20
Oct 2014

Alix + François

An Alternative to the Bouquet Toss

As many of you come here to see alternative weddings, I thought you might be interested in seeing this alternative to the bouquet toss. I don’t know if someone knows this practice, but I had personally never seed this before—and I have seen a bunch of weddings in these past years—so I thought I’d share!

Not only does it prolong the friendly moment when someone inherits the bride’s bouquet, but it looks a lot funnier – and as a bonus you may make a photographer happy! Photos by the French photographer Sylvain Le Lepvrier. (You may also recognize the woman in the yellow dress as being the bride of one of my favorite weddings ever!)

Happy Monday!!

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How it works.

First, multicolor ribbons are attached to the bouquet. Every non-married female guest gets to hold the end of one ribbon. Then, the brides closes her eyes and cuts a ribbon, resulting in the person at the other end of it to be out of the game. It is recommanded that the challengers turn around the bride while her eyes are closed so that she has absolutely no idea whose ribbon she’s cutting. This scenario goes on and on until only one ribbon is left; the person holding it wins the bouquet!

07
Oct 2014

Patricia + Michael

NYC Bookstore Wedding

There are so many things to say about this wedding, the first one being: this couple GOT MARRIED IN A BOOKSTORE! And usually, I wouldn’t add anything else because this personally already would make me wanna check the whole thing out. But the thing is, there is more. First, the bookstore they got married at isn’t just any bookstore, it’s a “non-profit bookstore that donates all their proceeds to fighting AIDS and homelessness” (New-Yorkers, you know where you’ll go next weekend). Second, this couple is so cool that getting married in a bookstore wasn’t enough; they had pizza for lunch after their first look, in other words, all “brided up” and “groomed up”! And finally—on a more personal achievement point of view—they found their photographers via this blog which means I have both the best readers ever and the best photographers, YAY!! Photography & Videography by Amanda & Nate aka the Howards, the couple behind The Shalom Imaginative, that just moved to Los Angeles, California.

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The wedding took place on May 23rd at 7:00 p.m at the Housing Works Bookstore in NYC. From the couple:
The locations that were captured in the photos all have a special meaning to us. Washington Square Park is a place we often visit in the summer to relax, people watch and read. East Village was the first neighborhood we lived in when we moved to New York. The stoop were we sat and had coffee is at our first apartment. Pho/Bun is a favorite dish of ours. Once when we were celebrating my (Patricia’s) birthday at bar in Greenwich with friends, Mike was so kind to leave the party and grab Joe’s Pizza for everyone. It hit the spot, the party continued to the late night and Joe’s has been one of our favorites every since. And of course the Brooklyn Bridge, not only is it iconic but it also symbolizes a transformation – to leave behind the familiar and start a new journey together.

 

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Name one thing you regret…

Why didn’t we get married sooner! :D

 

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… And one thing that makes you proud.
The days leading up to the wedding and right after were such a whirlwind. We are so happy Nate and Amanda (The Shalom Imaginative) were with us to capture all the moments of the weekend. From events like casually roaming the city and enjoying tea with the family to the first look and wedding ceremony, they were there documenting our story. Now that some time has passed, we often look back at the photos and film and we feel the love, energy and excitement of our wedding day all over again.
Not only were we able to spend time with our family and close friends during this special day but we were also able to support Housing Works Bookstore’s mission. They are a non-profit bookstore that donates all their proceeds to fighting AIDS and homelessness.

 

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And to prolong the dream, you can have a look at the video of the day below, or at the photographers’ blog post here.

19
Aug 2014

Maren + Henry

A Winter Wedding in Red Black and White

Maren and Henry had quite an untraditional wedding: they got married in Winter on Valentine’s day (wishing for some snow that unfortunately didn’t come!), Maren had a red, black and white dress and all guests were wearing matching colours. Their first dance was a Waltz – which was quite unexpected given the overall tone of their day! I really liked that they managed to have a wedding that doesn’t look like anybody else’s, and the venues are fantastic! Photography by Marta Urbanelis out of Germany.
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The wedding took place on Valentine’s day, February 14th, 2014. The ceremony was held at the Festung Mark, some kind of old fortress with red bricks, high ceilings and great arcs; the reception took place at a restaurant called Die Kirche (literally, The Church), located in an old church building.
When we announced our wedding, we were frequently asked why the wedding had to take place in winter. Everyone feared to freeze. But finally the weather was perfect. (sunshine, 14°C, blue sky) – maybe even better than on some days in June. Although we wished for some snow – which would have met our colour scheme of black and white with red highlights – we were happy about the weather as it was.
Tthe day before our wedding we decided to prepare a candy bar for our guests. Therefore we bought little cupcakes, maccarones and cakepops next to other sweets which we had to pick up at Tigertörtchen in Berlin (approx. 130 km from Magdeburg). We usually need about one hour to get there, but on this day it took about 2 hours and on the way back even more. This shifted our whole timetable for this day which included meeting Marta, the Dj, decorating the restaurant , reparing my finger nail (which broke off two days before) and baking Cakes. So things got pretty tight. We had to hand down the decoration of the restaurant to friends. Later that day we got a call from our friends that some pieces of the decorations broke. So we had to buy some new pieces . As if there wasn’t enough to do already…
I think you noticed that we did not want very much of a traditional wedding. I did not want to wear a pure white dress and we wanted our guests to wear our colours. Accordingly we have chosen music we love for our first dance. ( Music was from the Band “Schandmaul” -Song: “Dein Anblick” ) Funnily enough, we have chosen a song to which we had to dance a waltz. Pretty traditional – isn’t it? ;-)

 

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Name one thing you regret…

We thought long about that question and really can say: we don’t regret anything. We’re somehow sad about the fact, that there is no video of our first dance. But that is something we can surely live with ;-)

 

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… And one thing you’re really happy about/ proud of.

We are very proud of our time scheduling. There always was enough time for everthing. So we did not get in a hurry. We just made a rough estimation of the scheduling and did not plan every single minute of the day.
Our recommendation for the brides & grooms would be: not to leave the guests alone for too long (maybe have the photo shoot before the guests arrive)  and to have some highlights to entertain the guests (for example: candybar, photobooth, juggler, dancer).

 

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The word of the photographer.

I love to travel and I’ve got the opportunity to photograph this special black and white wedding on Valentine’s day in Magdeburg. Maren and Henry had their first look at the wedding ceremony place in the mark fortressAfter that, we took some couple pictures in the center of Magdeburg and after 2 hours we came back to the fortress to get them married :) The wedding reception was held in an old church, which has now been converted into a mystic restaurant: Die Kirche.

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You May French Kiss the Bride is a creativity-stimulating website for crazy-in-a-good-way photographers and couples. We are Joana and Marcio and we think you’re the best. Be in love. Be yourself—and let it spill over the web!

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