Mait was one of the first photographers to appear on the blog, but I never get tired of checking out his latest releases. There’s a lot of softness in his pictures and the result on a wedding like Aurore and Jérôme’s is just fantastic. This couple is French, but had their wedding in Estonia; a wedding by the sea, with guests enjoying the day on the spot, and a bride and groom who chose to enjoy themselves rather than spend time on decoration and setting. And when the time for the ceremony had come, there was an old wooden viking boat… and the bride’s uncle back! Photography by Mait Jüriado.

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The wedding took place in Tallin and Kasmu, Estonia. It was a 4 days wedding in an old soviet summer camp with 140 relatives and friends from all around the world (4 countries were represented). You may already have seen the little sneak peek of this wedding I posted on Facebook, so here’s the story about the bride arriving at the ceremony place on her uncle’s back and everybody taking off their pants!

As we both come from the seaside in France, we decided to arrive on a boat to the ceremony place. We asked our relative to raw the drakkar, viking boat… The captain told us that he could drop us 3 meters away from the beach. But it appeared that we were too heavy on the boat and we got stuck 20 meters away from the beach… My uncle was the first one to take off his pants and he tried to move the boat… WE WERE STUCK!  It took me less that a minute to ask  him to carry me on his back to the shore! Which he did! Then all the family followed in underpants! What a JOKE!

Name one thing you regret…

Nothing to regret… it happened as it should happen… naturally smoothly with lots of serenity and happiness! Of course I could have taken more times to set up the decoration… lot of stuff stayed in the boxes! But we preferred to play tennis, golf or to paddle on our SUP on the D-day than to set up the decoration! but thanks to our family and friend we finally had the time to set up the half of it in less than two hours!

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

To gather all our dearest family and friends for 4 days in a charming place in a lovely country! It was very nice to spent so much time with our guests!

The word of the photographer.

As a photographer I am used to see so many wedding styles, dresses, decorations, etc. And sometimes, there’s too much of everything put into just one day. The more simple and home-made it is the more I love it. Aurore and Jérôme’s wedding was so far one of the simplest weddings I attended this year, but one of the nicest. Less is more in a way. For instance, Aurore’s hairstyle and makeup in the forest grove took about 15 minutes – amazing! She got ready on the beach, they all entered a boat to reach the shore—her uncle was carrying the bride on his back—and the flowers were picked from the nearby fields. The ceremony was emotionally speeches-rich and the natural light was perfect on the location – blue rainy background with sunlight. In Estonia it’s sometimes very common to have up to a few hours for couple pictures. With Aurore and Jérôme I had only 15 minutes, which can be really tricky as of course of would love to get as much times as possible, but with this kind of scenery and with this couple, 15 minutes was just perfect. Wedding days can be really really busy but their wedding was like a slow journey. Everybody had time. Like on vacation. I wish I could photograph some more two-(or more)-days weddings.