The happy day finally arrives, the momentous day when you formalize the connection between yourself and your partner in love. But if you are hoping for a more original, innovative wedding that will surprise your guests, or at least take them aback, you'll need to be abreast of the hottest trends in the world of weddings. It may involve a rather long list of ideas and innovations, but this is, after all, a once-in-a-lifetime event (well, at least once in a lifetime). It's worth reading at least one article on the subject.
Back from nature and into the city
Advertisement
One of the important questions couples face when planning a wedding is location. Tsafrir Ginsberg, CEO of Cassiopeia banquet hall in the Herzliya marina, says that fewer couples are planning weddings that require their guests to embark on long-distance treks to banquet gardens in some hole sporting a pond in the countryside. "Nowadays, couples tend to hold weddings in the city where they live, whether on the rooftop of skyscrapers, like the Azrieli tower in Tel Aviv, or at clubs or large bars equipped with sound and lighting equipment," he says.
Potential clientele: Residents of 'the state of Tel Aviv.'
Cost: Renting the place alone will run at about $3,000.
Concept event
If you really and truly want to surprise the guests at your wedding, consider a motif-based event - a sort of background story. For instance, an event planned around a biblical motif that conjures up an ancient banquet - from the design of tables and the dance floor to the catering staff's costumes, and even the guests themselves. At a "masked ball" wedding produced by ZER4U, for instance, held close to the Purim holiday, the guests were astonished to find themselves greeted by a production team with makeup kits, offering a variety of Victorian-style costumes befitting the decor. Shlomi Eiloni, ZER4U's in-house designer, says the only limit is your imagination. A young couple may chose any theme they please, even an event based on, say, Madonna's last concert, or Aladdin's cave. If they can afford it, they can fly the guests to an isolated beach in the south, eat Arabian-style food in tents and be entertained by belly-dancers, with jasmine bushes imported from Cairo supplying the whiff of perfume.
Potential target audience: Anybody who craves external stimuli.
Price: Think NIS 350,000 on average. The design alone costs NIS 40,000.
Back to tradition: Huppa at a synagogue
Maybe it's Hollywood arousing that yearning to wed in a house of prayer, or some retro fad, or an authentic desire to return to one's roots. Whatever the cause, a growing number of couples are choosing to wed in the squarest venue of them all - temple. There's the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Ohel Moed in Tel Aviv and many more. Yitzhak Neeman, president of the Great Synagogue, says that the venue may be even more popular among the secular than among religious couples, though in the former case, the lovers and guests tend to have an after-party to celebrate rather less orthodoxly.
Potential target audience: Couples who think the huppa is the main thing.
Price: Up to NIS 10,000.
Something old - the huppa
The design of the huppa itself can also be surprising. "It can start with the bridal walk sparkling with LEDs," says Ilani. "There are giant wedding canopies six meters high or more, or colorful ones in pink or red." Or, there's the absolute reverse - back to the roots with four friends holding a prayer shawl with its corners tied to poles.
Potential target audience: Couples sick of trends.
Price: Depends if you want the six-meter pink frilly organza job or the sheet on a stick.
Home gourmet
Almost everyone would love to taste those gourmet delicacies they see on television cooking shows, and when it comes to one's nuptials, it's almost de rigueur. Quality catering services in Israel are greatly influenced by trends in the gourmet restaurants, says Amit Kaufman, an owner of the catering service Taste and Color.
And the cooking shows with famous chefs show that the trend today is back to the traditional kitchen, plus design. For instance, kreplach soup - served in espresso cups, or homemade hummus. Whatever they're offering, Kaufman says, catering services today offer terrific quality.
Potential target audience: People who love expensive restaurants but know there's nothing like home cooking.
Price: About NIS 300 per guest, including desserts.
Raw alcohol and miniature desserts
Tradition seems to be the rule at the alcohol bar as well. The last big thing had been an "active bar," meaning, barmen plying the dance floor bearing trays of test-tubes and alcohol guns. These days the classic bar is making a comeback. Ginsberg says, however, that the gimmick of the times is "molecular drinks."
Meaning what? Not exactly chemistry class. "It's a nice gimmick that's gaining in popularity. Drinks like vodka and tonic are encased in a capsule of raw vodka, and are released into the mouth when you bite down," Ginsberg explains.
