A Brooklyn Wedding with Jewish and Italian Family Traditions

A rooftop first look. A rose covered chuppah. Two surprise proposals. A shared father daughter dance. Danielle (she/her) and Sarah (she/her) filled their Brooklyn wedding with deeply personal moments that reflected their relationship, their families, and the traditions that mattered most. They blended Jewish and Italian traditions, exchanged handwritten vows, and danced until 2am with the people they love most.

How did your story begin?

We met on Hinge in 2021, sending each other long paragraph messages that took hours to respond to. Our connection really came alive on our first date at the Clover Club in Brooklyn. When Danielle was late, Sarah was convinced she was getting catfished. Going out for dinner and sharing food was a bold choice for a first date, but it all worked out in the end!

Danielle loved that I knew how to work my way through a menu, and I loved that Danielle’s stories always cracked me up. We both knew right away that there was something very special between us.

Our dates have always been magical and fun, while also being thoughtful and spontaneous. Our love of food and travel has brought us some of our favourite adventures, and we still look forward to date nights and always make one on one quality time a priority.

How did your proposals unfold?

We were engaged for about a year and a half, and it felt like the perfect amount of time to truly enjoy being engaged and the wedding planning process.

I couldn’t wait any longer, so I proposed through a scavenger hunt that ended on the rooftop of our home with a violinist and dozens of roses in the pouring rain. We had always planned for me to propose first because that felt right to us, but Danielle had no idea when it would happen. I’m not very good at keeping secrets, and, funny enough, the day before I proposed, Danielle mentioned that she hoped it would be a big surprise. Thankfully, it was!

A few months later, Danielle returned the surprise by proposing on the beach in the Bahamas under the guise of a photoshoot. I didn’t want to do the photoshoot because I thought it was a scam, but Danielle managed to convince me. We got engaged for the first time in December and knew we wanted to wait until the following summer to get married.

A Brooklyn Wedding with Jewish and Italian Family Traditions – photo 1

A Brooklyn Wedding with Jewish and Italian Family Traditions – photo 2

How did you approach planning your wedding together?

Planning our wedding was such a beautiful time in our relationship. We truly enjoyed the planning process and bringing our families and friends together in one space.

We worked with an incredible wedding planner, DeAnne Stewart of Dear September Events, who made the process incredibly smooth. While we didn’t delegate tasks between each other, certain details felt more important to one of us than the other. We still made every decision together. For example, Sarah really wanted to create a fun and energetic experience, so having an electric saxophonist and violinist from Jarrell Entertainment was a priority. Danielle, on the other hand, was focused on creating a romantic and intimate feel through the flowers by Ember Floral.

We were so lucky that DeAnne and the team at Dear September Events really got to know us and our vibe. They always gave us thoughtful recommendations that perfectly matched our style and taste.

What mattered most when choosing your wedding vendors?

We found all of our wedding vendors through our wedding planner, Dear September Events. We locked them in first, and they helped us secure the rest.

The Box House Hotel immediately stood out to us because of its gorgeous rooftop space. It’s like a glass box with a retractable roof and incredible views of the NYC skyline. The first time we saw photos of it, we knew it was the right place for us. Food and drinks were included with the venue, and they were incredible!

After that, we locked in our florist, Ember Floral, our DJ, Jarrell Entertainment, and our photography and videography team, 98 Wedding Co and Weddings By Nato. We truly picked out every detail ourselves, right down to the forks and knives.

How did you keep your wedding budget on track?

Sarah is the Excel wizard, so she made sure we had our numbers locked and loaded with a clear view of what we were spending compared to what we had budgeted. Our wedding planner, Dear September Events, also helped us keep track of our actual costs against our budget, which made the whole process feel much more manageable.

Did you include any DIY touches in your wedding?

We had one DIY project: a Love Table featuring the love stories from the generations before us, including our parents and grandparents. We printed the photos we wanted to include and gradually collected different gold frames from a variety of shops.

We placed the table near the entrance to our venue so everyone could see it as they arrived.

What made your ceremony feel so personal?

We had a Jewish ceremony with Rabbi Alexis Pinsky, who did a beautiful job bringing our story to life. She gave us plenty of opportunities to personalize the ceremony and choose Hebrew translations that would resonate most with our families. My family is Italian Catholic, so it was important to us that the ceremony felt inclusive and equally meaningful for everyone there.

We also wrote and read our own vows during the ceremony. Sarah read hers first, and the last line of her vows ended up being the first line of mine. We call each other “my love, lover, and best friend,” so it felt incredibly fitting and very us.

Sarah ended her vows with, “You are my partner, my home, my love, lover, and my best friend.”

