This Halloween was our 10 year wedding anniversary. It’s crazy to think it’s been 10 years now since our wedding.
When I originally planned our wedding, it wasn’t really a thought in my mind to incorporate a tea ceremony, or any Vietnamese traditions to be honest. It was an added expense and I was already trying to cut costs where I could to keep the main parts I wanted. I had a very stereotypical modern American wedding and that was expensive enough. My parents also didn’t pressure or even mention that they wanted any Vietnamese aspects included. They were mostly hands-off on the details with the exception of the guest list. I had to fight my mom a lot on that since she wanted to invite the entire neighborhood and all of Vietnam and all their children. I was trying to keep it to people I directly knew and would actually keep in touch with post wedding but allotted both my and his parents some room for invites for their own family/friends. The problem is his family is Irish/Italian which means big families, and my family is Vietnamese meaning they’re absolutely obnoxious as interpreting weddings like house parties where you can bring anyone and everyone. In the end, the wedding was relatively small compared to the grandeur of American weddings but still bigger than a small intimate affair.
In retrospect, I still absolutely love everything about my wedding, but wished I had pushed to do a much smaller affair. And simultaneously, given how much fighting was had between my mom and I, I know it would’ve been a much more arduous fight that I wouldn’t have the energy for.
In 2018, we vacationed in Paris for a week and took the opportunity to do a shoot in front of the Eiffel Tower in our wedding attire. It made me realize this was actually more what I wanted. I just wanted gorgeous photos of us in the most romantic place in the world and all we really needed was each other. If I had to do it over, elopement I would say, is the more romantic and cost-effective route. Although at the same time, I still would want my closest friends and family there. So I don’t regret anything about my wedding because I’m glad all my favorite people were there to celebrate the day with us, and many of them I truly still keep in touch with to this day. I would have liked to have had a destination wedding, but that’s also a big commitment to expect your closest friends and family to fly out and spend that kind of money to attend your wedding. So I guess looking back, it worked out. I had my big wedding with all my family and friends, and still was able to have my dreamy intimate photoshoot in Paris.
This got me thinking a few years ago when I saw other Vietnamese ceremony photos on the Facebook group Subtle Asian Traits where Asians from all over the globe share their lives and stories. It made me regret not having a tea ceremony a little. But then I realized it wasn’t that I really wanted the tea ceremony because I remember why I chose not to do it. I didn’t want to wake up any earlier than I already had to, to get ready the day of. I didn’t want to spend more money on more wedding outfits, an entire morning ceremony because it does cost a lot with all the different gifts and the food involved. What I really wanted, like Paris, was photos of us in traditional Vietnamese outfits. So I thought what if we just did a photoshoot? It was perfect. I got in contact with my wedding photographer whom I’ve become good friends with and stayed in touch with the past decade as well. I still absolutely love my wedding photos from him to this day because he has the extraordinary magic touch to make us look good in every single photo somehow. Don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of the photographers I’ve shot with over the years, but there are a small few who have the magical ability to create photographic alchemy. With Steven, I rarely have photos I want to skip or delete. He somehow knows all my angles, the perfect lighting no matter what time of day or conditions we have to shoot in, the perfect touch, how to capture the little details, everything. So it only made sense since he was there from the very beginning at our first couples’ shoot together; our engagement shoot. It was from that shoot alone that I knew he was a wizard. I remember receiving my photos and going crazy about them and immediately using them for our save the dates and our wedding invitations.
I reached out to Steven last year about this little project and he was totally down to help set this into motion. Then I got lucky earlier this year when my mom decided to go to Vietnam for Lunar New Year. I asked her to have the custom outfits made for us and she was able to commission them in time and gifted them to us upon her return. She even had a little hat made for Banh Mi, which probably was the oddest request for the little shop she used, lol. And then this summer, I was able to find the perfect location and secured a permit to shoot this project, at the New York Chinese Scholar’s Garden at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden in Staten Island.
The unfortunate thing was, the day of the shoot, somehow we hit an insane amount of traffic trying to get there, which forced our already small window of time to shoot at the garden to be even more limited. We were supposed to have 2 hours, but unfortunately we ended up only having 15 minutes left before the garden was to close. Luckily, between the really nice staff there allowing us an extra 15 minutes, and this not being our first rodeo (we’ve done so many couple shoots over the years now and have nailed down our go to couple poses and luckily my husband is a natural at this lol), and Steven having an extremely amazing eye for the shot and talent, we were able to work quickly and kill the shoot. I finally received the photos back last month and was trying so hard not to post them right away because they were meant to be posted our on our wedding anniversary. It was really hard holding these back because they came out so phenomenal. I’m so happy we were able to execute this project and I’ll treasure these for years to come. Who knows what we’ll pull off for the next milestone anniversary? 😉
If you’re looking for amazing engagement, wedding, or any couples photography, Steven of Sage Studios Photography is your guy. I wish he lived closer to me because I would work with him all the time if I could, but maybe it’s good because my husband would probably cry if I made him do all these shoots more often than we already do, lol. But I’m thankful I’m married to a good sport who believes in happy wife, happy life and entertains all the silly ideas and shoots I always want to do. I got lucky and he entertained me with not one, but TWO shoots this year and I can’t wait to share those photos soon too since that was also another shoot I’ve been excited to do for a while.
