Pre-Passover Is a Great Time to Choose a Kosher Wine for Your Jewish Wedding

When we asked a group of prominent wedding rabbis to give us their tips for organizing a Jewish wedding, one of their comments was that couples and wedding planners should make sure that the wine used for the huppah ceremony is kosher. If you don’t know a lot about kosher wines and aren’t sure what’s available in your area, then this is a great time to check out your options. In these last weeks before Passover, lots of kosher wine shops, synagogues, and Jewish organizations offer wine tastings and special sales.

Passover begins on March 25 this year, and we’re well into the Pre-Passover wine tasting season, so take a look today to see what’s going on in your area.

If you’ve missed the special wine tastings in your area, experiment during the Passover Seders. After all, if we’re drinking four glasses of wine during each Seder, you can make each round a different variety. Not many options available locally? This is also a good time to order great kosher wines online so that you can have them in hand in time for the holiday.

Can you recommend a wine? Share it in the Comment section!

TAKE A LOOK AT:

• HE’BREW: Great Kosher Beer for Your Jewish Wedding
• Free printable templates:Do a favor for your guests and a good cause: Give a charitable donation instead of wedding favors (Huppahs.com)
• 7 Ideas for Decorating a Huppah (Chuppah)

A Wedding Chuppah for All Venues: The Simplicity Huppah

While finalizing the reservation of a Simplicity Huppah yesterday, I realized that of all our rental huppahs, we’ve probably shipped this style huppah to the widest variety of wedding venues, from backyards to bistros and hotel ballrooms. Its clean, classic design fits just about any setting (and like all of our huppahs, it’s easy to transport and set up anywhere).

Just for fun, we went back through the files and revisited some of the varied venues where couples have wed under Simplicity Huppahs:

• Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn, New York.
• The Foundry in Long Island City, New York.
• Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo.
• Virginia’s Meadowlark Botanical Gardens.
• The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.
• Shell Island Resort in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.
• The Inn at the Round Barn Farm in Waitsfield, Vermont.
• An apartment balcony in Washington, DC.

You can check the availability of our Simplicity Huppahs for your wedding day or get more details at Huppahs.com. Or see all our huppah designs.

VISIT:

• DIY wedding dress in Grace Kelly style from Vogue Patterns
• How Big of a Wedding Cake Do I Need?
• What do the Jewish bride and groom wear?

Colorful Ketubahs, Eco-Friendly Kippot, Re-Invented Cake?! Mazelmoments.com Lays Out the 2013 Jewish Wedding Trends

Want a quick overview of the smoking trends for Jewish weddings in 2013? Mazelmoments just released their 2013 Wedding Trends Report. The folks at Mazelmoments filled the report with colorful, informative snapshots of what we’ll be seeing a lot of at Jewish weddings this year, including decor, catering, ketubahs, and huppahs (Spoiler alert: just like Huppahs.com, Mazelmoments finds that couples are having a love affair with organza huppahs).

To get the report you’ll need to sign up for Mazelmoments’ newsletter, but if you’re planning a wedding or if you’re a wedding vendor, their mailing list is a good place to be. Sign up and get the report.

Are you loving a trend that you’re seeing? Shout it out in the Comments section.

You might like:

• Royal Wedding Hors d’Oeurve Reception Menu – Kosher-fied!
• 7 Ways to Decorate a Wedding Huppah
• Our 100 Favorite Backyard Wedding Themes

How to Safely Use an Older Tallit for a Huppah

Are you thinking of making a wedding huppah from an older, well-worn tallit, like a grandfather’s tallit, but concerned that the tallit is too frail to be tied to huppah poles? No one wants to risk damaging such a special heirloom. I thought I’d pass along great idea from one of our Huppahs.com clients who faced the same dilemma.

Our client rented a Simplicity Huppah and laid his grandfather’s tallit over the top of the canopy without tying to the tallit to the poles. The ends of the tallit draped over the edge of the canopy, so the fabric and fringe were visible.

The couple were able to wed under the tallit worn by the groom’s grandfather free from any concerns about damaging the tallit.

