A Jewish Destination Wedding in Israel: Mack & Danielle

August 1, 2012

If your wedding dream is to literally party all night, then Mack & Danielle’s wedding is gonna be the one for you. These crazy cats partied until 10am the next morning, including an impromptu early morning photo session on the beach! The destination wedding was held at Gan Achuza in Beit Hanan, Israel. “We booked this venue for its natural setting in an orange grove on a hill, with a magnificent view”, Danielle wrote. “Having spent 3 days travelling up and down the country visiting over 16 venues, the minute we walked into Achuza we knew it was where we wanted to get married. If people were flying all the way from the UK, the US and South Africa, many of whom had never been to Israel before, we really wanted a wedding venue that would take in the incredible land. Another massive plus was the sheer beauty of the chuppah (canopy under which Jews must be wed). Our chuppah was made out of 4 trees that had all grown their branches and leaves into one and other. It all felt very symbolic.”

The Jewish wedding had many important traditions, and these were some of the most special parts of the day for the couple. “It’s really hard to decide on my favourite part of our day!” continued the bride. “The most intense part for both of us was definitely the ‘Beddeken’. At Jewish weddings, the groom must check the bride before veiling her, to make sure that she is indeed the correct bride! We had not seen or spoken to each other for 3 days so seeing each other for the first time was very emotional. It was a very highly charged few hours of waiting, and then when he was finally danced into my room by all his friends, I could not help but break down a little. It was an incredible moment, knowing that this was it! We were going to become family!!”

The couple partied hard and continued until the early hours of the next day! “The party only really finished at 10am when we finally made it up to the hotel pool and passed out on the sun loungers”, Danielle concluded. “We partied hard! The DJ played until 4am and then we chilled things out a little by having a ‘Kumzitz’ which literally means ‘come sit’. As I am a singer and songwriter, many of our friends are also talented musicians so we all gathered near the Chuppah for a sing song as the sun rose. But the party didn’t even end there! We all piled onto the coach at 6am and headed straight down to the beach for some sea air and more singing. We finally ended our perfect 24 hours, still in wedding dress and suit, by blagging a bunch of us into breakfast at the hotel. One of the beautiful things about Israel and getting married there, was everybody’s warmth and excitement, even the taxi drivers – one even refused to take money from us when we told him we were to be wed there.”

Amazing! Doesn’t this look like one hell of a party?! Thank you to Mack & Danielle and their wedding photographer Naomi Goggin for sharing.

Supporting Cast:

Photography Credit: Naomi Goggin Photography
Venue: Gan Achuza in Beit Hanan, Israel
Bride’s Dress: Erez Ovadia, Tel Aviv
Bride’s Shoes & Headpiece: Emmy
Bride’s Jewellery: Dynasty, Hatton Garden
Groom’s Outfit: Ted Baker
Hair: Einat Sberlo, Tel Aviv
Make Up: Anat Razmovich, Tel Aviv
Band: SumSum, Israel
DJ: Ofer Uziel, Tel Aviv
Caterers: Ta’am Vatzeva