I'm offering a ONE-HOUR FREE BRIDAL CONSULTATION

Mazal Tov!  I'm offering a ONE-HOUR FREE BRIDAL CONSULTATION.  It's time to start your wedding planning NOW with. Go to my facebook page www.facebook.com/StylesByYochi   and complete the form and I will take care of everything!

Together we'll discuss and explore:
Makeup
Count down to the big event:  taking care of your skin (face, lips, brows and more).

We'll explore your most flattering color palette and makeup options.

Hairstyling
Count down to the big event:  Taking care of your hair (hair cut, moisturizing hair mask and more.

We'll explore your most flattering hair styles, veils & hair accessories.

Tips & Secrets
Learn the tips and secrets to make your wedding day as stress-free as possible.  I'll answer all the bridal questions you never had anyone to ask.

You can turn this session into a trial makeup and hairstyling session *.

 (* session costs 150 NIS deducted from the final wedding hair and makeup fees.)

Tips on Wedding Tipping

If it takes a village to raise a child then it takes a city to pull off a wedding.  And many of the folks who work "in this city" and work hard to make your simcha possible, expect a tip from the happy families in addition to their regular salaries.  
Tips are never included in that wonderful Israeli pricing invention – "the all inclusive price".  You should ask the Hall owner or your Hall representative how much you should tip Hall employees.  Remember: "Whatever you think is correct" is NOT an appropriate answer to this question!

There are three tipping etiquette issues all parents of the bride and groom should deal with. 
First of all: Who will be tipping?  If both families are equally dividing up the tipping, then calculate the tipping total IN ADVANCE. 
Secondly: Take out the cash from your favorite ATM and have each tip "group" neatly placed in a marked envelope and ready (at least) the NIGHT BEFORE THE WEDDING.  Believe me; you do not want to find yourself running to three different ATMs on the morning of the wedding, trying to get out the amount of necessary cash.

Thirdly: You do not and, I believe, should not have to distribute the tips personally; you should appoint someone who will distribute the tips at the appropriate times.  I would also recommend that you discuss this job position with the person in question in advance of the wedding.

Here's my recommended list:

Who?
How Much?
Other details
When and to Whom?
Kitchen staff
50 NIS per staff member
Ask your Hall rep how many people are counted in the kitchen staff.
The collective tip should be paid the morning of the wedding.  This amount should be paid to the Chef/Sous Chef.  If you live far from the hall, find out if you can bring this money a day or two before the wedding.
Waiters
50 – 100 NIS per server
Ask your Hall rep how many waiters will be working that night.  In addition, find out the name of your Head Waiter and be introduced to her/him on the day of the wedding.
A collective tip for all the waiters and the barmen should be given to the head waiter.
It would be nice if everyone attending your wedding would also give a tip to their specific server – but this unfortunately does not always happen. *
Barmen
70-80 NIS per barman
Ask your Hall rep how many barmen will be in attendance at the wedding.  There is usually no more than one or two.
See above.
Bathroom cleaning lady
50 – 100 NIS
Yes, this lovely lady is responsible for cleaning the Hall restrooms throughout the simcha and she does indeed deserve a tip.
Timing is tricky here – if your wedding lasts to the wee hours, she may not be there. She should be on duty until 11:30 PM-midnight.  Ask your Hall rep.  My feeling is that you should give her the tip earlier in the evening.
Photographers, videographers, makeup artists and hair stylists, wedding planners, dress makers, florists and the list goes on and on
No tip
While these service providers do not get tipped, many of them do prefer, request and require payment in CASH.  Some, like bands, ask that half their fee be paid in cash.  Find out all these sticky little issues in advance and write it down in your own To Do lists, if these details are not written in the service contracts. You do not want to run to an ATM a half an hour before the wedding.




* If you are a guest at a wedding, I warmly recommend that even if 'your' table does not give a common tip, then you should give the server something upon leaving the hall.  We usually give 20 NIS per invited guest.

Please keep in mind that you want your guests to remember the bride's dress, hair and makeup, the groom's suit and the cute bridesmaids, the great music and wonderful food; you do not want them to remember bad waiter service or dirty bathrooms.  The way to prevent this is to ensure the Hall can handle the kind of wedding you envision. 
This means that even BEFORE you sign a contract with the Hall, you have an opportunity to attend a wedding in the Hall with approximately the same number of guests you plan to invite.  Not only do you want to inspect the quality and quantity of the food served; you should also take a look at the waiters: how they are dressed (clean uniforms, aprons, gloves, etc.), their average age (you do not want 15 year olds dragging around your food), how many tables to each waiter (this is a very important point that should be closed in advance), their attitude toward serving (are they smiling or hiding) and the like.  Remember in Israel, waiting tables is not a career choice.  Tips and a polite and respectful attitude towards the waiters could mean the difference between a wonderful wedding and a wedding full of small, annoying disasters.

CREATING THE PERFECT KALLAH HENNA BASKET - OR IS A BASKET THE SIZE OF A BABY'S BATHTUB FILLED WITH JEWELRY, SILVER, CRYSTAL, CHOCOLATES AND TENS OF SHINY TRINKETS REALLY "TOO MUCH"?

It should come as no surprise to anyone that growing up in the Bronx and in an Ashkenazi family, did not prepare you me for a Henna ceremony, let alone prepare me for creating the obligatory Kallah Henna basket. 

Let's start at the beginning; actually two beginnings.  The first is that my eldest son married (Mazal Tov!) a lovely Moroccan girl.  The second is that a Henna ceremony is an integral part of the Moroccan (and other Sephardic) marriage traditions.

