10
Dec 2014

Manpreet + Daljit

Beautiful Artistic Traditional Sikh Wedding

It’s not every day that you’ll see me post a more traditional wedding, but this one is something else. I’ve only discovered about Sikhism about a few months ago, while in India. I’ve always thought that if I had to choose one religion, that would be Buddhism, but I have to say Sikhism is maybe the most respectful, generous and open-minded religion I’ve heard about (but I leave it to Wikipedia to talk to you about it). So today’s wedding is a traditional Sikh wedding, but any religious consideration put appart, it is above all a beautiful and emotional wedding, just as I like them! Let me know your thoughts! The wonderful reportage was done by UK wedding photographer Matthew Jones aka Lucius Fox.
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The wedding took place on August 8th, 9th &10th in Birmingham, UK. From Manpreet.
We are quite a thrifty pair, always looking for great deals and bargains whenever we are out shopping. We love everything vintage and shopping in charity shops so I guess thats where our inspiration for our wedding reception came from. We are both technology teachers and love making things ourselves so we made most of the details ourselves. We spent evenings after work, school holidays and weekends making our own newspaper prints for canapés, table decorations, signposts and all the other details for the reception. We even spent some of my Hen party sewing the bunting! Our apartment was taken over by all the things we had made!

 

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Name one thing you regret…

The only thing we’d change about or wedding would be to make it last longer! it really was the best time of our lives and we’re so happy that we can relive it through our wonderful photographs.

 

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… And one thing that makes you proud.

We are most happy that we managed to pull of an alternative Sikh wedding reception. The two ceremonies on the Friday and Saturday were both traditional, and it was important for us to put our own stamp on the reception which we had on the Sunday. We wanted all the details to be about us and our personalities, Daljit chose a pink Ted Baker suit, and my Mehndi (Henna) had swallows in it, which is a lot more ‘me” than the traditional patterns.

Our photographer Matt (Lucius Fox Photography) is awesome, we found him through my Brother, also a photographer. Our photography was really important to us and we wanted someone who’s style would reflect ours. As soon as we saw Matt’s work we fell in love, it is so unique and artistic. Matt was brilliant to work with, so relaxed yet always focused on what he wanted to achieve. We met with him a few times before the wedding and we got on so well with him that we were so comfortable on the wedding day(s).

 

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26
Aug 2014

Bea + Chris

My Friends’ Beautiful English Sussex Wedding

It’s not for all the weddings that I’ve been to that I can say I was really really close from the bride or the groom. For some reason, my best friends don’t get married! When Chris and Bea told us they were getting married at the end of April 2014, I was really excited about celebrating & partying with them. I put their wedding date one year in advance in my calendar, so that nothing in the world could keep me from being there… Nothing except the expected date of delivery of our son, which happened to be April 30!
For you to have an idea, Bea is one of the reasons Marcio and I are together at all; and Chris, he’s the kind of totally unique guy that you know you don’t meet twice in your life. They’ve been living in London for quite a few years now, but have come back for every important moment in my life since then. It’s a shame we couldn’t be there for them on that day, but I am glad I still get to show their photos on the blog! The photos, by the way, were taken by Dragos and Laura of Be Light Photography, that I’ve feature so many times that I’ve lost counts; but as we say, in French, “who loves doesn’t count”.

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The wedding took place in Lewes, in the UK, on April 26, 2014. From the bride:

Chris and I met in Evry, in the outskirts of Paris, in 2004 when I was doing my Erasmus year. I’m Spanish and he’s French AND Portuguese. From the day we met we were good friends, then we fell in love and lived happily in Paris for five years. In 2009 I got transferred to London with my job and a year later he joined me in the English adventure. After 9 years of relationship and with so many places that we can call “home”, the easy decision was to get married, the not so easy was to decide where! We finally went for a wedding in the English countryside, because it was neutral territory, more practical for us in terms of organisation, and, let’s admit it, because I’m a sucker for Jane Austen stories…

 

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Name one thing you regret… 

In England most places will only do loud music until midnight, which meant that our dinner had to finish early if we wanted to maximise the dancing time. That put a bit of strain in the scheduling. If we had calculated times from the beginning we would have just had the ceremony one or two hours earlier.

