Shivani Vora


Ludan Wu and Johnny Phaipanya were married in a private ceremony at the University Club of Chicago’s Cathedral Hall.

2 thoughts on “Shivani Vora

  1. shinichi Post author

    Ceremony for 2, Please. And Make It Fancy!

    Forget quickie weddings in Vegas. Lavish elopements are growing in popularity, and we have social media to thank.

    by Shivani Vora

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/fashion/weddings/expensive-luxury-elopement-ceremonies-for-2.html

    Ludan Wu and Johnny Phaipanya, high school sweethearts from Chicago, were engaged for two years and planning a small wedding with family and close friends. But last December they made an impromptu decision to elope.

    “We ultimately realized that we wanted the day to be only about being with each other, and that meant having no one else there,” said Ms. Wu, 32, a management consultant.

    Elopements typically conjure up images of last-minute weddings in Las Vegas chapels or civil ceremonies at local courthouses. But a simple celebration for two wasn’t quite what Ms. Wu and Mr. Phaipanya, 34, a broker strategist, had in mind.

    The couple wed on Feb. 27 at the University Club of Chicago’s Cathedral Hall, an ornate room with stained-glass windows and vaulted ceilings. Ms. Wu primped for the ceremony with help from makeup and hair stylists and wore a Vera Wang lace gown. Mr. Phaipanya donned a custom-made Prada tuxedo.

    After their vows, they danced to Ellie Goulding’s “How Long Will I Love You,” played by a three-piece band, and toasted with Dom Pérignon Champagne. At sunset, they had a photo shoot on the rooftop of the LondonHouse hotel, where a videographer captured aerial footage of the newlyweds from a drone. Then they spent the night in a suite at the Langham hotel.

    Somewhere along the way, they shared the news that they had married with families and friends on FaceTime.

    Ms. Wu’s and Mr. Phaipanya’s two-person wedding cost $75,000. “It was the dream day and worth every penny,” she said.

    Lavish elopements like Ms. Wu’s and Mr. Phaipanya’s — ones that rival or surpass conventional weddings with many guests — are growing in popularity, according to wedding planners and owners of wedding consulting companies.

    “Years ago, couples who eloped would get married on a sandy beach or in Vegas, but that trend is changing,” she Rebecca Grinnals, the founder of Engaging Concepts, which works with wedding planners, hotels and event spaces and holds wedding industry conferences.

    Ms. Grinnals says her clients report an increase in lavish secret weddings that couples spend months in planning. “For a while, it was all about smaller weddings for a few dozen people,” she said, “but now you see these over-the-top ones just for two that require the same amount of work or more than ones for 250.”

    Jess Levin Conroy, the founder and chief executive of Carats & Cake, a wedding planning site, also reported a rise in extravagant elopements. She attributed the increase, in part, to the ubiquity of social media. “Instagram gives couples the ability to have a private wedding, yet put it in the limelight,” she said. “With all the imagery and videos you can instantly share, friends and family can feel like they were part of the celebration.”

    In Ms. Conroy’s experience, many of the eloping couples are seeking a private celebration because they’re getting married either for the second time or later in life and are less interested in a social affair. “They’re keen on keeping the entire focus of the day on themselves,” she said.

    Many modern-day elopements are destination weddings. There are even companies like Destination Elope that specializes in planning them. The co-founders Jessica Sloane, a wedding planner, and Natalie Watson, a wedding photographer, said that most of the couples who contact them want weddings in dramatic settings like the edge of a cliff in Big Sur or in the middle of the desert in Joshua Tree National Park.

    “They’re asking for intimacy mixed with a wow factor,” said Ms. Sloane, adding that social media has also played a role in the rising popularity of elaborate elopements. “Couples justify it because they know that they can let other people in through Instagram.”

    Cristina Verger, the owner of a New York-based event planning company that bears her name, orchestrated a two-person destination wedding on Jan. at the Lotte New York Palace hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The total cost was more than $100,000.

    “I pulled it together in less than a month,” she said, “and it was definitely the most unique event I have ever planned.”

    The couple, Bojana Sukovic, 37, and Branislav Bozic, 39, live in Las Vegas and wanted to marry in New York because it’s their favorite city.

    While some over-the-top elopements are driven by a couple’s desire to have their sole attention on each other, Ms. Sukovic, a lawyer, and Mr. Bozic, the owner of a transportation business, had other reasons. “Our parents live in Serbia and couldn’t get visas to come here,” Ms. Sukovic said, “and if they couldn’t be with us, we didn’t want anyone else to be either.”

    Both described their wedding as a “romantic fairy tale.” They bought out the hotel’s 19th- century gold-gilded Villard Mansion at the hotel and had a civil ceremony in one of its wood-paneled rooms. Ms. Sukovic wore a $12,000 lace gown from the Lebanese designer Zuhair Murad and $5,000 Jimmy Choo shoes adorned with crystals.

