‘Inseparable’ Since the Start
What Started as the Intention for a Small
Wedding Led to More Th an 150 Guests
RACHEL KURLAND | JE STAFF
W EDDING PLANNING
can be a daunting task,
but Jada Littman El-
drich relatively knew what she
wanted from the start.

Namely, Samuel Eldrich.

But fi nding each other
fi rst was a tangled web of
Jewish geography.

Jada’s close friend Steph-
anie Ice reached out to her
cousin hoping to find a nice Jew-
ish boy for her to date — as much
as she enjoyed her friend as a third
wheel, she wanted to go on double dates
with her. Ice’s cousin worked at the Chil-
dren’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who reached
out to her coworker. That coworker was Sam’s cousin.

Sam was still finishing medical school at Tulane University.

During his last couple of months there, they chatted for hours
and hours over the phone, texted and FaceTimed each other.

Sam (originally from Connecticut) subsequently moved to
Philadelphia to start his residency, and the pair fi nally met face-
to-face for the fi rst time in June 2015. It was beshert.

Fast-forward to January 2017: When Jada was out to brunch
with her girlfriends one morning, she returned back to
the home she shared with Sam to discover a surprise.

“He left me a note in our foyer area asking
me to meet him where the two of us first told
each other that we loved each other,” she
recalled, which was at Three Bears Park in
Society Hill.

Sam placed rose petals around the
Three Bears statue and
handed Jada a box
with her name on it.

“I opened it up and
it was a View-Master,”
she said. “Each slide
had a different picture
of us with a caption
leading up to ‘Will
you marry me?’ at
the end. I turned
around and he was on
one knee.”
22 MARCH 22, 2018
Jada laid out the ins and
outs of the anatomy of her
wedding day, of which the
ceremony and reception
were held at the Nation-
al Museum of American
Jewish History on Nov. 4,
2017, offi ciated by Rabbi
Elyssa Cherney.

Th ey chose the NMAJH
as their venue because they
wanted to stay in the city, which
would also allow their guests to
learn more about Philly — right on
Independence Mall — and also show-
cases why the couple love it so much. Al-
though it rained that evening, Jada said she was
glad to bring more Jewish awareness to the city through
the venue.

“NMAJH was a blank canvas. You can do anything with the
space that they give you,” she said.

As they were initially touring the venue, Jada got a notifi ca-
tion that Beyoncé announced she was pregnant with twins (Feb.

1, 2017) — that was all the divine inspiration she needed to lock
down her wedding space, she laughed.

“I thought that was beshert right there.”
Th e museum off ers several op-
tions for catering (they chose Sage
Catered Events out of Berwyn).

It’s also BYO, which helped
with liquor costs.

Although a bit unorth-
odox, Jada was especially
excited that the event
fl oor had 10 bathrooms,
for both men and wom-
en. For a guest list
of 150 people, that is
an important factor,
considering their elder-
ly relatives.

“I just didn’t want
people cutting out their
time of eating, dancing,
drinking,” she said.

One of the fi rst major deci-
SIMCHAS JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



sions the couple planned was the color scheme: Th ey settled on
green (Jada’s favorite color), blue (Sam’s favorite color), and pur-
ple (Jada’s late grandmother’s favorite color).

“We didn’t want the typical fall [colors] — maroon, champagne.”
Th ey kept it simple, excluding any other theme — “we had our
Bar and Bat Mitzvahs; we had our themes there,” she laughed.

“We just wanted it to be fun.”
Picking a DJ was easy, too, because Jada was set on one com-
pany before Sam even proposed.

Wired Up Entertainment, based in Wilmington, Del., where
Jada grew up, is owned by her close friend; they went to JCC day
care and grew up together.

Th eir cake was from Bredenbeck’s Bakery in Chestnut Hill: a
simple French dot and quilt design. Aft er hors d’oeuvres, guests
chose from either fi let mignon, chicken, salmon or butternut
squash ravioli.

Ryan Young Studio provided photography and videography.

Jada surprised herself while dress shopping. She wanted a fi t
and fl are, mermaid silhouette style — “to show off the wedding
diet body” — but ultimately chose a princess-style ball gown from
Sabrina Ann Couture in West Chester to fl atter her 5’2” frame.

It paired well with her late
maternal grandmother’s original
wedding veil, worn on July 3, 1949, as well as her choice of shoe,
a pair of Badgley Mischka gardenia pumps (her late maternal
grandmother’s favorite fl ower).

She changed into a shorter dress at the reception to dance in, a
sequin dress from Bernsteins Fashions in Edison, N.J., while Sam
wore a dapper tuxedo from Boyds Philadelphia.

“I was never the type of girl who dreamt of a big wedding
or wedding day,” she admitted, and neither did Sam. But he’s an
only child, and three of their grandparents are in their 90s, so
they decided to go all out.

Her favorite moment of the evening was seeing Sam’s reaction
when he saw her in her dress for the fi rst time. And aft er the
father-daughter dance, she surprised her grandfather with one,
too, to Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings.”
Since they returned back to their Washington Square home
aft er a honeymoon in the Galapagos Islands, they said married
life has been a breeze.

“We’ve been inseparable since the day we met,” she said. ❤
rkurland@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0737
PHOTOS: RYAN YOUNG STUDIOS
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM SIMCHAS
MARCH 22, 2018
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