It’s always beautiful to see couples embrace diverse backgrounds so wholeheartedly. Getting an insider tour of Havana doesn’t hurt, either. We also have to give props because on top of wedding planning this couple also coordinated a group effort to bring supplies for the ceremony.Yay teamwork! We’re glad they did because now we get to enjoy a whole gallery of Matt Kennedy‘s lovely photos.
From The Bride…We struggled to find the perfect destination for our wedding, given our different backgrounds and our international guests, but we eventually decided on Havana, which incorporated a bit of family history and undisputed old classic charm.
Choosing a destination like Cuba with its scarcity of supplies, meant having to bring a lot of our own food & personalized decorations: from signage, napkins, candy bowls, candy, votive holders to desserts and even cigar cutters. We had friends and family help us bring them over making this wedding a truly collective effort!
The wedding day was planned around giving our small group of guests a great Havana experience: some guests were visiting Havana only for a few days and we wanted to show them sites that took them to different districts in the city: from the cocktail reception in an old restored peanut factory to the two venues for the wedding: The ceremony took place in the garden of one of the oldest hotels in Havana, guests then enjoyed a classic Cuban car ride taking them into the heart of Old Havana for a rooftop reception overlooking the city as the sun set.
To add to giving our guests a great experience, one thing we wanted to do was to ensure every guest was thanked. We took great care to ensure that each guest’s name card on the table had a personal message of gratitude written for them inside
The favorite moment of the day was definitely the reception, where we both got to relax, kick up our feet, forget about all the worries and being able to just enjoy the evening with our amazing guests.
Instead of a traditional wedding cake, we had wedding cheese cake (which was difficult to source in Havana anyways); 16 different types of artisanal cheeses weighing around 6 kilos, made in a small cheese shop in Philip’s hometown in the North of Sweden and carried all the way over to Havana for us all to enjoy.
The one thing that will remain most special to us is to see all our family and friends closest to us gathered from around the world in one place together. It was truly overwhelming to see everyone representing a part of our lives in Havana for the wedding. It was spectacular.
From Matt Kennedy Photography…It was such an honor to travel to Cuba to photograph Christine and Philip’s beautiful wedding. They both have so much connection with Cuba from their travels, and their desire to share that with their friends and family was so apparent. They worked tirelessly to arrange everyone’s travel and accommodations in a very difficult country to communicate with from a distance. It was a pleasure to see such warm and inviting people from all over the world, come together to support such a great couple.
Their wedding was impeccable, and perfectly planned from beginning to end of the entire week. The details that they had worked on, and the special things they did to treat their guests like royalty were incredible. One of my favorites was the specially made cocktails by one of their groomsmen who is a cocktail genius in the food and beverage industry in Dubai, it was a great personal touch. Christine was glowing in her Monique LHuillier dress, and Philip didn’t look too bad himself! Everything was just such a joy to photograph and really be a part of.
Photography: Matt Kennedy | Wedding Dress: Monique Lhuillier | Ceremony Venue: Hotel Nacional | Reception Venue: Hotel Saratoga | Decor: AIRE DE FIESTA