    Their reception, in the mansion’s Madison Room, included a D.J. and a small band that kept them dancing through the evening to songs by Michael Jackson and Ed Sheeran.

    For dinner, Ms. Verger worked with a floral designer to set up a half moon table laden with roses and hydrangeas and created a five-course menu that included premium wines and Champagnes and dishes like truffle Brie and Kobe beef. An eight-person staff tended to the newlyweds while they ate.

    Barbi and Daniel J. Poisson of Budapest also spent six figures on their elopement, which took place May, 8, 2018 at the Four Seasons Resort Lanai in Hawaii. A large portion of their budget, though, was for activities they enjoy as a couple.

    Ms. Poisson bought two dresses for the occasion — one for their day adventures and another for the evening. They started with an early morning helicopter ride of the island and a top-down Jeep tour along the coastline and through pine trees. A horseback riding session through farm fields while each wore $1,000 monogrammed leather boots came next, followed by a swim in the ocean in their clothes.

    For the evening, they donned casual attire. Ms. Poisson, 30, a restaurant owner, wore a sleeveless V-neck gown, and Mr. Poisson, 51, the owner of a distribution company, dressed in custom-made Ermenegildo Zegna khaki slacks and a white long-sleeved shirt. They were married by a minister on the beach with their toes in the sand and savored a leisurely dinner under the stars.

    Their families were less than thrilled when they heard about the elopement, and Mr. and Ms. Poisson appeased them by having a party last August in Budapest for 350 of their family and friends.

    “That day was for them,” Mr. Poisson said. “Our elopement was for us, and it was perfection.”

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  2. shinichi Post author

    結婚式は2人きりで、とびきりゴージャスに

    友達も家族も来なくて結構!「駆け落ち婚」で愛を誓うカップルたち

    by Shivani Vora

    https://courrier.jp/news/archives/168960/

    結婚式に家族に友人、さらには会社の上司まで呼ぶなんて時代はもう古いのかもしれない。自分たちのための式なのだから、互いがいればそれで充分──。

    英語の「Elopement」とは「駆け落ち」を意味する単語だが、近年では「親から逃げて一緒になる」という枠を越え、2人だけで結婚式を挙げる「Elopement Wedding(駆け落ち婚)」が人気を集めているという。SNSで近況報告ができるようになったいま、同じ空間でみんなから祝福されたいという欲求がなくなってきているようだ。

    **

    ルーダン・ウー(32)とジョニー・フェイペンヤ(34)は2年前に婚約したとき、家族と親しい友人だけの小さな結婚式を考えていた。だが昨年12月、不意に2人だけで挙式しようと思いたった。「結婚式は、お互いがいればいいってことに気づいたのよ。だから、誰も呼ばなくていいんじゃないかって」と、ルーダンは言う。

    「2人だけで挙式」というと、ラスベガスのチャペルに駆け込むとか、地元の群庁舎で挙げるささやかな結婚式といったイメージが浮かぶ。だが、つましい祝宴にするという考えは、2人の頭にはなかった。

    彼らは、シカゴ大学のキャンパスにある教会で式を挙げた。窓のステンドグラスやアーチ形の天井が印象的。ルーダンはばっちりとヘアメイクを施し、「ヴェラ・ウォン」の総レースのウェディングドレスをまとった。ジョニーは、「プラダ」で誂(あつら)えたタキシードでキメた。

    2人は結婚の誓いを交わし、3人組のバンドが奏でるエリー・ゴールディングの『How Long Will I Love You』に合わせて踊った。ドン・ペリニョンのシャンパンで乾杯し、夕日が眩しいロンドンハウスホテルの屋上で記念撮影をした。カメラマンはドローンを飛ばして、新婦を空中から撮影。夜は、ザ・ランガムのスイートルームで過ごした。

    彼らはその合間に、フェイスタイムで家族や友人に結婚の報告をした。この2人だけで結婚式を挙げる“駆け落ち婚”の費用は7万5000ドル(約807万円)。ルーダンはこう話す。

    「夢のような日になったよ。価値はあった」

    ルーダンとジョニーが挙げたようなゴージャスな駆け落ち婚は、大勢の招待客を呼ぶ従来の結婚式より安いわけではない。むしろそれより高くつくこともある。だが駆け落ち婚の人気は高まっていると、ウェディングプランナーや結婚相談所のオーナーたちは口をそろえる。

    結婚式プランニングサイト「カラッツ&ケイク」を立ち上げたジェス・レビン・コンロイは、駆け落ち婚のニーズが高まっている理由がソーシャルメディアの普及にあると、指摘する。

    「インスタグラムを使えば、カップルは2人だけの結婚式を挙げ、その模様を皆に披露することができる。写真や動画をタイムリーに公開すれば、友人や家族も一緒に祝った気分になれるでしょ」

    ジェスの経験上、駆け落ち婚を選ぶカップルは、2度目の結婚だったり、晩婚だったりする傾向にあり、世俗的な付き合いに無関心なことが多い。

    ・・・

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