Rustic Swedish Summer Wedding
My absolute favorite part of weddings are the personal touches that really speak of the bride and groom, and this one is bursting with them, from the perfect venue to fit their distinct style to locking their vows in a wine box to keep for years to come. 2 Brides Photography captured the spirit of the whole celebration beautifully, and whenever I need a mood boost and a smile, this gallery is where I'll come.
From The Groom... After getting engaged Johanna and I spent several months looking for a wedding venue that felt like us. We wanted to be somewhere relaxed where you could easily move around, we didn’t want the party just to be in one place considering we both got restless legs and so do our friends and family. A year came and went and in the beginning of summer 2012 we went to Gotland for a motorcycle vacation with some friends. One day we went out looking for a place to eat lunch and found this lovely stone-oven-bakery and restaurant called Leva Kungslador. It didn’t look like much from the road but when we went inside it had this rustic, artistic feeling combined with the most amazing food and warm feeling to it. And then we went outside to the back and there lay this beautiful, relaxed garden with wild flowers, an apple-orchard, a green house where you could just sit down and take a cup of coffee. No need to say we fell in love with this place instantly (the charming employees and their awesome mudcake!) and decided that this was the place. From that moment begun an intense year with us juggling the planning of our destination wedding, with us moving, career changes, studies, you name it – we did it.
It was challenging sometimes but also fun and amazing at the same time. And god was it worth it. Looking back now we kind of miss sitting together at night discussing dessert choices and which font to use on the escort cards.
My favorite part of the wedding was our vows. It was a very sentimental and special moment. Even though we were standing amongst all of our friends and family it felt like we were the only ones there. The moment felt so natural and we said what we truly felt. I also love that we decided to put our vows in a locked wooden wine-box, for us to open and read if we ever would doubt our relationship. Another favorite part was seeing Johanna for the first time, walking down the aisle in her wedding dress. She was/is truly the most beautiful women I have ever laid eyes on.
From The Bride... After finally finding our wedding venue the rest of the pieces just fell in place along the way. Leva Kungslador is such an amazing place with lots of personal details on it’s own and we found out later the owner of Levas is the same person that started Granit. (Which has been my favorite decorating-store for the past few years, so it was a match made in heaven from the start). Tobias and I agreed from the start that our top priorities considering our personal interests were photography and music (food would have been included but we already knew Levas eco-friendly menu was a gastronomic fantasy). 2 Brides Photography was an obvious choice, their work is just stunning. And they really helped us in the planning process, giving advice and recommending different people. I remembered the day Isabelle answered my email and told me they were available, I was so happy I did a little a victory-dance. We struggled a bit with finding the right entertainment though, but then we remembered these talented, funny guys that were playing on an mc-event on Gotland the year before, and we are so happy they agreed to play. We worked with such wonderful people, Isabelle, Sabina, Susanne and everybody else.. We wouldn’t change a thing!
When the wedding weekend finally arrived we were mostly nervous about rain since it had been pouring down the days before and we were getting married under a bare sky. But come Friday morning the sun came in over Visby and stayed all weekend, providing us with beautiful sunsets and a warm summer feeling.
Our wedding contained a lot of DIY projects such as the invites, save the date, menus, lemonade-stands, photobooth, a cigar/whiskey bar, signs, a polaroid guestbook, backdrops, portrait-trees, tattoos, ceremony-fans etc. And I really enjoyed getting together with my bridesmaid creating these personal touches that made the wedding feel like “us."
It’s really hard picking a favorite part of the wedding. It was all so wonderful, the music, the speeches, walking down the aisle with my father looking at my soon-to-be-husband, and to feel all the love around us. But I think one of the most memorable moments for me was when our friends surprised us during the dinner with a special appearance. The bridesmaid was holding their speech, and when they got to the end they said a quote from one of our favorite songs, and in the mean time in walks the artist who’s made it, playing our song in an acoustic version. It was a VERY sentimental moment (lots of ugly-crying), one I will keep in my heart forever.
It was challenging sometimes but also fun and amazing at the same time. And god was it worth it. Looking back now we kind of miss sitting together at night discussing dessert choices and which font to use on the escort cards.
My favorite part of the wedding was our vows. It was a very sentimental and special moment. Even though we were standing amongst all of our friends and family it felt like we were the only ones there. The moment felt so natural and we said what we truly felt. I also love that we decided to put our vows in a locked wooden wine-box, for us to open and read if we ever would doubt our relationship. Another favorite part was seeing Johanna for the first time, walking down the aisle in her wedding dress. She was/is truly the most beautiful women I have ever laid eyes on.
From The Bride... After finally finding our wedding venue the rest of the pieces just fell in place along the way. Leva Kungslador is such an amazing place with lots of personal details on it’s own and we found out later the owner of Levas is the same person that started Granit. (Which has been my favorite decorating-store for the past few years, so it was a match made in heaven from the start). Tobias and I agreed from the start that our top priorities considering our personal interests were photography and music (food would have been included but we already knew Levas eco-friendly menu was a gastronomic fantasy). 2 Brides Photography was an obvious choice, their work is just stunning. And they really helped us in the planning process, giving advice and recommending different people. I remembered the day Isabelle answered my email and told me they were available, I was so happy I did a little a victory-dance. We struggled a bit with finding the right entertainment though, but then we remembered these talented, funny guys that were playing on an mc-event on Gotland the year before, and we are so happy they agreed to play. We worked with such wonderful people, Isabelle, Sabina, Susanne and everybody else.. We wouldn’t change a thing!
When the wedding weekend finally arrived we were mostly nervous about rain since it had been pouring down the days before and we were getting married under a bare sky. But come Friday morning the sun came in over Visby and stayed all weekend, providing us with beautiful sunsets and a warm summer feeling.
Our wedding contained a lot of DIY projects such as the invites, save the date, menus, lemonade-stands, photobooth, a cigar/whiskey bar, signs, a polaroid guestbook, backdrops, portrait-trees, tattoos, ceremony-fans etc. And I really enjoyed getting together with my bridesmaid creating these personal touches that made the wedding feel like “us."
It’s really hard picking a favorite part of the wedding. It was all so wonderful, the music, the speeches, walking down the aisle with my father looking at my soon-to-be-husband, and to feel all the love around us. But I think one of the most memorable moments for me was when our friends surprised us during the dinner with a special appearance. The bridesmaid was holding their speech, and when they got to the end they said a quote from one of our favorite songs, and in the mean time in walks the artist who’s made it, playing our song in an acoustic version. It was a VERY sentimental moment (lots of ugly-crying), one I will keep in my heart forever.