A month or two before the wedding my daughter dropped the bombshell!  I must bring a Kallah Henna basket to the Henna ceremony.  In my naiveté I thought, I've made hundreds of Purim baskets throughout the years – what's the big deal?  WRONG!!  It is a big deal.  The preparation for the basket – should begin months before the Henna ceremony when one should begin to search for the obligatory presents such as jewelry, silver, crystal, negligee.  The basket also includes a host of small trinkets i.e. hamsas, tehilim, bride's prayer, chocolates and the list can go on and on and on.  As I would find out later, the type of presents given the bride has as much to do with the bride as it does with the groom's family (that should be read = "mother").  I felt like Alice in Wonderland, with the landscape growing larger and scarier with each new discovery.

Just ever so slightly hysterical by this point, I got a list of obligatory presents from my daughter.  My daughter let it fly that the present search and find mission, usually takes several months.  Nice.  I didn't have "several months" – I had weeks and it would have to do.

My search and destroy mission to find each present on the list  lead to the inevitable gift-giving questions: What color will she like? What size? What style? What if she already has it?  What if she hates it?  Of course "merchandise return slips" (in my mind, these little beauties are one of the most significant inventions of the modern era – up there with the "mouse" and the "un-do button") solves many of these dilemmas.  

Now, if you are like me, you would assume that the next step is to wrap up each present in shiny paper and a big bow, put them in pretty bags and cart them off to the celebration.  Once again, my innocents,  this line of thinking is WRONG!  While a Henna ceremony is a lovely and lively celebration of life, love, friends and family.  It is also a celebration of "see how much I am giving" and "see how much I have".  Three words that can easily describe any Henna are Shiny, Bright and Loud.  The presents are no exception!  Here again, my daughter's invaluable knowledge helped .and I learned that the presents had to be shown-off and showcased in something big and ostentatious.

At this point I used my handy-dandy internet. I googled the death out of key words like henna baskets and Henna ceremonies (in Hebrew and English).  I found plenty of examples!  I found pictures of large baskets filled to the brim with all kinds of shiny goodies.   I even found pictures of presents that were masqueraded as wedding scenes (the earrings and necklace were the bride and groom, the watch in its box was the chuppah and on and on), towels and robes that looked like wedding cakes and so on. I also noted that the color choices were not subtle or coordinated; they were loud, profuse and striking.  It seems that Henna baskets take the American "More is More" approach very seriously! 

With my new-found knowledge, I searched the stores for the largest basket I could find!  When I found my basket – as large as a baby's bath (but not as deep) - I knew I was on my way.  I bought rolls of organza and shiny paper.  I continued to minutely examine the Henna basket pictures online, trying to decipher each shape and bulge.

A kind and discerning client understood my obvious cultural handicap.  She told me that chocolates (large wrapped ones), hamsas (good luck charms in the shape of a hand – sometimes with an eye in the middle), the brides prayers and tehilim were usually added to the mix.

Once again, I went out on my shopping mission, looking for – well – anything "shiny" and colorful.  I bought hamsas, miniature tehilim books, silk flowers, miniature Moroccan shoes with long upturned toes, chocolates, strings of shiny beads and fake pearls, large decorative candles, ribbons and so much more.  The brighter and shinier - the better! 

When I began my Henna shopping project, I put the carefully wrapped items I purchased in a corner of my bedroom.  As the list grew and the items piled up, I moved my treasures to a corner of a guest room.  By the time I finished my project, the items were piled high on a double bed.

One of my sisters-in-law came in from the USA for the wedding.  The delicious "H" was now my comrade-in-arms for this important of missions.  Just days before the Henna, she bought the fixings and fillings for her own Kallah basket.

Now came the day of the Henna celebration.  Early that morning we prepared for the – "dressing" - the dressing of the baskets.  We laid out all our presents, goodies and trinkets on the shabbas table and began to work in earnest.  Referring again and again to the internet pictures, I began to understand that each large gift needed to be seen by the admiring crowd of Henna invitees.  So began the unwrapping and rewrapping.   We staged, placed, replaced, moved, wrapped and unwrapped, hung, strung, laid and draped the presents and goodies in their respective places – each in a strategic place in the basket.  Some placed higher.  Some placed lower.  Some draped in small trinkets.  Some stand alone in their importance.  All nestled in a giant bird's nest of transparent paper and organza.  The basket itself was then draped in beads and hung with good luck symbols.
After an hour or two, we became a "little" slap-happy from the fumes of the glue and epoxy (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!).  From that point on, every two or three minutes we would take a step back from our work and ask the all important question "Is this too much?"  As we worked the "Is this too much" question transformed from a serious decorating question, into a sign that we needed to reposition and re-dress a gift with even more trinkets.  We were like kindergarteners gone wild with finger paints – no space should be left untouched, "no white space" (if you know what I mean), no color combinations too outrageous and, most importantly, no one there to stop us! 

At a certain point we lost the ability to stop ourselves from "improving" our baskets.  It took all of our will power and threats that we would never get to the hall on time to force us to STOP and finally proclaim that our baskets were indeed 'stage ready' and we needed to get  ourselves to the hall.

The Henna celebration is a blog all by itself, but I will say that only when we reached the hall did we find out the importance of the basket displays and their larger-than-life presence.  Our baskets and those of others were placed and displayed in a long row, along the main wall of the hall.  Surrounded by the opulence of a dressed room in draped Moroccan finery, the baskets indeed needed to shine – literally – in order to compete with the glitter around them.  So to answer my own question: where the baskets "too much"?  NOT AT ALL!

Do you have questions about a Jewish wedding, its customs, traditions and practices?  Please feel free to contact me today!