweet yichud and it was one of the highlights of our day. Those ten minutes marked the first time we got to really talk and rehash our mornings and afternoons when we were apart. And we reminisced about the ceremony and the vows we said to each other and how the weather perfectly cleared up as we left the chuppah to “Here Comes The Sun.” We sat in a garden 50 feet away from our flower-kissed chuppah, hand in hand, excited for the kick ass party that was about to start inside, and gushed about the gold medal event that had just taken place: becoming husband and wife.

Image courtesy of Marlin Munoz

Pingback: Jewish Wedding Customs (Part 2) |

Four Years Ago

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Alison in Tales from the Veil

Special Guest Blogger and Mr. Yenta himself, Bryan, is here to share a little nostalgia with the recent four-year wedding anniversary that came and went on May 25th. So much of the conversation on The Wedding Yentas is from the woman’s point of view before the wedding actually happens. Today is different because we have the man’s point of view coming from 48 months after the wedding. Way way way after the wedding. A wedding, an adopted dog, and a baby girl four years later and a guy’s got a lot to say. Weddings are wonderful, but anniversaries are apropos times to reflect.

***************************************

Before Alison and I got married, if you said the names Madelyn or Princeton to me, I would have never associated them with a baby and a dog because I didn’t have a baby or a dog. Now, though, when I hear those names, my heart basically melts. They are my family.

On, May 25, 2012, Alison and I celebrated our four-year anniversary. Four years. Married. It’s not a significant milestone year like our first anniversary, or even our fifth anniversary. It has its own sort of significance this year though — it’s one year longer than we were together before we got married, and that one year has been quite a difference.

Before Alison, I was never a husband. She made me a husband just by being my wife. But she has also made me into the husband (and the man) I am today by being a really great wife.

The day we got married was such a special day. It sounds so cliche when I read it back, but it was seriously such a special day. It laid the foundation for so many things we share today. For one thing, Princeton, the dog, “conceived” on our wedding day, as that was the day I presented Alison with a surprise dog collar and tag telling her that we’d adopt a puppy together. She has always been a dog lover and I was on the fence, but I decided we’d emBARK on the dog adventure together. Another reason why our day was so special was because I think the success of our wedding day directly led to The Wedding Yentas, if only so she could try to extend the great experience she had planning the events and details. We shared our passion for music and theatre with a choreographed first dance and my surprise heartfelt (but not so solid) piano/vocal performance of She’s Got A Way. And perhaps most significantly, Clayton Kershaw debuted for the Dodgers on that day, pitched six innings, gave up two earned runs, struck out seven, and the Dodgers won the game 4-3… only we didn’t get to see it because we were walking down the aisle.

The day after we were married, we embarked on our honeymoon to Hawaii, where we documented the [PG-rated portions of the] trip on my trusty [non-HD] video camera. It was our favorite vacation ever, so we had to make sure to preserve the memory as best we could. Of course, it’s been well-preserved alright… on my MacBook hard drive, where it has lived for quite a while as I’ve worked on editing the “Alison and Bryan: A Honeymoon Adventure” video on and off for the last four years, promising myself right before every anniversary that this will be the year I finish it…

…well, this will be the year I finish it. Not before our anniversary, unfortunately, but soon after undoubtedly. I guess I got inspired this year, as I’ve made more progress on it in the last two weeks than in the last two years. And maybe part of the reason for my surge in effort is that I feel like I have to check it off my list so I can move on to newer video projects with a different star at the center of them. I think you know who I’m talking about.

Before Madelyn, I was never a father. She made me a father just by being my daughter. Madelyn has helped to make this last year the most thrilling ride of our marriage since we took off on that plane to Maui four years ago. I can’t even imagine my life without her, or even without Princeton for that matter, and yet on that most special day four years ago, we were without them.

As I watched the many hours of honeymoon footage we took and edited it together, I often found myself wondering “Who are those people?” because we seem so different then. Younger. Skinnier. More naive. Less tired.

So here’s a tribute to us on our anniversary — the opening sequence of our soon-to-be-finished honeymoon video… a sequence I’ve had done for just about four years. It’s us, just Alison and Bryan, on our special day of the past without our special pieces of the present.

Venue & Caterer – Spanish Hills Country Club, Photographer – Eight20 Photography, Floral Design – Happy Flowers, Cake – Skiff’s Cakes, Bridal Salon – Bridal Elegance

Real Jewish Weddings | Dana Point, CA

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Alison in Real Jewish Weddings

After a year of dating and some chit-chat about marriage, Erica knew a proposal was around the corner so, like any Jewish girl with weddings on the brain, she always had her nails done, ready to go. But like any Jewish boy who wants to surprise his lady, Adi never asked when she thought he would! After convincing Erica to go to ahem, a “party” at the SLS Hotel in Los Angeles, she went to meet their friends at the “pre-party” room where Adi was standing and got down on one knee. She jumped up and down with that cute girly excitement you see in the movies and she asked him to do it again. Because, really, it’s a vision.

