Meet Maria and Kostya who have decided for their wedding to take a trip to Normandy with the couple of their best friends and to celebrate their wedding in a unique way where every detail was thought through and handmade to be just right for them.
In the words of Maria: "Engagement ring was one of the best and coveted presents on my birthday in March 2015. We decided that our wedding will be in autumn and started to plan our day, chose the date and place. September on the north coast of France in Normandy was chosen for its beauty and it’s such a quiet place after summer holiday season is over yet warm enough still. We knew that we want to keep it very intimate, so we only invited a couple of friends to come for a road-trip elopement/honeymoon along the coast of Normandy. Once that part of the plan was settled we started to look for photographers to capture this experience. We have been following the work of Anastasia and Federico on Instagram and knew right away that their team was our first choice. Together with Anastasia we have planned out our day, discussed and arranged all the details via Skype sessions. We were in touch all the time, so we knew that our photographers were making sure that our day was unique and magnificent. The one vendor we have outsourced was the florist. Marina of Fleur Desir works with The Flying Poodle and IheartParis on many of their shoots, so we knew that she would do a great job to add a flower diadem for the bridal look."
"On the day of the wedding photoshoot we drove together from Paris to Normandy. We started the day in more informal wedding party clothes that we designed and made specially for jumping on the hay rolls in a field. May sound funny, but during the planning we’ve seen a lot of photos of Normandy and we loved how the fields look so golden with the hay rolls and really wanted to have some photos taken there. Federico actually drove to Normandy a week before our wedding shoot to find a perfect field for us (did I mention how much our photographers helped in planning!)
After a quick lunch we changed into our formal wedding attire and went on to Giverny to continue our photo story in the garden of Claude Monet house, one of the most picturesque places in the North of France. This garden inspired his beautiful waterlily landscape paintings and it was a dream come true to have our wedding photos taken among this nature.
For the last part of the shoot we drove all the way to the coast to the beautiful cliffs of Etretat. We just caught the golden hour light, so we inflated a bunch of helium balloons to use as a fairytale prop for this magical location, and then had fun running along the beach with them. We ended the day with setting off a smoke bomb while sitting on the edge of the cliffs. Notice how we colour matched all the wedding accessories in purple including the balloons and the smoke bomb to have a coherent colour palette throughout our wedding album. The caught moments and emotions of our day were saved in photos and every time when we look at them we remember the mood of that day thanks to our friends and our photographers Anastasia and Federico."
DIY Accessories:
· Lace dress with wide purple belt designed and sewn by the bride
· Purple groom bowtie sewn by the bride
· The bride's bouquet from pearlescent purple beads with two dragonflies
· Earrings from chainlet and purple pearlscent bead
· Brooch with the beads to decorate the ballet flats of the bride
· Purple and white ribbons to colour match Converse tennis shoes for the whole wedding party for the casual look
· T-shorts with pictures of bride and groom, the same as on wedding invitation, designed and printed by the bride
· Bracelet from ribbon and beads for the bride and bridesmaid
