Laura & Jacob


Malibu, CA

October 11, 2015

Thank You

We cannot begin to express our gratitude to all of our friends and family for making our wedding the most incredible, special night of our lives. We want to especially thank our parents, officiants and our wedding party for all of their help, support, and sanity leading up to the wedding.

If you want to continue re-living the night with us, we'll be posting photos and videos as they come in over the next few weeks and encourage you to keep checking back here. If you've got photos/videos you took that you'd like to share, please send them to us! We've also received all of your generous and lovely gifts and will be working diligently to thank all 250+ of you personally in the coming weeks.

Finally, we'd like to call out a few of our vendors that went above and beyond to make our wedding special. We hope you enjoyed their services and we encourage you to check them out and use them for your own events:

We're so happy to be married and so glad you could join us to be a part of it.

xoxo,
Laura & Jacob

Photos & Videos

We're so excited to show you our professional wedding photos, thanks to Heidi Ryder Photography

Getting Ready

First Look & Bridal Party

Ketubah Signing

Details

Family Portraits

Ceremony

Cocktail Hour

Toasts & Dances

Reception

We've also got a bunch of photos & videos our friends and family took - Send us your photos!

Saturday Night Drinks

Getting Ready

Family Favorites

GoPro Video Hat Highlights

Our Story

Laura Booth

Laura grew up in the Central Valley outside of Modesto, CA where both her parents were teachers. She moved to Santa Cruz to go to school at UCSC and later began working for the County of Santa Cruz in addition to being an engaged local political leader. Laura happened to be close friends with the office manager at a coworking space called Nextspace...

Jacob Knobel

Jacob grew up in Los Angeles, CA and his interests in technology eventually led him to start a series of startups with his former camp director (and our Master of Ceremonies), Sol Lipman. After finishing school at UC Irvine, he moved to Santa Cruz to work on one of those startups, 12seconds.tv, which had offices in a coworking space called Nextspace...

One Thursday night in November of 2008, 12seconds had their launch party at Nextspace. Laura's friend brought her to the party under the guise of needing to grab an umbrella from her office. Laura entered the party, and Jacob noticed her shortly thereafter when he overheard her talking about The West Wing and (from what he's been told) essentially cornered her for the rest of the night. The rest, as they say, is history.

They started dating over the next couple months, moved in together by the end of 2009, and have moved across the country to New York and back to California together. Today, Jacob and Laura live in San Francisco. As a result of completely unrelated and uncoordinated good luck, they both work at Yahoo in Sunnyvale, just one floor apart from each other. It's just as adorable as it sounds.

The Engagement

Ever since Jacob and Laura first starting dating, they regularly attempted a puzzle from the New York Times Crossword via an app on their (well, mostly Jacob's) iPad. They never got particularly good at it, but it was an easy way to relax on Sunday night before bed and for Laura to laugh at Jacob's inability to spell things.

By September of 2014, everyone (including Laura) knew a proposal was imminent. Jacob still wanted it to be a surprise, for it to be something only he could do, and for it to be very "us". He came up with a way to hack the NYTimes Crossword iPad app so he could load in his own puzzles instead of the puzzles that it normally downloads for each day.

When they sat down to do a puzzle late one Sunday night while settling in for bed, Laura thought they were playing the puzzle for that day’s paper, but instead it was one Jacob had created. He had made up a new puzzle filled with common NYTimes clues and answers so it wouldn't seem out of place, but with a few extra special answer words hidden in the puzzle.

They worked through it together like they always did, and when it was time, Jacob handed the iPad over to Laura to solve for the magic clue which asked LAURA WILL YOU MARRY ME. Laura was completely surprised and after the initial excitement, filled in her 3-letter answer to complete the puzzle: YES

When it came to the ring, Laura planned ahead and told a couple of her friends what she liked and disliked. Those friends were awesome in passing along the information to Jacob, who found something he thought fit well with Laura's style, while also making sure the diamond was completely conflict-free.
Jacob highly recommends talking to the amazing folks at Brilliant Earth in San Francisco if you're in the market for an ethical ring!

Wedding Party

SOL LIPMAN / Master of Ceremonies

Jacob's longtime mentor, business partner, camp counselor and friend. Sol met young Jacob when he caught him sneaking to the girls side of camp.

TOVA LEIBOVIC DOUGLAS / Officiant

Laura and Jacob's close confidant and longtime friend of the Knobel Family. Tova was instrumental in guiding Laura through her conversion to Judaism.

HARRISON MARKS / Best Man

Jacob's best friend from high school. Harrison is responsible for introducing Jacob to theater, as well as any trouble he's ever gotten into. You know him as the one who doesn't wear shoes.

NATE CHAFFETZ / Groomsman

Jacob's closest, oldest friend since kindergarten. As kids, they played flight simulator on the computer and thankfully only Nate flies real planes today. You'll find them attempting to outdo each other with mileage deals.

DEREK TRIPP / Groomsman

Laura's best friend from high school. They became close in an SAT prep class after realizing they only lived two houses apart. They have been lucky enough to live near each other, on both sides of the country, ever since.

LAUREN NORRIS LESSARD / Matron of Honor

Laura's best friend from college. Laura claims responsibility for the start of Lauren and her husband Eli's relationship. Between Eli's MD and Lauren's PHD in public health, they'll help with all your burning questions.

