A Jewish Ceremony and Modern Festival Wedding in the Desert

Yipppeee! It’s Saturday, and I have a stunner of a wedding to get us all in the weekend mood. Prepare to be transported to a divine desert setting, with lots of beautiful little touches by the bride. And the best bit: a special collection of her handmade white lace-up wedding boots was even named after her by the designer. How incredibly cool is that?

Meet Almog, a cognitive science PhD Student, lecturer, editor of a university magazine and part-time DJ, and his beautiful bride Noga, who writes the brilliant blog 5 shekel about vintage and second-hand treasures – and is also an amateur photographer and fashion entrepreneur. The creative couple tied the knot on October 22nd 2015 at Kfar Hanokdim near Masada in Israel – a green oasis with palm trees in the middle of the Judean desert and the most magical setting for their modern festival wedding. Let’s begin with a snippet of their wedding video that captures this incredible backdrop and the party vibe perfectly. The couple began their celebrations with a cocktail party reception in a beautiful area of the venue in the afternoon sun, and then held their modern Jewish ceremony at sunset. I simply adore these stunning images taken at this most magical time of day.

“When we imagined our wedding, we wanted it to last from sunset to the morning after, so we planned the event like a small festival. We wanted our wedding to be natural, simple and elegant and the colour palate was set to fit the desert, with light blues, natural browns, and ivory and gold touches.”

Film + photography by Echoes & Wildhearts

Noga’s vintage gown was from Decadent Vintage that she found, naturally, for a right bargain whilst on a holiday in London.

“Finding a dress was the easiest part of the wedding process. In the spirit of my blog and my love for vintage, I had a budget of £320, and I knew that I wanted a beautiful vintage dress. I found mine at Decadent Vintage on my vacation in London.”

“The ceremony took place at sunset and everything was so beautiful. We wrote the Ktuba (our ‘contract’) based on the mutual values we wanted to establish our family upon. We exchanged vows that we wrote without knowing that we wrote about the same experiences of our memories from being friends in high school.”

“I found it on the first day of searching, almost a year prior to the wedding. It had the original tag on it and I only had to adjust it to my size (and I even got some change leftover out of my budget).

I liked the princess figure with the tulle, the bow ties and all that jazz. It’s as if you would have asked me to paint a wedding dress for my Barbie when I was six years old. It’s fancy, classic and timeless and I love it.”

 

I’m a little bit of a groovy shoe fiend and just love hearing about what the brides on Love My Dress choose to wear. Noga was keen for white granny booties with shoelaces (groovy shoe choice indeed!) and, having no luck with finding these anywhere, approached Roni Kantor, an Israeli designer who makes beautiful vegan shoes (you can see more of her collection here via Etsy) to make her wedding shoes, just like she had imagined.

“Roni was so generous and kind to make my dream wedding shoes especially for my wedding (it was not part of her bridal shoes collection). We both liked this little project so much. And now, after the great success of the booties for my wedding, Roni made a special edition called after me. Isn’t that exciting?

I also had another flat pair for the dancing part – sparkling gold shoes from Roni’s bridal collection.”

A few sprigs of fresh gypsophila flowers for her hair, a spray of her daily favourite scent, Chloé, and a few simple accessories finished off Noga’s classic look.

“I wanted my accessories to be classy and simple, to complement the dress without being too salient. I decided not to buy accessories, but to borrow a pearl necklace from my aunt and I also wore my vintage engagement ring from Idit Jewellery.”

Liron Erel, the creative behind Echoes & Wildhearts Photography, took the most incredible, light-filled shots of the desert landscape and I love how he captured the fun festival vibe – this is definitely another wedding I would have merrily gate-crashed!

“We got a recommendation from a friend, and after we saw Liron’s work we couldn’t see any other photographers. The moments he captured and the natural photos that look like they were taken from an editorial made us choose him to shoot our wedding and he was the first vendor we talked to, even before we had a date! During the wedding, Liron and his team were super professional and kind and as you can see the photos are extremely beautiful.”

“We know each other from high school, when we were friends. We started dating a few years later. After six years of living and traveling together, we were about to be apart from each other for six months, as Almog got accepted to a master’s degree program in Spain and I was about to go on a students’ exchange program in Italy. Right before that, Almog proposed, and we had about a year to plan a wedding from abroad. We are both from the southern part of Israel, we grew up in small towns in the desert, and so it was very natural for us to search for a venue around this area.”

“For Almog’s suit we wanted a classy black-tie suit that was good quality and a reasonable price. The staff at Segal was very professional and fixed the suit so it fitted him perfectly. Almog’s shirt was from Polgat and his shoes from Call It Spring.”

“We wanted the flower arrangements to look like homemade bouquets from the field. Alegria from Aquarelle Flowers did an amazing job and the flowers were just as we wished for.”

