A Limor Rosen Bride for an Autumnal Bohemian Jewish Wedding at Aix La Chapelle Farm in Poolesville, Maryland

We can’t get enough of all the glorious personal touches Ally, an enrollment manager for SoCal Food Allergy Institute, and Barry, a commercial real estate agent, threw into their gorgeous Jewish farm wedding in Maryland.   

Incorporating friends and family into the ceremony was a priority for the pair, and we love what they came up with: for starters, Ally’s grandparents were part of the processional, and her grandmas were the “flower women” –  and it was such a hit that some of the groomsmen even took on the role of “flower men” and adorned the aisle with dried flower petals!

Israel is near and dear to Ally and Barry’s hearts – and Ally was able to not only buy her gown from a fabulous Israeli designer, she bought it at the flagship store in Tel Aviv on a work trip to Israel! Limor Rosen herself helped Ally pick out her dress – how special is that?!

The couple also opted to work with mega-talented Israeli ketubah artist and Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Noa Attias to create their exquisite Love Ketubah. Ally and Barry wanted some cohesiveness to all the decor, invitations, and the ketubah, so they worked with Noa to have fonts the same as their wedding invitation on the ketubah!

There are so many more fabulous details of this special day – don’t miss the incredible photos from An Endless Pursuit and Strand of Light, and video from Shutter and Sound!

How we Met

Ally, the bride: We met 7 years ago when Ally was working at Indiana University Hillel and Barry was working for Hasbara Fellowships, an Israel advocacy organization. He came to IU to lead a workshop with some of Ally’s students and the rest was history. We dated long distance for 2 and ½ years and eventually Ally moved to Los Angeles to be with Barry.

A Farm Wedding

We got married at Aix La Chapelle Farm in Poolesville, MD. We were originally supposed to get married in 2019 at an all indoor venue but with the pandemic we decided to shift almost all of our plans which included finding a new venue that had tons of outdoor space that was close to a nearby “city” to accommodate our guests. So after a lot of searching we found this gem of a venue that was beyond picturesque that had everything we wanted and more.

Autumnal Bohemian

We worked with Vered Asta from Vela Events to plan our wedding. We wanted a fall color scheme of wine/ burgundy colors with a bit of bohemian antique vibe that would also match the decor of the venue. We worked with Kelly Andres, the DOE of Aix La Chapelle, to style our wedding and rented some additional items from the venue. The owners of the farm collect beautiful antiques on the property that you can rent if desired.

Invitations / stationery

We worked with Ashley Austin from Fine Day Press. We loved the simplicity of her designs and we were able to customize as much as we liked from the type of fonts, and adding Hebrew to the invitations. Ashley is based in Texas but we were able to make everything happen over zoom and email. She was amazing to work with, I can’t recommend her enough!

A Limor Rosen Dress

I bought my dress in Israel when I was out there for a work trip. My friends set up appointments for me and took me to two different places. I had spotted the Limor Rosen store in Tel Aviv like a few months prior on a different trip to Israel so I knew deep down that’s where I wanted to go after seeing her dresses in the window. I ultimately found my dress at Limor Rosen and Limor actually helped me pick out my dress. It was a really special day.

I bought the dress as is and flew home with the dress back to Los Angeles. The dress is the Autumn gown from the XO Limor collection. The dress is made from a rich brocade fabric with flower embroidery on a ball gown silhouette. The front of the gown has a deep v-neck line detail with a sheer criss cross element, sheer sides with thin back straps making for an open back.

Accessories

My late maternal grandmother gifted me a pearl necklace.  Every year for my birthday she would add 2 pearls until the necklace was full. So to honor her I wanted to incorporate pearls into  jewellery and accessories for my wedding plus its classic and timeless.  I found my statement earrings from Montserrat NY, they are the Riera earrings.  My wedding band was custom made from Anna Sheffield.

The wedding band I was married in under the chuppah was my late maternal grandmother’s wedding band which was incredibly special to wear. Lastly, my pearl hair pins are from Bespoke Bridal Shop on Etsy.

Shoes

I wore Loeffler Randall Dahlia Pearl Peatled Bow heels for the ceremony and tie dye platform Tretorn sneakers for the reception.

The handsome groom

The Black Tux – Tuxedo color was black with a wine colored pocket square, tuxedo shoes. Custom vans for dancing.

Bridesmaids

Ally had five bridesmaids. She told them each to find a wine burgundy dress, it didn’t matter the designer or style. They all wore different styles from different designers from Jenny Yoo, Lulus, and even from Amazon! All that mattered is if they were comfortable and felt beautiful.  

Ceremony

Before the ceremony we had separate receptions.  Barry and the men had a tisch and Ally and the bridesmaids along with her mothers and grandmothers were greeted by friends and family during the Kabbalat Panim.  After some time apart Barry was danced to Ally for the traditional bedken where Barry placed the veil over Ally and each set of the parents blessed the bride and groom.

We really thought about how we could incorporate friends and family into our ceremony to make it really feel like us and homey in a way. So we had Ally’s grandparents part of the processional, her grandmas were the “Flower Women ”.  Some of our groomsmen even took on the role of flower men and adorned the aisle with dried flower petals.  It made for some amazing photos.

We flew in our friend, Eitan, from Israel to officiate our wedding which was really special since he knew us so well. You could really feel the love and the excitement since we had been planning for over 2 years. We also had Barry’s father, Avi, read our ketubah in Hebrew during the ceremony.

Additionally, we asked 7 groups of family and friends to read the 7 blessings which was a really nice way to give people a part in our ceremony. Once Barry broke the glass we were celebrated with a petal toss on our way to the Yichud Room.