ILANA KNOBEL / Bridesmaid

Jacob's younger sister. She's an event planner who is living in Baltimore with her boyfriend fiancé Josh. If we can convince them to move back to LA, she might be available to plan your next wedding...

TALIA KNOBEL / Bridesmaid

Jacob's youngest sister. She recently finished her degree in Informatics at UMich and just moved to San Francisco to start her first job as a designer at what is slowly becoming the family company, Yahoo!

Frequently Asked Questions

General Questions

The wedding ceremony will begin promptly at 4:30 pm. Please give yourself adequate time to make it to Malibu, park (we'll have valet) and get settled.

The food served will be "kosher style" and will include fish/vegetarian/dairy (no meat).

There will be an assortment of vegetarian and dairy appetizers, as well as a cheese display from our dear friend Alex of the Vagabond Cheese Company. You will need to select either the salmon entree or the vegetarian stuffed portobello mushroom entree in advance when you RSVP. You will also have a chance to indicate any dietary restrictions at this time. Also, look forward to a delicious dessert buffet.

A little of both! Malibu Jewish Center is a beautiful venue that is fully covered, but open-air. You'll be shaded from the sun during the ceremony, and we've found in our many visits the weather to be just perfect. In case it's a little chilly later on in the evening, we'll have heat lamps, but we also recommend bringing a light sweater/wrap or jacket.

Yes! Once you're there, you won't need to go anywhere else.

Nope! Our venue is on the opposite side of the highway from the beach, facing the Malibu mountains. Everything is concrete, so any footwear goes.

Cocktail attire -- whatever you interpret that to mean is fine with us.

Do you know us at all? Of course! Please plan your transportation accordingly :-)

During the ceremony, we ask that you please refrain from taking photos -- both the traditional and digital variety. We'll give you a specific time to take photos of us during the ceremony, but would otherwise love for you to be fully present in this moment with us. Feel free to take all the pictures you want at the reception!

We'll be playing this one a little by ear, but we're guessing just after 11 PM. It is a school night for some folks!

Yes! We'll be using #Boothfor2

Invitations & RSVP

We've decided to get a little more modern and make life easier for everyone by just doing all of our RSVPs online. It's just a few clicks for you, and we don't have to worry about anything getting lost in the mail. If you're having any issues, you can always just e-mail us your RSVP information or any questions.

While we'd love to have everyone celebrate with us, we have some hard limits in regards to space at the venue. Therefore, the only people welcome to attend the wedding are those with their names specifically listed on your invitation and on the RSVP page. Parents, please give yourself a night off to celebrate and enjoy a fun night out on us. For our out of town family and friends, you are more than welcome to bring your kids to the other ancillary events. If you need to breastfeed, obviously please feel welcome to bring your child.

The RSVP deadline is Wednesday, September 9th.

Transportation, Directions & Logistics

The wedding ceremony will begin at 4:30. You'll want to give yourself ample time to head up PCH or across the canyons - and you'll want to check traffic before you leave as accidents do happen causing significant delays. Additionally, leave a few minutes to leave your car with the valet at the venue.

We'll have complimentary valet service available for you when you arrive at the venue.

We are providing a shuttle for guests who reserved a spot in their RSVP. The shuttle will pick up/drop off at the Residence Inn Marriott parking lot (at the corner of Pico Blvd and S Beverly Dr). Please arrive by 3 PM and see your e-mail for additional details.

It's on Highway 1 (a.k.a. the Pacific Coast Highway) in the city of Malibu about 14 miles North from Santa Monica. The entrance is a little hard to see from the road, so if you're coming from the Santa Monica direction, the turn into Malibu Jewish Center is a right ½ mile north of John Tyler Dr (Pepperdine University).

Jewish Weddings

Nope! We are generally not into gender separation or veils.

The ketubah is the traditional Jewish marriage contract. Just before the wedding ceremony, we will both sign it, along with our rabbi and four witnesses. The ketubah traditionally explained the duties, responsibilities and monetary promises of a husband and wife to each other. However, we have selected a more modern version that is egalitarian and delineates our hopes and promises for our life together. Our close friend Tara Krebs has also designed a beautiful piece of personalized artwork surrounding the text. The ketubah will be on display for you to see throughout the wedding.

Nope! It is important to us that all components of our wedding be approachable to all our guests. While there will be some Hebrew spoken during the ceremony, we will do our best to add context immediately before or after.

The hora is the traditional dance performed at all Jewish celebrations. Expect the hora to happen between cocktail hour and when dinner is served. It’s fun, and we encourage everyone to participate! We promise that it’s really easy -- just latch on to the person next to you and run in a circle!

Registry

We've set up a few different registry options for you to choose from - each with it's own unique set of gifts and features to make the process as seamless as possible for you. Please let us know if you have any questions or if you're experiencing any problems. Thanks in advance!

Zola has great gifts from across the web that we've gathered in one place for you. It's also where you'll find "experience" gifts, easy group gift options, and our honeymoon fund.

Heath Ceramics has been on Laura's radar for awhile and we're so excited to be getting our china from them. You'll find their stuff in nice restaurants all over California and soon, with your help, in our home.

Crate & Barrel has most of our glassware, kitchen basics, furniture and other great items for our condo. It'll help us host parties, Shabbat dinners, and other excuses to have you over.

Camp JCA Shalom is a huge part of our lives and set the stage for us to meet many years ago. If you're having trouble finding something special, know that a donation to camp would mean the world to us.