After glitz and gloss of NYC weddings, this Vermont rustic wedding felt like a breath of fresh air, ever so resonating with my own a month earlier.
This is how youth and free spirit roll. An American working for a social investment company meets a German au pair in South Africa at a local music festival, they nurture their long distance relationship, fly back and forth across the ocean, and then choose to get married in a no-street-address church in the mountains of Peru, VT. That’s where I headed on a 500-mile road trip to shoot their American-Deutsche hochzeit. Here’s their story.
I headed out early in the morning and reached the picturesque and peaceful village shortly before the ceremony. I could not help but catch some similarities, oh-so-fresh in my memory, with my elopement to a rustic wedding in Moldova, from the Gypsophila flowers (a.k.a. “baby’s breath”) in the bride’s hair, to a young lady and family member who took on some charming DYI decor, to the earnest and unpretentious emotions flying all over, to the all-wooden house/barn for the reception at the The Fancy Grade Farm.
However, we did not have a sleuth of unique features such as a the above-mentioned no-street-address Peru Congregational Church, a barefoot priest (and a cool lady at that!), an insane jump of joy concluding the ceremony (they didn’t warn me!), mountain creeks of tears (I had to limit myself and show a few only), a tractor with comfy hay seats and all-natural air conditioning, a 1966 photo booth made out of a vintage Volkswagen Camper autobus provided by PhotoBoothPlanet, and a live rockabilly rock band The Lustre Kings.
And of course, you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing ja, natürlich, willkommen, Liebe, Glückwünsche, and alike: a sizable portion of the guests was German, as neither family nor friends saw the Atlantic as an obstacle to the adorable celebration of this rustic wedding.
Elated and mentally refreshed, I headed into the night to drive for 5 hours back to NYC where other guests visiting from across the Atlantic were waiting for me at 4 AM for their trash-the-dress session around that glitz and gloss of NYC. And this will be my next blog story…
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