Bowtie | You May French Kiss The Bride

Mar 2014

Anni + Rauno

Fall Inspired Wedding from Estonia

I confess, I am totally obsessed with their car. But not just that; they also have a super cute cat wearing a bowtie, and all the little touches of yellow and orange are just perfect for this fall inspired wedding! The very nice pictures were taken by Gerry Sulp, out of Estonia.

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The wedding took place on October 5, 2013. The ceremony was held at our home-town’s (Tartu, Estonia) railway station, an old building which was recently renovated.

Our wedding car belonged to my grandfather, then to my mother, and now me and my husband. Rauno started to fix it (it was a bit dented and rusty and… well, an old car) about 6 months before the wedding and it was his major project. It was Rauno’s most important wish that he could be the one driving it on our wedding day.

We were very close with my mom, Rauno thought of her as his own… and we both don’t have very good relationships with our fathers. My mom passed away, sadly, in January. One of her biggest goals in life (she was fighting cancer) was to see our wedding day… which she did.

We wanted a fall wedding and the day before and the day after our wedding, it was raining and cloudy but on the 5th of October the weather was sunny and perfect!

So we started to plan the wedding, we made to-do-list by month and we kept to the list. We had wedding meetings with my mum and my two best friends the weeks before the wedding day, we thought about where the cars were gonna park, who was going to be sitting in whose car, etc. We really thought about every little logistical detail. We were joking that we (me and Rauno) did all the hard work for a year and two months (all the pre-planning and handycraft) and my bridesmaids Kairi and Maarja did everything on that one special day. I had written a 10-page long vision of the wedding with every little detail for my bridesmaids Kairi and Maarja, so that they would know our wishes exactly. It worked out perfectly because EVERYTHING (and I mean EVERYTHING) went according to plan. And that’s what made it special for us. I’m a big planner in life as well, I like my things organised, and the wedding day of an organised person has to be very well organised. :)

I recommend envisioning the day in your mind and really thinking through the details. That is how I found out the “critical” things and was able to think about them in advance. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. And even if things go a little south, it is still the best day of your life!

Name on thing you regret…

Regrets? I think it is safe to say: NONE! It took many sleepless nights and many discussions and many-many-many hours of working, buying things, making things, talking to people etc – but everything was exactly like we wanted it to be. As I said… we didn’t have even the slightest glitches or mishaps, although we were prepared for almost everything. HAHA! I just remembered one thing. Since I’m not big on make-up and hair-do’s or all that girly stuff, I like it quite natural, I didn’t want to use any hair products on my hair-do (actually it wasn’t that I did not WANT to, the thought just never occurred to me since I do not OWN any hair products). But in retrospective, the wind was pretty strong that day and maybe a little hairspray would have been necessary. But like I said, I like everything natural, so it really didn’t bother me that much.

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

I’m HAPPY about all the things about my wedding day. Even the stressful planning. But the thing I’m most proud of – is my world’s greatest husband! When we were planning the whole thing, I read about many weddings and many girls/women planning their wedding. And somehow it always seemed… that the wedding (for the most part, there are always exceptions) is more important for women. And not so much for men. And it is totally normal because men are not really that into this – they just want to hear the “I do” from the person they love most in the world. But not my man! Rauno was always 100% involved, thinking about every little detail, spending many nights with me and the paper cutter… I literally did not have to do anything alone, I always had my maid of honour – my Rauno (that was I joke I often made, that I didn’t need a maid of honor because I already have Rauno).

Nov 2013

María + Hector

Spanish Multicolor Wedding in a Nature Park

The cold days are coming, but I still have a couple of weddings from this Summer to warm you! Today especially, as I offer you an escape to Spain with this multicolor wedding. It took place in a nature park (a dream venue!) and all those colors created a relaxed and friendly atmosphere for the wedding diner. The bride’s dress was her mother’s and then her sister’s, and I really love her flower crown! Photography by Sara Lobla.

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The wedding took place on August, 31, in a nature park, Valle de Iruelas, Ávila, Spain. Here’s about the bride’s dress.

I wore the dress my mother was wearing on her own wedding, which was also my sister’s wedding dress when she got married in Las Vegas… now it has become a family tradition!!!

Name one thing you regret…

Nothing!

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

My husband! :)

The word of the photographer.

For my part was a wedding full of magic, where I spent the whole weekend, from Friday to Sunday, there with them. Sharing every moment is what made me able to make these photographs.

More pictures on the photographer’s blog here.

Nov 2013

Cynthia + Arnaud 2

French DIY Forest Wedding – Part 2

If you haven’t been here this morning, then you’ve missed part one of this forest wedding. Don’t look any further, you need to see part one first. My sister already said a lot of things about her wedding, so maybe it’s my turn now. It was a lot of fun preparing this wedding, though I may have done a bit too much, I don’t know… you tell me!! Photography by Mait Jüriado.

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You may see tarps on some pictures, you know, those plastic sheetings… It rained. And, it was freezing. It’s actually funny: I took a few days off before the wedding to get the place ready and the whole week, there was a beautiful warm sun. We were sitting there in the late afternoon the whole week, thinking “What a beautiful light we’re gonna have at this time of the day!”.

We’re not stupid folks, I mean, wedding in the woods, end of August, France…. the chances that the weather was going be kind were small. So we booked some tents, you know, just in case. But until the previous day, the weather forecast was sun + hot, so we cancelled the reservation!

On the Saturday morning, we woke up to a grey sky, and I’m not maintaining any suspense here, it just got worse; the guests were supposed to arrive at 5pm, it started raining at 4. Fortunately, by the time it was 5, it stopped, and we still could have the ceremony outside! It wasn’t only misfortune though, as the sky was mostly threatening but barely any rain drops fell in the end.

Besides the beautiful rays of sunlight we did not have, rain didn’t waste the day. The other problem we had to face, as if risk of rain ruining everything wasn’t enough, was the cold. My mum had a brilliant idea though: my grandmother used to knee lots of sweaters for us, and my mother thought it would be a good idea to bring them all, in case the people staying late would end up feeling cold (just a lesson learned from our own wedding!). We didn’t imagine we would need them at 8pm, but still, we’re happy we had them. And the good thing is, there was a chimney that we thought it would be weird to use… Well, it wasn’t at all!

There’s another particularity in these pictures: wolves. I guess you don’t see that very often at weddings! The whole wolves thing was actually decided very late. Everything started from a joke between the photographer Mait, my sister and I. When she accidentally said she wanted wolves at her wedding, I kept thinking how I was going to make an allusion to that joke when I finally had an idea.

I think it took me a few reassuring & supporting phone calls before I had the courage to expose my plan to all the guests… I had the feeling it was either super cool or super lame but I didn’t know exactly which one of the two it would be. The idea was to make the most possible guests wear a wolf mask and learn a choreography to Michael Jackson’s Thriller song. But that’s not it. They would have to hide somewhere in the forest without my sister and Arnaud noticing, and then slowly approach as the music began, to be on the dance floor precisely for the beginning of the choreography. Ahem. I was impressed by how many of them thought the idea was good!

I won’t lie to you though, it looks great on pictures and all, but nobody knew exactly what to do (even me, who was supposed to lead the group!), we couldn’t see through the mask holes, which clearly didn’t help, and didn’t make it to the dance floor the first time! But it was so much fun!!!! And it doesn’t look that bad on the pictures, doesn’t it?