For her wedding day plans, Erica had the help of the amazing event coordinator, Mindy Weiss, and she didn’t let a thing pass by without her own personal Erica touch. Erica planned every detail to the T making sure that the weekend was everything she wanted it to be. And it was! The first time Erica and Adi saw each other dressed and ready was a magical, dream-like moment. The couple wrote their own vows and Adi’s dad married them, which really made the ceremony so personal and special.

It should be noted that Erica is a sweet bride who loves her sweets. After all, she is the owner of Sweet E’s Bake Shop in Los Angeles where anyone with a love for sugar and spice and everything nice would find their happy place! Naturally, the sweets table at Erica and Adi’s wedding was a display of the best of the best. Her amazing pearly six-level wedding cake, surprise groom’s cake which was a replica of the couple’s furry loves, and collection of yummies like cookie dough cake pops and chocolate dipped marshmallows all delighted guests at the confectionary centerpiece of the wedding reception.

Mazel tov, Erica and Adi!

dana-point-jewish-weddings

Location – St. Regis, Monarch Beach
Photographer – Duke Photography
Cake & Dessert Table – Sweet E’s Bake Shop
Coordinator – Mindy Weiss Party Consultants
Bridal Gown – Monique Lhuillier
Bridal Shoes – Stuart Weitzman
Formal Wear – Theory
Wedding Rings & Jewelry – Zadok Jewelers
Floral Design – Tick Toc Couture Florals
Videographer – Vidicam Productions
Stationery – 2HeartsB1
Ketubah – Gallery Judaica
Entertainment – West Coast Music
Caterer – Someone’s in the Kitchen
Make-up – Jeanine Canter

From the Bride:
I grew up in Houston. So Jewish geography had Adi’s cousin from Houston make the connection and scheme up a plan to set us up. Got that? Adi’s cousin called me to place an “order”. At that time he happened to somehow get my permission to have his cousin Adi call me and needless to say an “order” was never placed. Adi and I were both burnt out after being set up on many dates, but because family was involved we had to meet. And so glad we did. An hour long phone call led to our first date and from then on we pretty much never left each other’s side.

Hot Weather, Cool Wedding

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Alison in Inside Scoop, Planning

Happy Memorial Day and a big thank you goes out to all those who have served our country. We remember our heroes and wish the best to their families. Most of us have the day off (a Yenta never has a day off. Yenta-ing is a 24/7 gig) and are spending the day with hungry pals around a grill, by the pool, and wearing next to nothing (your 10 seconds away from your mother calling to tell you to put on a jacket). We’re in the throes of spring, but there’s something about Memorial Day that makes us ready for summer! So, with the pending summer weddings and their accompanying summer temps, you’re going to want to do everything you can to keep your guests cool… so they don’t lose their cool.

If you’re having an outdoor ceremony, cocktail hour, or reception, your guests will need some relief from the heat. While your wedding coordinator holds the key to power on your special day, she can’t do much about the weather. However, you and your wedding planning team can help your guests stay comfortable as they try to wipe sweat mustaches off their faces in case of impromptu photos.

Leave Chinese fans on each seat so that a breeze — even if it’s a hot breeze — can help move the air on their bodies. You can usually find them in cute colors and styles to match your wedding and can also serve as nice favors. Oriental Trading Company carries all different kinds in bulk. We also like Good Orient‘s selection of light wooden fans. Both styles work well for spreading a little air around.

fans-for-guests

Help your guests hydrate themselves with canisters of water, lemonades, iced teas, or juices. Not only does a beverage table to the entrance of your ceremony site make the area appear inviting and hospitable, but will also keep everyone standing and alert instead of passed out from heat stroke! Ushers can help pass out beverages to guests as they are seated in the ceremony area.

lemonade-and-water-bar

Take it a step further and also have water bottles at each seat. Some guests may pass on the beverage canisters, but once they’re sitting and you’re midway through the seven circles, someone will no doubt start getting thirsty and kick themselves for not getting a drink when they could. Therefore, have mini water bottles ready for such instances tucked under each chair to stay in the shade. What a happy little discovery that will be when thirsty Uncle Murray notices his treasure of H20.

If you anticipate that your wedding will be on a toasty day — July weddings, well, everywhere tend to be that way — you may want to let your guests know that part or all of your wedding day will be outside so that they’ll know how to dress. This information can be relayed on your wedding website if you choose to make one. Also, you can remind friends and family you speak to before the wedding that they should dress lightly.

If your ceremony is in an open space, make sure to ask your venue or rental company about overhead, free-standing umbrellas to cover the area with shade. Your guests will be sitting for 20 or so minutes and will roast under the sun if they don’t have any shade. A little bit of coverage can make such a big difference in the high temperatures, so for the sake of their comfort, coordinating umbrella rentals is a good idea.

wedding-ceremony-umbrellas

And don’t forget that you need to drink a lot of water on your wedding day!! You are running around, busier than you can imagine, and full of excitement. Make sure you get enough liquids because the last think you need is to accessorize your wedding dress with some IV bags in the emergency room. We don’t need to sound like your Jewish mother, but eat! Drink water! And don’t overdo it with the alcohol, as it won’t help you in the least on a hot day.

keeping-hydrated-on-your-wedding-day

But what if it’s spicy hot on your honeymoon? Oh, well then, by all means, keep turnin’ up the heat!