I wish I had time to write the story of each couple … of course it is on my eternal to-do list … at least I will not be bored in my retirement years. 🙂
I would like to write about all of them, because in our profession, meeting new people and listening their stories is one of the most interesting and beautiful parts of the job. On the wedding day, we see them being happy … but we don’t know the details of their journey that lead them to this significant moment in their lives … Each couple has an individual story and I believe it is very important to understand it, so from the photography point of view I can give them a more personal outcome.
The story of the Noemi and Dani is close to me. Whilst a big wedding offers more challenges and photography themes for a photojournalist, a two-person wedding where they simply follow their dream can be very intimate. Our wedding team gets more involved, filling the roles traditionaly taken by family and friends. The makeup artist and the hairdresser become the excited and emotional girlfriends as they help Noemi prepare, the wedding organiser takes the role of the mum, taking care of every detail… and the photographer… she has butterflies in her stomach, like the father, looking forward to Dani’s reaction for the first look at Noemi.
Noemi and Dani were childhood sweethearts, growing up together, standing side by side through good and bad for eleven years … as Noemi explainded to me ‘we are a small island in our world and Greece is a part of this small island. We have been traveling these last three years, just the two of us, exploring the Greek islands and paying attention only to each other. No stress and worries… just relaxing and enjoying the sea and the sun. We knew we wanted to keep the wedding day in this mood so that we could say afterwards, it was really OUR wedding. No fuss; only us and our emotions. ‘
Their travels and love of Greece led them to request an olive grove as their venue and as it is well known by you all, you don’t have to ask me twice to go there 🙂 . As wedding fashions change you may tire of photos taken in olive groves but I will still escape to these quiet havens on the hillside to take photos there. It is an eternal love for me; watching the light flow through the many small leaves of these ancient trees, where it seems to form an iridescent mist… the only sound is the rustle underfoot of the sundried yellow grass and of course the cicada’s song in the background … oh … how my mind wings away :)) …
Quoting Noemi as she described it to me so beautifully; ‘The olive grove reminds me of the past. An olive tree as it gets older, gets more rugged. It is a real survivor, incredibly strong, hard wood. Without wanting to over romanticise it, we felt that a pledge made here surrounded by these trees is a symbol of the solid, honest and very close relationship between us…
Finally, I want to share with you about one of my personal favourite details of the day; the wreath decoration with glass baubles made by Noemi with Daniel’s help. Seriously, I do not believe how it made it intact the 1500 km car journey from Hungary to Lefkada!
Noemi saw a similar decoration and decided they could create a one themselves for their wedding dinner. During the autumn Dani cut off branches from the willow tree in their garden and Noemi wove them into a wreath. The night before their wedding they hung the glass bubbles on it together. It was a beautiful match to the simple, natural decoration of the wedding.
Like Noemi and Dani, these glass baubles had transformed from individual objects to a complete object; stronger and brighter together. It was wonderful to see how the setting sun coloured the hanging glass balls orange … it looked like happiness bubbles, whilst being a personal memento of home within their dream world … May your world be always such a happiness bubble, guys, you deserve it so much! You are so good!
xx, Eszter
photo: Lefkada photo & visual design www.lefkadaphoto.com
www.wedvision.com venue: Panorama Villas
