04 Nov Urban Art-Deco Wedding at Smith&Caughey’s Building

When Yulia & Arash contacted us first and told us about their ideas of art-deco styled celebration we were super excited. To begin with it was the first wedding ever held at the Lippincott Dining Room, inside Auckland’s most iconic department store Smith&Caughey’s, built by R. A. Lippincott an architect that influenced twentieth century of Auckland building architecture.

They say to not be afraid to express yourself on your wedding day being out of the box as there are no restrictions on your special day. It is only yours. We believe our couple followed the lead of this advice. Being both from absolutely different countries and cultures, Yulia & Arash wanted to incorporate their traditions into the wedding. They had a traditional Persian ceremony called Sofreh Aghd with little bits of western elements incorporated into the nuptials. From the images you can see a special ceremonial low table with a mirror facing the couple and some symbolic items representing elements of the couple’s new life and marriage together. The mirror and candelabras are symbols of light and fire, two very important elements in the Zoroastrian culture. Then bride and groom sit beneath a canopy held up by the bridesmaids, while a happily married woman take turns rubbing sugar cones together above the canopy. This canopy signifies that the bride and groom are now combined under the same umbrella or roof and the sugar granules sprinkle onto the canopy, signifying showering the couple in sweetness.

They opted out for a relaxed cocktail style reception and it turned out just great with guests having fun and enjoying drinks, cheese, oysters and tons of beautiful finger food constantly arriving from the kitchen. Of course, they had a lot of traditional dishes, such as Persian Kebabs and Russian Borsch Shots. Guests kept entertained by a crew of professional barmen whipping up cocktails good enough to be served at Gatsby’s, while a cartoonist Luka drew portraits of all the guests (those then were framed and given away as a favour). After traditional speeches guests were treated to a jaw-dropping belly dance show by Tais.

Yulia wore a stunning gown designed by Rachel Gilbert that matched the art-deco style so well, while groom picked a classic suit from Hugo Boss. Their rings belonged to bride’s grandparents; they’ve owned them for more than 50 years before giving them to the newlyweds as a special symbol. The bride made her own veil and created some decorations.

Their favourite moment from the wedding was the first dance. It included 3 parts: traditional, Persian and Russian, which was a complete surprise for the guests, everyone was left speechless when music changed and newlyweds rocked with some traditional moves. Yulia says that they both are not great dancers, but they wanted to show their personalities; share some cultural elements and just enjoy it, and, oh boy they did it well!

Everything was breathing with the 1920s vibe as if we were teleported in time and got to the private wedding party of two celebrities in town. It was a special wedding where you could feel that everyone had fun and every part of it was belonging to the couple.