Noga’s DIY creativity flowed during the wedding preparations, as she sorted the majority of the decor, stationery and styling of their big day. The couple also had the help of friends and family and a production company with final finessing.

“It was very important to me to be involved in every aspect of the wedding. I tried to do as much as I could by myself, because I love it, and frankly because it saved us a lot of money. I learned how to use Adobe Illustrator and designed the branding for the wedding – the invitations, table numbers, map, signs, buttons for the website and what not.”

“With the help of some friends, we produced a Save the Date video, inspired by Wes Anderson films, to give the guests a glimpse of the desert wedding that was coming. I made the decorations and other DIY projects like the photo backdrop, ribbons decor, marquee letters, our seven years love story in photos, a greeting cards birdcage, a memorial point for our grandparents who passed away and an alley of photos from our childhood.”

“The dining area was very natural and floral. I wanted to keep the wooden tables as they were, so we just added lace runners and flowers in beer bottles that I collected and cleaned for months (it’s harder than it sounds!). There were also old medical books that we found (it was a nightmare carrying them down the stairs) and the tags for the napkins were handmade as well. We gave our guests a music CD for the road, in the same theme as the invitations. We had the help of our amazing friends and families with many of these projects, which was so delightful!”

“We did most of the production for the wedding ourselves, but as the wedding date got closer we decided to take the help of a production company. Aviv & Liraz Event and their staff put everything together – they hung the decorations that I made, set the tables as we planned, fixed the bonfire, and they brought in the talented florist who immediately got the idea of how we wanted the flowers to be. And above all, they managed the vendors during the wedding itself and everything was in place and so beautiful.”

Nora’s sisters were her bridesmaids and they wore dresses from ShuShine, with fresh gypsophila flowers in their hair. Hairstyles were created by Villa Bella; a local salon located in an old Ottoman house in the old city of Beer Sheva. Noga and her sisters all had a fun morning getting ready together – and makeup was by Dana Kfir.

“Dana is a very talented friend of mine. She has done my make up on several occasions, and I always knew that she would do my makeup for my wedding. I didn’t need any trial with her, I trusted her to do a great job and it was just amazing.”

“We had a Jewish ceremony with a rabbi, so the readings were the traditional blessings. We wanted to have a modern Jewish wedding, with mutual rings and vows exchange, and we wanted it to be gender equal. Our precious family and friends read the blessings and the Ktuba, and our sisters held the chuppa.

The ceremony was our favourite part. It was very emotional and was the highlight of a year of preparations. After all, this is the most important part – to celebrate a true love and mutual intents to become a family.”

Noga and Almog kept their guests entertained with a vast array of activities for them to experience in this most amazing desert setting. I urge you, if you haven’t already, to watch the video and see for yourself the very funky moves by young and old on the dancefloor and the utter joy on their faces.

“After the ceremony we had a friends’ band playing some oldies – it was so much fun and our older gusts felt like teenagers again. We then followed this with a delicious vegan dinner by Nectar. After dinner, DJ Meytal Shevach (a friend), former MTV Israel editor and the current editor of Mako’s music section, played tunes for us. She was amazing and we couldn’t leave the dance floor even when we really needed to go use the restroom, because every tune was on the spot. I chose to wear a second outfit of an old tulle skirt from my closet with a corset top that I bought for 2 euro for the dancing.”

“We also had a bonfire with potatoes, corn, and star-gazing through a telescope (we had a meteor shower at the same day!); a chill-out tent with hookahs, checkers and backgammon, and a Mediterranean style sing-along tent. We wanted our guests to feel comfy and free even if they don’t like to dance, and to give them a full experience of the desert.”

“We didn’t choose it but the band played ‘I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” and we couldn’t help dancing to it together, so it was our informal first dance.

I surprised Almog – after I promised him a life full of surprises in my vow – by going on stage with my two sisters and ukuleles and playing two songs for him. It was exciting and magical! And finally, our friends made us a surprise and entered the dance floor dressed as characters from the musical “Hair” – they were dancing and jumping to the songs from the musical and it was hilarious!”

Words of Wedded Wisdom

“There is no such thing as a perfect wedding – there are always small things that mess up, but don’t let it bother you during the wedding; nobody will notice it but you.

Don’t be afraid to do something different. People will still have fun, even if they are out of their comfort zone for a little while.”

There’s nothing better than a festival wedding and especially one that’s set amongst a unique landscape. Thank you so much to Noga and Almog for allowing us a peek into their delightful nuptials and I wish the smiley couple all the very best for loads more fun, laughs and adventures together. Also, many many thanks to Liron for capturing the true essence of the day – the couple’s intense love shines through every image.

And lovelies, I recommend that you check out the couple’s brilliant Save the Date video – it’s very clever and such a great way to let guests know about the upcoming nuptials with an air of mystery.

Here’s to a relaxing weekend lovelies – and may the wedmin creativity flow freely!

Love Jo -x-