Emily & Shachar's Wedding

Horah!

I love this series of photos of people dancing the horah!

Yossi's Photos

Ran sent along this batch of photos taken by Shachar's uncle Yossi:

Table Shots

We managed to get pictures with most people at their tables. Here are a few of the shots:

	Front row: Vanessa, Sergio, Mike, Greg, Emersyn, Arden. Back row: Carrie, Dave, Phil, Emily, Odessa, Beckett, Jen, Mike.
	Front row: Carol, Jim, Bonnie, Barry, John, Cindy, Lori. Back row: Ann, Shachar, Emily
	Gil, Jay, Emily, Shachar, Brian, Judy, Laurel, Jane
	Front row: Neil, Liz, Margaret, Alan, Ramesh, Mira. Back row: Alan, Christopher, Nelly, Timon, Andrea, Jonathan, Shachar, Emily
	Front Row: Titania, Meredith, Jennifer, Jenny, Hilly, Lois. Back row: Al, Shachar, Emily
	Yossi, Michelle, Shimon, David, Nelly, Peter, Emily, Shachar, Rikki, Natasha
	Front row: Shula, Leah, Zeev, Eden. Standing: Shachar, Scott, Emily, Nadav, Patricia, Sharon, Guy
	Back row: Pam, Shachar, Emily, Merle, Brad, Annette, Roberta. Front row: Bruce, Jim, Denise
	Back Row: Chris, Mopsy, Linda, Emily, Shachar, Erv. Front row: Richard, Maxine, Lisa, John

New Batch

I got the CDs from the photographer today and there are too many photos to know what to do with! Here are a few new ones for sharing:

Such a strange angle on this one:

Waiting for omlettes:

Katy, Maria, Meagan!

First dance...

The world's best wedding car!!!

From Andrea

Andrea came and took a bunch of photos as we were getting ready. Here are a few of my favorites:

My bouquet

The rings (the best man couldn't believe how small mine was!)

with my Mom

Each table had cookies, Hebrew flash cards, the globe favors, centerpieces of big globes (all filled with blue hydrangeas) and more:

All ready to go!

First Batch from the Photographer

Mom sent these along by email, the rest should arrive on the CD tomorrow...

Here's the whole group:

Here we are with our parents:

Here we are with most of our siblings (and one cousin) - from left to right: Sharon, Betty, Rikki, Shachar, Emily, Eduard, Brian, Karen, Liz, Brooke, Annie

And me dancing with Grandpa

Karen's Photos

Thank you to Karen for sending along this batch:

Here's the cake -- not as blue as I was hoping for but absolutely scrumptious to eat!

Chuppah holders during the rehearsal

The many red heads:

Just married... (I think this is when we finally got to sit down and eat something)

First dance (to Brown Eyed Girl -- thanks to Bill's suggestion to the band!!! Way to go!)

First Photos

Lisa wins the prize for getting her photos to us the fastest!

Getting ready with my Mom (goodness that's a lot of curls!)

The ceremony - here we are under the chuppah along with the cantor. You can see Betty (my sister, the maid of honor) and our two moms

And here we are afterwards posing for photos

Wedding Recap

I am a self-styled wedding expert, so you should feel confident that my analysis of Emily and Shachar's wedding weekend is based on fact and experience and not at all biased by my position as the bride's younger brother. Here are a few quick observations:

Food: Like most wedding weekends, a good portion of the time was spent eating. It was Emily's cookies, however, that helped define the big day. The tables were designated by a type or shape of cookie and the seating cards were attached to cookie cutters. Match up the cookie cutter you were given to the treat on the table and you had found your seat for the wedding. Not only was her creativity evident -- lots of white and blue frosting, sprinkles and m-and-m's on display -- but the cookies were absolutely delicious. I can't speak too much about the rest of the food since I filled up quite quickly on cookies and didn't have a chance to sample much else.

Family: This weekend was the first opportunity for many of us to meet Shachar's family. I met his father during a recent trip to Israel on business, but his uncle, half-sister, mother, sister (and her boyfriend), and best-friend all made the trip over from Israel for the weekend. A group of family came down from Massachusetts to join in the festivities as well. They are an absolutely wonderful group of people - full of energy and life, funny, warm, caring. Karen and I sat with most of the family during the rehearsal dinner on Saturday night and laughed continuously while comparing family trees (they claim the Shem-Tov family tree is less complicated, but I don't believe it). On Sunday they sang and danced -- and from what I understand, suggested we were not wild and crazy enough because we didn't party all night. We'll show them next time, right?

Friends: Emily's friends came out of the wood work for the big event. I hadn't seen Maria Coplit and Katy Burns-Howard (or her sister Meg) in years -- Emily went to Staples High School with them way back when. Darren Rigger, who worked on mom's campaign for State Senate and is now a candidate for congress himself made the trip down from New York with his wife. Carrie and Heather - friends from Amherst - were there for the rehearsal dinner, wedding, and cookie baking (as you have seen on the blog). Add them to the family and family friends mix and you've got a party.

There are so many things, big and small, that I could comment on. That's a start - I will try to do more later. And I will post some pictures soon as well.

... and we're married!

Thank you to everyone who was with us or who sent happy wishes. Unfortunately the live blogging didn't work out, but we'll post the photos everyone sends us here to share (since I don't have any decent ones on my camera to post right away)

Love to all -- Mrs. Shem-Tov

The big day!

Wedding day is finally here! I'm hoping Brian will post a few updates for you during the day, and otherwise we'll post all sorts of photos and things here afterwards!

We'd like to thank...

After a night of watching the Oscars, it seems only fitting to express a few much needed thank you's here on the site...

Thank you to Mom who is doing most of the organizing of the wedding and keeping her crazy eldest daughter as sane as possible in the face of an upcoming wedding 3000 miles away. You are the world's best Mom and I'm glad you're enjoying getting to finally be the mother-of-the-bride despite my promises to elope. Thank you to Bill for helping her out, for taking on the important task of cake tasting and for providing the most awesome gorgeous classic car to drive off in after the party.

Thank you to Dad and Jane for organizing the rehearsal dinner and putting up with me not having any idea what I want.

Thank you to the Shulamit, Shimon and Sari for letting me marry their wonderful son.

Thank you to Betty for being my maid-of-honor, to Brian, Eduard, Rikki and Sharon for agreeing to hold up our Chuppah, to Meredith and Titania for being our flower girls, and to Omer and Anna for making sure Shachar survives the big day. Thank you to Karen, Liz, Annie and Brooke for helping out in ways they don't even know about yet, and to Auntie Lisa for coming up to CT early to help with all the fun stuff.

Thank you to BobbiLynn for making me my lovely wedding jewelry, to Carrie H. for writing our newspaper announcements.

And thank you to all of you who are coming to share this exciting day with us or who have sent along your best wishes!

Chuppah

We finally had a chance to work on our chuppah, the canopy that we're getting married under. During the wedding, the chuppah will be supported by poles carried by Emily's brothers Brian and Eduard and Shachar's sisters Sharon and Rikki.