14
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!

 

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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?

 

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You can see even more pictures on the photographer’s blog here.

14
Nov 2013

Cynthia + Arnaud 1

French DIY Forest Wedding – Part 1

This is it! I’m finally showing the pictures of my sister’s forest wedding! It’s always hard to make a selection of the pictures I receive, it’s even harder when you’re emotionally connected to them. So just this once, I split the reportage into two parts; this is part one, part two will be released this very afternoon! Now, about this wedding… so many things to say! I think I got involved in the planning and design more than for my own wedding, which makes the “wedding blues” (the thing you feel when your wedding’s over and there’s no wedding related stuff to care about anymore, some of you may know!) even harder. Actually, I was pretty sure that night that I would end up going to bed at 11pm: when everything was finally going well without my help, I thought “ok, mission accomplished” and then suddenly realized how tired I was! But fortunately, coffee exists, and helped me make it through the night! Anyway, nothing of this matters, as my greatest reward was to see Cynthia & Arnaud stressless, enjoying their day just the way I wished they would. All those pictures were taken by Mait Jüriado, who kindly came to France to shoot this wedding.

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The wedding took place on August 31, at the Soultzerkopf, in the East of France. I really like to hear cute stories from the couples I feature. I love this particular anecdote, that happened a few weeks before Cynthia & Arnaud actually started dating. From the bride:

10 years ago I went to England for an internship. In my first days I had to concentrate really hard to understand everybody. So when my line manager introduced me to Arnaud, I actually thought he said something like “Alnoud” and just added it to the list of the unusual names I heard there. The following weeks, every time I ran into him I said “hello” and he replied the same. Until the day we met again at the canteen/work restaurant. He came over and astonished me by talking in a perfect french. Which I complimented him about (in french, thought it would be nice). And to which he responded a bit stunned “Well, yes, I am french!?”… World class champion, even more when you know that Arnaud was famous for his strong french accent…

 

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Name one thing you regret…

Arnaud decided to have a tailor-made suit for the occasion. During our first visit to the tailor—months before the wedding—we got all excited, choosing between hundreds of different fabrics and discussing the best cut. But then, over the weeks, it was a lot of trying on, and even a few days before we left for the wedding there were still considerable alterations to make. Most of them were taken care of and the suit looked great as it was but there were still some details needed to be fixed and we didn’t have the time for it. So the whole tailor-made experience was disappointing for us, Arnaud regrets he didn’t go for a standard suit in a trendy shop. And we would have saved some stress and money as well!

 

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

We were so glad to see that all our closest friends and family arranged to travel to the far end of a deep forest to attend our wedding. And if getting married wasn’t something really important to us until a few months ago, we are so happy we did it. It’s just the perfect occasion to have everybody we love around us. Why have we waited so long???
And it was such a luxury not to have to worry about a thing. Everything was under control, but not our control! We really appreciated our friend Paul designing us the best invitations we could imagine and it was absolutely fantastic to have Joana deal with every detail of the organization (with Marcio not far away – yes, the same Marcio that designs super high-level websites can also draw super high-level signs). We only realized afterwards all the huge work she had done. The day of the wedding we had zero stuff to worry about and fully enjoyed each moment… Priceless! So we definitely did very little for our wedding, and well, we can totally live with that!
But if we haven’t done a thing, what could we possibly be proud of? And that’s it actually. We are so proud we had someone WILLING to do all of these crazy beautiful things for us. That’s definitely something to brag about. THANK YOU! It was pure awesomeness.

 

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To be continued… (To hold on until then, you can check the photographer Mait’s brand new website.)

19
Sep 2013

Heidi + Kyle

Probably the Most Unique Venue for a Barn Wedding

I don’t usually put a lot of pictures of the decoration, but this is one big exception. I was preparing this post and just couldn’t stop adding pictures of details; and this is a DIY wedding! I have to say I’ve never quite seen something like that: the unique venue looks like the inside of gigantic barrel, and every little detail they put there is just perfect! There’s glitter, there are old wooden tables, chairs and wall sections, there are cute notes for the guests to leave a message to the newly weds, and well, I won’t even try to describe everything there is, because, I just don’t think I can! I let you enjoy the pictures instead, of this perfect wedding and super stylish + cute couple. I warn you, this is huge. Thank you so much Lydia Jane for letting me share this here!

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The wedding took place at Rubies & Rust Barn in Belle Plaine, Minnesota on July 6, 2013.

Kyle and I are high school sweethearts. I am 19 and he is 20 years old. This really played into how we wanted our wedding to go: very relaxed, like a earthy, beautiful, glorified picnic for our closest family and friends.

 

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Name one thing you regret…

One thing I regret is not having A/C in the barn! (IT WAS SO HOT!) Honestly, Kyle and I have been struggling to answer this question!  I guess throughout the wedding planning I didn’t take enough time for myself, and time spent with Kyle very often centered around wedding planning. That’s a huge bummer when your engagement is 6 months! Taking time to enjoy your engagement and enjoying your spouse-to-be is SO important. But as for our wedding, our day was better than we had hoped!

 

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

One thing I’m really pleased with is how simple and relaxed our wedding was for us and for our guests. To Brides: More things does not necessarily equal a better wedding. Simplicity is key, even if just for you and your own sanity. I loved how we were just able to enjoy our day and go up and talk with all of our guests throughout the night. We were able to do this because we didn’t have a formal program at the reception. We just let people get up and eat when they wanted, get dessert when they wanted, and socialize and dance whenever they wanted the whole night, and it worked out really well! I loved the personal touches that my friends and I contributed.
Also, I looked through a lot of wedding planning books and my favorite one was “The Anti-Bride Wedding Planner.”
Lydia Jane was my photographer and she is seriously the greatest person. She made picture taking and just our day in general so enjoyable. I cannot say enough good things about her and her work!

 

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The word of the photographer.

Heidi is a close friend of mine so I was looking forward to her wedding all year. But upon arriving at the wedding site I was still blown away. Not only was the Minnesota landscape breathtaking, but the sheer amount of detail and decoration put into the reception was unlike anything I’ve ever seen in 5 years as a professional photographer. The terrific venue Rubies & Rust matched with Heidi’s good taste produced an elaborate and eclectic rustic dining room. But nothing matched Heidi’s grace as the bride, dressed in a beautiful lace gown and floral wreath. The entire wedding day was relaxed, joyful, and beautiful from start to finish. I wish every wedding could be like Heidi and Kyle’s.

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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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