bridal 2018

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minutes.
“It was organic, humble and perfect,” she
says. “It also happened to be Valentine’s Day,
but he had no idea!”
The couple knew exactly
what they wanted for their
wedding. Both are nature
lovers who are passion-
ate about helping others
and the world around
them. Meredith, who was a
member of the first gradu-
ating class of the Frankel
Jewish Academy in West
Bloomfield, is a family law
attorney with Marie A.
Poulte, PC, in Plymouth,
where she specializes in
alternative dispute resolu-
tion, often working with
violent situations.
“We really wanted the
wedding to be in nature,” Meredith says.
“Yoni grew up on a prairie in Iowa. He loved
being in New York for school, but he missed
being closer to nature. So we decided on
Belle Isle for the wedding.”
It was important to the couple that their
guests be comfortable — suits were not
necessary, dancing was. “And I didn’t want
to overpower nature itself with the décor,”
Meredith says. “I wanted to complement it.”
The couple tapped wedding coordinator
and florist Erin Schonenan, owner of Sage
Green Events in West Bloomfield, to bring it
all together.

“She was amazing,” Meredith says. “I knew
the feelings I wanted, that I wanted simple
and natural, but I didn’t have the wedding
lingo and flower names. I showed her a few
pictures and she just got it. She goes to farm-
ers’ markets for in-season flowers — I just
loved it.”
Because this was Schonenan’s first time
working on a Jewish wedding, the couple
were slightly nervous about coordinating all
the aspects. “But she came to our first meet-
ing with a notebook,” Meredith says. “She had
studied everything — she knew more than I
did!”

THE WEDDING

“I’m a person who needs to know why I’m
doing something,” Meredith says. “I don’t
like to do it because I’m required to. I started
keeping Shabbat while Yoni and I were
engaged — I didn’t want to get married and
suddenly have to do these things I didn’t
understand. I wanted to know that it would
be something that felt meaningful and good
to me.”
In keeping the outward elements of the
wedding gorgeously easy-breezy and inher-
ently organic, Meredith and Yoni were able to
focus on the things truly important to them
— a warm, intimate celebration with family
and friends while embracing Jewish tradi-
tion and, says Yoni, “its beautiful approach
to communal celebration. We wanted to
include the full megillah of ritual and tradi-
tion, but we wanted that tradition to be
inclusive and egalitarian. So we asked our-

continued on page 56

54

January 25 • 2018

jn

ABOVE: After the ceremony,
the newlyweds’ friends
“deliver” them to the
celebration and the hora.
LEFT: Yoni and guests pray
Minchah (afternoon service)
before the ceremony.
BOTTOM LEFT: It’s
traditional to exchange gifts
before the wedding. “My
grandma had a necklace
that she wore every day,
and I inherited it when she
passed away,” Meredith
says. “It meant so much to
me — I also wore it every
day, until it fell off and was
lost. Yoni found pictures of
it, took them to the store
that made the necklace and
they replicated it. It really
embodies how Yoni’s brain
works.”