This wedding was featured on Carats and Cake on November of 2013.
I have finally had some time to sit down and write up a few more blog posts! Today’s wedding is from June 4th, 2011. The Ceremony was at the Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Watertown and the Reception was at the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge. Both the Bride and the Groom live in Watertown, which is where the groom got ready with is family and groomsmen, and the bride got ready at the Harvard Club in Cambridge. One quick story about one of Ben’s groomsmen – the day before the wedding all the groomsmen went out on a bike ride through the city together, and he fell on his face. Every time they told the story he laughed about it and thought it was hilarious that he will now have all these nice pictures with his face all bloodied. Now, I have to say, this is one of the most involved (and fun!) weddings I have ever been part of. First off, there were so many people flying in from all over the world. The bride and groom decided to give each party of guests traveling to Boston a cotton tote bag they had printed with yellow quatrefoil design of the wedding with maps, a Florida orange, an Austrian treat, and a Boston Dig. I started the day with the bride while my second shooter, Dan Aguirre, was with the guys. A few things about the brides attire include the veil, which was made by the bride with a vintage hair comb and tulle that she found with her parents on a trip they took to New York City. Her vintage dress was made by Lisa Dezmelyck (a local dressmaker), re-imagined with far less detail and poof than the original. The groom had cuff links that his mother had made for him by an artist in Geneva. The design is a traditional indigenous male/female symbol akin to yin and yang.
We then headed over to the church at Mt. Auburn Cemetery and immediately jumped into the ceremony, which was completely in German! The groom and his family’s first language is German, and Kati was more than happy to learn the vows in their native language. A few special things they did with/at the ceremony was to include porcelain flower vases on the back of chairs made by Kati, Ben, Nancy (the bride’s mother), Hugh (the bride’s father), Summer (the Maid of Honor), Tiffany (a Bridemaid), and Marty (the brother in Law). The texture on the vases were pressed into the porcelain with family textiles made by Kati’s great aunts. Kati’s mother, with the help of local friends in Cambridge, helped to attach the ribbon, fill them with flowers, and hang them in the chapel. The ceremony programs were designed by the bride and groom, and the ribbons were tied on as a joint effort between Kati and her mother. The Zombie ringbearer pillow was made by Kati’s mother from a family handkerchief and inside they placed a zombie made by an artist from Washington D.C. (sent by one of Kati’s colleagues who also loves zombies). Her nephew, the ringbearer, loved the idea of being a zombie ringbearer, and surprised him with a mini zombie that held the rings during the ceremony. The flower pins are an Austrian tradition, friends from Cambridge (UK) helped to put these flower pins together the weekend before the wedding at their pre-wedding make-stravaganza, as they called it. The marriage certificate was made by Kati and Ben from a Martha Stewart design. They actually took a letterpress class at Bow and Arrow Press at Harvard University and combined letterpress with linoblock printing for the design. It looked absolutely amazing. The bagpipes were present for Kati’s grandfather who is from Scotland. Their family all love the bagpipes as well, so it was representative of Kati’s culture. At the end of the ceremony, their MC for the day jumped out into the isle and started singing with the crowd with a song provided in the ceremony program.
After the ceremony, everyone headed outside of the church for about an hour of refreshments and hor’ devours catered by one of my favorite places in the city, Sofra! I then took Kati and Ben around Mt. Auburn cemetery and shot a ton of great photographs of the two of them together. There were so many great spots, it was hard to not get stuck shooting there all day! While we were photographing, Dan went on one of the three tours of the gravestones and tombs given by Kati and Ben’s guests. Laura and Jenny (Kati’s old roommates) led a literary and arts tour. Nick Green, Ben’s first American friend, led a tour to Washington Tower to see the Boston Skyline. And Luke Mander led a botanical tour of the cemetery. The bride and groom then hopped into my car and we drove over to the reception at the Harvard Club Cambridge where the first thing they had to do was saw a log in half! This is an Austrian tradition, and it worked out to be great fun for both Kati, Ben and their guests. There were two other games played later in the night, one of which involved Kati sitting in a chair behind Ben with a sheet over him with a “business suit” drawn on it. She then slipped her hands through the sheet to act as Ben’s hands and tried to “get Ben ready for work,” while blind to what was going on. She tried to shave Ben’s face, feed Ben breakfast and brush Ben’s teeth, among other things. This proved to be even more hilarious than the first game of the day. There was one last game where 8 people sat in a line of chairs and pulled their pants (or dress) up to their knees. Ben then had to get on his hands and knees and was aloud to feel each person from the ankle to the knee to try to find his bride while both Kati and Ben were blindfolded. It took him a while, but he did find her! They were then presented with traditional custom made Austrian boots, which represented them walking through life together.
Some other things about the reception include the seating cards, which a few local friends of Kati helped her fold. They were cranes cut with a piece of paper inserted in them for each guest’s name and table number. She also wrote all of the names and seat placements by hand. The table building silhouettes were made by the Best Man (Beaudry) and cousins from Austria with Ben at the crafting make-stravaganza. They were all Boston based locations for all of the travelers to the wedding. The end of the night gifts were Forget -Me-Not seeds in small matchbooks that were made from a Martha Stewart template. They translated it into German and changed the color palette. Friends helped to fold and fill seed envelopes. The caketopper was Kati’s grandparent’s cake topper at their wedding. Evan Metter, their close friend, was their Master of Ceremony. He did the crab and lobster song as well as help keep the flow of the evening going. Pierre Hurel was the Jazz musician who played two songs on the piano at the cocktail hour for the bride and groom. He was an exquisite pianist, I couldn’t believe how talented this man was. Nicole Agois Hurel was their second MC and Music Coordinator for the night. And Ben’s cousins from Austria designed all the Austrian games played at the reception. All told, they had about 65 guests from other parts of the country, as well as 30 local friends. The guests came from Austria, England, Germany, The Netherlands, Denmark, Florida, Oregon, New York, Chicago, Georgia, and Maryland.
I really can’t say enough about how great this wedding was. It really stands out to me as one of the most involved days, both with Kati and Ben’s effort, as well as their family and friends, to make this a truly special experience for everyone who attended.