 

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… And one thing that makes you proud.

Three things: First and most important, almost all our guests had to fly to the wedding and we were worried that this would put off many people from coming, but not at all! An overwhelming number of friends and family crossed half Europe for our wedding and we feel blessed for having them during the weekend. Secondly, if you can, hire a wedding planner. You’ll still make all the decisions but they are priceless putting your crazy ideas into practice (like finding that Mini!) and they take care of all the stress so that you can just relax and enjoy. Third, we love quizzes so we prepared a Quiz game about us and the guests, for people to play during the meal if they wanted. We had much fun preparing it, it was a hit and a great icebreaker and played a big part in the overall good mood of the wedding.

 

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25
Apr 2014

Carolyn + David

Delicate Wedding in the Californian Vineyards

Marius Barbulescu is a great photographer from Romania. I already had the pleasure to display a picture of his for our last themed post on unusual and unexpected situations, and today, I can show you a bit more of his work through the series of pictures he took at this beautiful wedding in the Californian vineyards. You should read the story of how one of their luggage got stolen during the trip, the one containing all the contracts and the bride’s accessories!… I don’t know how I would have reacted! Carolyn and David still had a perfect day, and I just love those pictures by the swimming pool of what seemed like a very peaceful moment that day.

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The wedding took place in Santa Rosa, CA, USA on October 26, 2014. Here’s a fun (I guess!) story about that wedding from the bride.

We actually were well into planning a small wedding in Paris, France when it all just fell apart and we had to start over.  So, we went back to the drawing board, exploring options and decided to take a trip to Sonoma County to look at venue options.  While there we fell in love with the area, the atmosphere and the wine, all of which reminded us so much of Burgundy.  All together, though, this meant that we ended up planning two weddings in two countries over 18 months. Also, we did not have terribly good luck while traveling…one of our suitcases was stolen from the baggage claim after landing in San Francisco.  Of course that bag was the most important one, containing everything from medications to a folder of contracts with vendors to table place cards and, naturally, all of Carolyn’s bridal accessories!

 

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Name one thing you regret…

We regret that David’s sister and her husband were unable to join us as she was pregnant at the time and travel was not possible. Our niece Quinn was born the day after our wedding took place.  They were both missed a great deal but by the time we returned home our family had grown!

 

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

We are so happy to have had many of our close friends and family with us for such a long-awaited and memorable event in our lives. We are proud to have overcome many hurdles in life and throughout the wedding planning process and ended up in the perfect location to celebrate our wedding, marriage and the start of our lives together as husband and wife.

 

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The word of the photographer.

Writing about this is not easy. My trip to the States still feels like a dream I woke up to suddenly. 8 days there feel like 60 intense seconds of my life. I can barely gather my memories in one place. This is such a long and personal story I will share only with my friends and family, all I’ll say is that absolutely nothing feels like a coincidence for me now. The people I met, the places I’ve seen, all my adventures… my journey was life changing. And all happened because Carolyn and David trusted me. And finding out that Carolyn is also a photographer (and a very talented one, trust me!) and listening about their “out of this world” love story made me feel even more excited about their wedding.
Right from the very first moment I met them, I felt like home. All their family and friends welcomed me in a way I could not believe was possible. I was so immersed into what was happening in front of me and absolutely nothing stood between me and my camera. It was my chance to do my best without any restrictions from anything else but myself and my own limitations. That’s a one in a million situation and I never thought of the outcome until I’ve started editing my pictures. I’m not proud, just genuinely grateful, happy and lucky I was among them at their beautiful, soulful and intimate wedding. Words are just not enough to express what I felt back then (and even now).
Carolyn and David, I will never be able to thank you enough for everything. Watching you pictures (and especially the slideshow) brings me back there like nothing else. I do hope you feel the same. That would be “our perfect circle”. You are amazing! :)

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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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