Ketubah

We worked with Noa Attias to create the Love Ketubah for our wedding. We wanted to have some cohesiveness to all the decor, invitation and the ketubah so we worked with Noa to have fonts the same as our wedding invitation and we were able to customize the wording as well.  Our good friend Zach Rabinowitz and Ally’s pseudo grandfather, Allan Firestone, signed the Ketubah. Ally’s grandfather also signed her parents’s ketubah when they got married which was a really special honor.

Chuppah

We wanted something whimsical and bohemian but yet modern. Ally worked closely with our florist, Thurman and Fig, to create something beautiful. The best was the backdrop of the trees in the Peach Orchard of the venue.

Our Music Choice

For the processional Barry and his parents, the grandparents and bridal party walked down to ‘Harvest Moon’ by Neil Young. Ally and her parents walked down the aisle to ‘Boi Kallah’ by the Twenty Somethings to the tune of ‘Perfect’ by Ed Sheeran.

We worked with our DJ, Dan Goldman, from Dan Goldman Events to put together the music from the kabbalat panim, bedeken, ceremony, and reception dinner and dancing. We wanted a mix of 90s pop, early 2000s, today’s top charts and a few classic throwbacks.

We had our first dance to ‘Truly Madly Deeply’ by Savage Garden with a full on dance routine. We took lessons for 5 weeks! We took lessons with Alexis Massey from Dance with Alexis. LA Brides- if you are looking for a dance instructor contact Alexis immediately! She was a joy to work with!

Flowers

We worked with Carly and her team from Thurman and Fig and they were just beyond incredible.  We knew we didn’t need a lot of florals with the ceremony being in the peach orchard and the grounds of Aix La Chapelle were just gorgeous. I wanted a modern bohemian look with lots of pampas grass. I provided Carly my pinterest board and she created a mood board from there.

There were some of the key words she came up with during our consultation call: moody, dried, protea (king and pincushion), rusty orange blush undertone, dahlias, pampas grass, some orchids, choc cosmos, quicksand, bunny tails, boho, Terra cotta, dessert, boho, dark rich, sunset

Photographer and videographer

We worked with An Endless Pursuit and Strand of Light to photograph our day. They did a beautiful job! We worked with Shutter and Sound to capture video of our day and they did an excellent job- they are located all over the US!

Food and Cake

We worked with Rouge Catering. Ally has Celiac disease so we knew we needed a specialty menu to cater to her dietary restriction. We worked with their staff member, Amanda Shulkin, to curate a menu that was ALL gluten free and kosher style. Having a Kosher wedding can often break the bank when planning a wedding so we opted to have our wedding kosher style.

For the kabbalat panim and cocktail hour all of the hor’dourves were dairy and vegetarian, think sushi, soup shooters, fry bar, etc. For dinner we offered a beef, fish, vegan or kosher option. Desserts and wedding cake were catered by Little Fig Bakeshop in Baltimore which were all vegan and gluten free!

Favors

We both come from different states and wanted to highlight that part of our lives. When thinking of wedding favors we wanted to give something useful and meaningful so our guests could get a taste of Maryland and California. So we made little to go spice bags of Old Bay and Tajin with a letter inside the bag thanking the guests for coming to our wedding.

Extra details

Before our wedding we had a shabbat dinner at Ally’s parents house with immediate family and close friends to kick off the weekend. Saturday we had our rehearsal dinner with the bridal party and immediate family followed by welcome drinks to welcome friends and family from out of town.

We used a bookcase to display photos of loved ones who have passed away which was really special to our immediate family and added a sentimental touch. We also had a chair at the ceremony for loved ones who have passed away adorned with a flower bouquet so they could have a front row seat at our ceremony.

We really wanted something unique for our seating display so we purchased lanterns and hired a calligrapher, Taylor Jenkins, to write our guest names alphabetically with their corresponding table numbers. Each seat was pre-assigned to our guests with a personalized menu card with their name and what they were eating for dinner made by Ashley Austin at Fine Day Press. Given that our venue is like an antique market no two chairs were alike. So the dinner was truly unique. The venue also comes with an old school bakery where all of our desserts were displayed.

Honeymoon

We honeymooned in Aruba.  Our honeymoon was a gift from Barry’s Aunt and Uncle to stay in their timeshare. We had the best time being beached whales on the beach, snorkeling, and floating in the lazy river at the Marriott Surf Club.

Advice to couples currently planning their wedding

Try to take in the day as much as possible, it goes by so fast. Have other people help where they can. And if you can swing it, take off a few days before the wedding from work- it was the best thing we did so we could run errands and spend time with family that flew in from Israel

ALLY & BARRY’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK

Photography – An Endless Pursuit, Strand of Light
Videography – Shutter and Sound
Ketubah – Noa Attias {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Wedding planner – Vered Asta
Venue – Aix La Chapelle Farm
Bride’s dress – Limor Rosen
Bride’s shoes – Loeffler Randall
Bride’s accessories – Montserrat NYC 
Groom’s attire – The Black Tux
Bridesmaids – Jenny Yoo , Lulus
Hair + Makeup – Weddings by Sage, KC Artistry
Flowers – Thurman and Fig
DJ – Dan Goldman
Catering – Rouge Catering   
Cake and dessert- Little Fig Bakeshop
Stationery/Invitation – Fine Day Press
Rabbi – Eitan Emanual Rosenfeld
Tallit – Gabrieli Tallit

If you’re a Jewish or Jew-ish bride-to-be, you’ll want to join Smashing The Glass’ Brides Club. Guided by the world’s number 1 Jewish wedding expert, Karen Cinnamon, Brides Club is the private community for Jewish and Jew-ish brides that removes wedstress and indecision and gives you what you need to plan with confidence during these uncertain times. Join our Brides Club here.

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