Ketubah styles
Intricate hand-cut paper, often layered over color.
Papercut ketubahs are made by cutting an intricate design from a single sheet, then layering it over color or gold. It is one of the oldest Jewish folk arts, and the effect is remarkable up close, with light passing through the cuts. Papercut suits couples who love craft and detail.
Jerusalem, Israel
Trained at Jerusalem's Bezalel Academy, Danny Azoulay works in hand-cut paper, painting, and gold leaf to create ketubahs rooted in classical Jewish ornament. His studio has produced marriage contracts for couples on every continent, each one built around detailed papercut borders and luminous color.
United Kingdom
Adriana Saipe works under the studio name Ink With Intent, creating modern, minimalist ketubahs in watercolor, ink, and digital art. Her designs are calm and contemporary, with plenty of open space and gentle color.
United States
Rabbi Yonah Weinrib works in the tradition of the illuminated manuscript, combining exacting Hebrew calligraphy with layered ornament, micrography and gold. His studio, Judaica Illuminations, produces ketubot alongside illuminated volumes on the Jewish life cycle, and offers Ashkenazi and Sephardic texts as well as ketubot written on klaf.
United States
Pamela Feldman-Hill has been making ketubot and Judaic art since 1980, working in papercut, painting and print under the Pearl Editions imprint. The ketubah collection runs from finely cut papercuts to painted borders drawn from Jewish ritual objects and the landscape of Israel.
United States
Jennifer Raichman designs laser-cut papercut ketubot in circular and framed formats, layering cut paper over color. The look is graphic and contemporary, with wildflowers, lace leaves and geometry doing the work that painted borders once did.
United States
Melanie Dankowicz builds ketubot as layered papercuts, cutting multiple sheets and stacking them so the text sits inside a shallow relief of trees, vines and blossom. Colorways run from opal and silver to deep plum, and custom commissions are a large part of the studio's work.
United States
Praise Hashem Art is a California studio making papercut and watercolor ketubot built around Jerusalem: the Old City skyline, the Kotel stones and circular chuppah scenes. Pieces are often finished with gold foil and mounted in plexiglass or wood.
Tel Aviv, Israel
Naomi Shiek cuts ketubot by hand in a Tel Aviv studio under the name Woodland Papercuts. The designs are dense and narrative, built from willows, cherry trees and succulents, and on request from whatever the couple's own story asks for.
Jerusalem, Israel
David Fisher is a Jerusalem-born graphic designer and papercut artist who uses precision laser cutting to keep traditional papercutting in a clean, modern register. The ketubot are usually round, layered over watercolor, and often finished with 24K gold leaf.
Israel
Ketubata was founded in 2016 by Dalia Ben-Moshe, a Central Saint Martins graduate, and has grown into one of the busier contemporary ketubah studios. The collection leans on laser-cut lace, mosaic and mandala patterning, with Orthodox, Reform and interfaith texts all available.
United States
Nishima Kaplan, the artist behind This is Ketubah, works across papercut, painting, and digital design. Her catalog spans clean modern layouts and intricate cut-paper pieces, giving couples a wide range of styles from a single studio.
United States
Susan Leviton pairs delicate papercutting with soft watercolor backgrounds, often painting scenes of Jerusalem above hand-lettered Aramaic text. Her ketubahs have a quiet, devotional feel and a strong sense of place.
Jerusalem, Israel
Jerusalem-born artist Noam Shargorodsky creates handmade ketubahs using oils, watercolors, and 23k gold leaf under the studio name Ketubahome. Her pieces draw on Jewish texts and Israeli landscapes, with Jerusalem, the Old City, and the Western Wall recurring throughout her work.
Hasmonaim, Israel
Noa Attias makes handmade papercut ketubot in Hasmonaim, finishing many of them with 24K gold leaf. The wider Judaica range runs well beyond the ketubah, and the same cut-paper vocabulary carries through all of it.
United States
Tchotchke commissions original ketubah designs from illustrators and designers, then prints them to order alongside its Judaica range. Text options run from Orthodox and Conservative through Reform, egalitarian, interfaith, same-sex and non-binary wordings, or a couple's own.
Jerusalem, Israel
Ayala Ophir cuts papercut ketubot and personalized Judaica in Jerusalem, working in a traditional idiom of symmetrical florals and fine cut lace. Most pieces are hand-painted after cutting.
Israel
Micol Bayer designs papercut ketubot and Judaica under the name Micol Designs, working through a guided process from semi-custom to fully bespoke. Magen David geometry and almond buds run through the collection.
Our guide walks through modern vs traditional, papercut vs painted, and how to match the art to your text.
How to choose a ketubah