By the way, some establishments sport alcohol meters these days, so guests can check the level of alcohol in the blood before driving off wasted into the night. Cassiopeia has one.
Another hot trend in food is miniature desserts. A bite of this and a bite of that, and guests can choose from a range of tastes with the calorie count of a single portion. Moshe Strauss, co-owner of Simches ("Rak B'Smachot"), which specializes in designer confections, says that chocolate waterfalls are coming back into fashion. You don't stick your head in, you're supposed to dip a skewer of fruit chunks into the liquid chocolate.
Potential target audience: Do you like sugar?
Price: About NIS 300 per guest, including desserts, but for an extra NIS 1,300 you can get - count'em - two chocolate waterfalls and a sweets bar, with fruit for dipping.
Fireworks out, butterflies in
The moment the glass is shattered and the applause begins is the moment to spring a surprise, at least for the guests. It used to be fireworks, but that's becoming trite. The in-thing these days is to release a cloud of butterflies to emphasize the drama of the moment. You might want to make sure they actually survived until the great moment, lest you find yourself gazing at insect or bird corpses littering the ground while some of their still-breathing brethren flutter about. The company www.yonim.com claims that their doves for such events come from a good home and even receive a fragrant bath before being "set free" at weddings.
Potential target audience: Hopeless romantics.
Price: About NIS 800 for 60 doves and NIS 1,000 for 150 butterflies.
Floating dolly
When you're having a big wedding with tons of guests, a photographer with a camera may not do the trick. These days wedding photographers come equipped with the usual camera - and one on a dolly that can snap a picture up to 10 meters away, missing none of your near and dear ones rioting on the dance floor.
Potential target audience: You just have to have pix of Aunt Sophie and Cousin Max doing the limbo.
Price: About NIS 12,000 for a cameraman with a dolly.
The cover band
It's true that the DJ remains the usual source of music for merriment, but some couples prefer to offer more sophisticated entertainment for guests. They may hire a comedian or some other entertainer. A boy band wearing glitter jackets isn't the usual thing, but Ginsberg says that bands that sing rock versions of popular songs very much are. Niva Amali-Maoz, manager of events at D-Plus, says that some couples go the whole hog and order "look-alike" singers who can decently mimic Elton John, George Michael or ABBA. However, in such cases, because their range is confined to a single singer (or band), D-Plus recommends that the show last no more than 40 minutes.
Potential target audience: Groupies who aren't that fussed about the musical tastes of their guests.
Price: About $1,000 to $6,000 for regular bands, and up to $20,000 for Elvis Redux.
The after-party
Organizing a wedding usually takes months of planning and running yourself ragged. After all that, lots of couples feel let down by the brevity of the event. It's over too soon. These are the types to throw an after-party, which means, book a wedding hall that allows the party to rock on into the wee hours. Even that doesn't do the trick for some, and indeed, Ilani says the after-party usually is held somewhere else - a bar, a club, on the beach, wherever they can have fun.
Potential target audience: Couples who don't understand that sometimes, the party's over.
Price: About NIS 40,000 unless you really like sand.
Souvenirs
The happy couple will have plenty of souvenirs from the event, not least the bill. They'll have a wedding album, possibly a video, and the shards of the broken glass. But these days, the guests don't leave empty-handed either. A quick trawl online shows dozens of sites with ideas, from keyrings to mobiles. A relatively new gimmick, says Ilani, is bamboo shoots ("lucky bamboo") presented to the guests, or magnets with pictures from the event.
Potential target audience: Couples who really don't want their guests to forget them.
Price: About NIS 10 per guest.
E-mail invites
You planned your wedding down to the last detail and cleared the casualties out of the butterfly cage. The cake is perfect and your ersatz Elvis knows what songs to sing. Now you have to invite people.
If you look online, you can find myriad graphic artists dying to design your invitation (including ones that look like parking tickets. Really.) But there's another option: sending invites by e-mail - including a video clip starring the happy couple. Yael Vardimon, manager of Poshka, says that the young couple can film a real mini-movie, where they play themselves inviting the guests. (That's not too much of a stretch.) But, dear friends, don't forget to invite the granny who doesn't have e-mail in some other fashion. Even a magnet showing your smile won't make up for that.
Potential target audience: Reality show aficionados.
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