Thanks for sharing, Robert, and Mazel Tov!

VISIT:

• Free printable templates:Do a favor for your guests and a good cause: Give a charitable donation instead of wedding favors (Huppahs.com)
• 7 Ideas for Decorating a Huppah (Chuppah)
• Real Jewish Wedding: Natalie + Richard Wed Under an Ivory Silk Huppah in a New York City Park

Wedding Huppah Rentals “as Easy as Zappos.com”

Lace Wedding Huppah

We love all the positive reviews we get for Huppahs.com, and one of my favorites said we “make it as easy as Zappos.com to receive and return your chuppah.” Zappos is a company that we thought of as we designed our services. We try to make it as easy to rent and return a wedding huppah as it is to buy and return shoes for Zappos.

Here’s how we do it:

• We ship the huppah by FedEx to arrive by the Wednesday before the wedding so you can be confident you’ll have it when you need it.
• We provide simple instructions for attaching the huppah canopy to the poles. It takes about three minutes.
• When it’s time to return the huppah, use the box the huppah arrives in and the pre-paid FedEx return shipping label we send. You can drop it off at a FedEx location or call for FedEx to pick it up, which ever is easier for you.

For more info: Huppahs.com | Check huppah availability for your wedding date

Is there a way we could make huppah rentals even more convenient for you? Send us an email.

RELATED:
Real Jewish Wedding: Natalie + Richard Wed Under an Ivory Silk Huppah in a New York City Park
Real Life Jewish Wedding: Under an Organza Huppah at Brooklyn, New York’s Prospect Boat House
Free printable templates: Do a favor for your guests and a good cause: Give a charitable donation instead of wedding favors

Recipe: Baked Pears for an Autumn or Early Winter Wedding (Parve or Dairy, Vegetarian)

These pears work for both elegant and rustic menus. Add homemade berry sauce and serve them as an accompaniment to a slice of light wedding cake or as a side dish for a wedding brunch.

Today my daughters and I packed a brunch and brought it to my parents’ house to celebrate their wedding anniversary. The planned menu included poached pears, but last night, when I should have started the poaching, I hung out with a bunch of brothers and sisters and in-laws instead, talking about, among other things, Bill’s latest ice sculptures. So this morning, my daughters and I prepared the pears by baking them. The prep for baked pears is less fussy and less time-consuming than than for poaching, which makes them an appealing dish not just for easy-going family weekends, but for small self-catered weddings, too.

Serve these baked pear halves with a slice of light wedding cake and homemade berry sauce for a complete wedding dessert, or include them as a side dish for an autumn or early winter wedding brunch. We’ll make the berry sauce recipe our next post.

Menorah Ice Carving Hanukkiah

BTW, here’s a pic of the Hanukkiah ice sculpture Bill carved today during a demonstration at Yeshiva Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in Manhattan.

Ingredients for Baked Pears

Serves 24

• 12 Bosc or Anjou pears
• Cooking oil spray
• ½ cup butter, melted (or for a pareve version to serve with a meat meal, use non-dairy margarine)
• 6 Tablespoons honey
• 1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

Instructions for Baked Pears

1. Preheat oven to 375ºF (190ºC).
2. Lightly spray the bottom of two 9″x13″ baking pans with cooking oil.
3. Cut pears in half, cut out the core, and peel the pears.
4. 

   Make 4 slices in each pear half, stopping about a quarter inch from the narrow end of the pear.

   Optional: Make four slices in each pear half, stopping about ¼” from the small end. This will enable you to fan out the slices on the plate when you serve it. Or leave the halves unsliced for a more rustic presentation.
5. Place the pears flat side down in the baking pans.
6. Mix the melted butter, honey and spices. Drizzle the mixture over the pears.
7. Cover the pans and bake for 40 minutes or until the pears are tender.

The pears can be stored overnight, covered, in the refrigerator.

Martha Stewart Wedding Online Expo on Demand thru April 22

Martha Stewart Wedding’s 2011 Online Luxury Expo, which was held last weekend, can be seen on-demand now through April 22. Register online >