Uncommon | You May French Kiss The Bride

May 2013

Florestine + Silvain

Engagement Shoot at the Eiffel Tower with a Bed and Pajamas (or, the Day I Organised a Styled Shoot)

I honestly don’t know how much OMG’s have been exchanged between Leslee and I since we did the shoot, how many times we’ve both been wanting to share a photo or two on our respective Facebook pages and then refrained from doing it… Today I can finally tell you what I’ve been up to a couple of weeks ago: I organised my first photo shoot! Photography: Leslee Mitchell.

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Let me tell you the story behind it. In April, Leslee and Elodie of Photography by Winter organised a workshop. Both were going to be in Paris for a few days and Elodie asked if I wanted to take the opportunity to organise a styled shoot with Leslee. I first thought: “OMG YES!!” – this was the first actual thing (I mean, in real life) I was asked to do since I started the blog; I was obviously thrilled! My second thought was “But I actually think styled shoots are kind of boring.”… Now what, call everything off? This was not an option, so instead, I decided that If I were in charge of organising this photo shoot, it would have to be something else! And I came up with a craaazy idea. Luckily, Leslee is as crazy as I am and thought the idea was brilliant. So, we headed to the Champs de Mars, put a bed in front of the Eiffel tower, found a couple who’d agree to wear pajamas, and just did the damn shoot.

First anecdote. You need to know everything was decided very late, so that I did not find wedding planners to work with and well, how to put that? All the stuff we used for the shoot came from our appartement. So yop, that’s our sheets, our old wooden crates, our lamp, our giraffe. :-)

Second anecdote. Between the day of the shoot, and today, this couple actually got engaged!! Congratulation guys, and many thanks for being part of this.

Apr 2013

Magda + Marek

Session in Iceland with Amazing Landscapes and a Fearless Bride

I love people acting crazy, not trying to follow the regular rules and trends, people who do things because it simply sounded like fun at one moment. I mean, if you’re not hurting yourself or someone else (obviously), what’s holding you back? So, when I first saw the picture of this couple taking a bath in a water hole, in the middle of nowhere, I thought “That’s the kind of fun I want to show”. Then, I took a look at the entire session, the beautiful Iceland landscapes and everything, and I thought “No, I actually want to go there and have the exact same day Magda and Marek had!”. Photographs by Bartek Wyrobek, out of Poland.

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Mar 2013

Lauren + James

Real Extravaganza Circus Wedding!

If there’s someone here who, deep down inside, still thinks weddings are boring and out of trend, this HAS GOT to be the one wedding that will shut this little voice up forever and turn you into a pro-marriage activist. This, my dear friends, is simply the most unique wedding I got to see and maybe feature in a very long time. Lauren wrote, We don’t like cliches or stereo types and we like things to be fun. Wearing a white dress was not part of my life dream. (…) James’ background is Singaporean Chinese, so the format we chose really pushed the boundaries and conventions as far as weddings go!! Actually, no need to be Singaporean Chinese to realize that boundaries were pushed — and you know we love that. Photography by the amazing Australia-based (but available for some May & June weddings or else in Europe/ France—reservations start now!) photographer Lakshal Perera.

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I know this shouldn’t be that exceptional, but Lauren proposed to James, and I think I haven’t seen that before, at least not since I’m running the blog. From Lauren:

The engagement happened on 29th of February 2012 in a reasonably non-conventional way. After living together for 11 years, I decided to propose to James by hanging a 13 metre poster across a freeway overpass leading into the city. He didn’t crash the car… and he did say “yes”.

OK, I know that’s all you’re waiting for, so here’s about the circus theme.

After we became engaged, we threw around some ideas and very quickly settled on the circus theme. The more research and people I spoke to the more exciting it became. It wasn’t without some resistance from the traditionalists, but I guess people had 11 months to ask some questions and embrace the idea.

Everyone, including our guests, were in costume. During the evening all things were circus. Food presented in theme, the MC Heidi (miss Amour) was stunning and entertaining. Our events company showcased the various acts, with an umbrella foot juggler, an aerialist / contortionist who can hoola hoop, and the “muscle boys” performed a comedy and athletic balancing routine. Just spectacular.

Name one thing you regret… Maybe that sounds a bit of an unnecessary question, doesn’t it? Let’s just go on with more stories from Lauren and James’ circus wedding, because I don’t know you, but I can’t get enough.

We choose the traditional bits of a wedding we liked, like entertaining and heart felt speeches, being walked down the aisle by my Dad, the Chinese Yum seng, and a fabulous band and ditched the bits we didn’t. As promised, our Jack Russell dog, Milo Dinosaur, delivered the rings with her 6 year old assistants (the animal tamers) and even barked in response to the crowd’s round of applause.

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

In terms of the Wedding day, we held both the ceremony and the reception at the same venue, doing photos the day before, something I would recommend to brides to be. I loved the way people got involved and proud of how the event unfolded and was just as we had envisioned it. Our friends and family really went to a great deal of effort to help with the festivities leading up to the event, making invites, a piece of art for decoration, a kissing booth, hen’s and buck’s nights and the list goes on. A lot of thought and effort went into costumes and the response to the invitation calling for “Dress: creative circus” was met with great creativity indeed. The kissing booth seemed fitting for a wedding and has now become a feature of the venue. The later part of the night attracted greater participation in the booth!… and Lucky our photographer was able to capture it all through his lens.