I began mine with, “You are my love, lover, and best friend. I know that in a million lifetimes, I would always find you and choose you to be my partner.”

What are the moments from your wedding day you’ll never forget?

We spent the night before the wedding apart and got ready separately, agreeing not to text each other on the day. Instead, we communicated through our sisters because we both had surprise gifts to exchange. Before our guests arrived, we shared a first look, practiced our first dance, and finally saw each other’s dresses for the first time. Seeing our wedding come to life at The Box House Hotel, especially our rose adorned chuppah created by Ember Floral, was such a special moment. We planned our ceremony for sunset, but rain made another appearance, just as it had during our proposal and bridal shower. Thankfully, we find the rain romantic.

Our rabbi, Rabbi Alexis Pinsky, made the ceremony funny and deeply meaningful, and when our dresses got caught during the seven circles, our wedding planner from Dear September Events jumped in to save the day. Because we had already done our photos and first look, we were able to spend cocktail hour with our guests, enjoying our signature cocktails, the Caffeine Queen and the Spicy Wifey, while a string quartet played covers of our favourite songs.

The reception began with a surprise sparkler entrance, followed by a champagne tower and our choreographed first dance to Taylor Swift’s “Enchanted.” We shared a special father daughter dance with Sarah’s dad, kicked off the dance floor with a choreographed mother daughter dance, celebrated the Hora, and danced until 2am with the team from Jarrell Entertainment, whose DJ, electric saxophonist, and violinist kept the party going. We finished the night with Shake Shack and Prince Street Pizza at the after party downstairs.

Were there any personal touches that made your wedding feel uniquely yours?

We included two blessings over kiddush cups during our wedding. One was a special kiddush cup we bought just for the occasion, and the other was Danielle’s dad’s favourite coffee mug, a cow mug. Before the ceremony, our rabbi, Rabbi Alexis Pinsky, gave the mug its own special blessing. It’s those small, deeply personal details that made our wedding feel so special to us.

It was also important to us that our flowers from Ember Floral had a home after the celebration. We wanted lots of flowers on the day, but we also wanted them to continue bringing happiness afterward, so we donated them to a senior citizen centre in New York City.

Which vendors made the biggest impact on your wedding day?

Our wedding planner, Dear September Events, deserves a huge shoutout because they truly went above and beyond. They took the time to really get to know us, our interests, our style, and what mattered most to us, and every recommendation they made felt incredibly thoughtful.

We also want to acknowledge Willow House Beauty. Feeling beautiful on our wedding day was so important to us, and they helped us feel like the very best versions of ourselves. The team at The Box House Hotel was equally incredible. The food was outstanding, the service was top notch, and our bartender, Dave, brought Sarah’s niche signature drink, a peperoncini dirty martini, to life.

Which family and cultural traditions were most meaningful to include?

Food has always been a big part of our lives, so it was important that those traditions were part of our wedding too. I’m Italian, so we chose a traditional Millefoglie wedding cake from Bruno’s NYC, which means “thousand leaves.” It features delicate layers of puff pastry filled with rich cream, then topped with fresh berries and powdered sugar. We assembled the berries and powdered sugar ourselves in front of our guests while our special song, “Sarà perché ti amo,” played in the background.

Sarah’s dad also gave the Hamotzi, the Jewish blessing over the challah bread before dinner. We also celebrated the Hora, which was such a special moment where we truly felt supported and uplifted, quite literally, by everyone at our wedding.

Another tradition that meant so much to us was our handmade ketubah from Israel, which now hangs in our living room. Before the main ceremony, we gathered with our families in the bridal suite while Rabbi Alexis Pinsky read through the ketubah and its translation, Sarah’s mum gave us a blessing as a couple, and we signed the ketubah together.

How did you make traditional wedding moments your own?

We talked through every detail and did what felt right to us. We wanted our dresses to be a surprise, so we worked with the same consultant at Kleinfeld on different days to make sure they complemented each other without either of us seeing them. We even got to say “yes to the dress” at the same time with Randy Fenoli, standing on opposite sides of a mirror. It made our first look even more magical.

For the ceremony, Sarah walked down the aisle with her parents first, and then I walked down the aisle with my mum to meet her. I had always pictured myself walking towards Sarah, and she loved that idea too. After losing my dad when I was 16, I never imagined I’d have a father daughter dance. Because I’m so close with Sarah’s dad, we decided to share the dance together, and he insisted we each have half the song. It became one of the most meaningful moments of the day. I also surprised my mum with a choreographed dance that we learned over Zoom together, and it ended up being the perfect way to kick off the party.