Like I promised in this post a small selection from Yvonne and Erik’s wedding images. They live in a very cute thirties style home in the center of Haarlem and their wedding ceremony took place in the gorgeous old Haarlem city hall, right at the Market. On their wedding day, Yvonne got ready at home and Erik got ready in his aunt and uncle’s appartment close by. The veil with the red heart says “Help, and I ready to get married?” but there was no doubt about it: Yvonne was ready to go and get hitched!

From the appartment, Marco had a good view of the parking lots. The chauffeur seems torn between the super cool Rolls Royce and the tiny car next to it (and let’s be honest, compared to that wedding car, any care would seem small in comparison!).

Erik looks up to his own bedroom window expactantly, hoping to see a glimpse of his bride.

I know I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but the moment the bride and groom see each other for the first time on their wedding makes me weak!

Yvonne and Erik planned a few hours for their wedding photos. From Haarlem we drove to the wellknown location for wedding pictures: Elswout in Overveen. A beautiful estate to get married, or to have your wedding photos taken. There’s lots of green and beautiful lines.

There are a few gorgeous buildings at the Estate. There’s the Oranjerie (an official wedding location) but there’s also the ‘Big House’ – an absolutely stunning manor built in the 19th century. It was home to the German army in WWII and after the war several schools were housed here. Right now the manor is closed for renovation, a huge project that has been going on for years already. And the manor really isn’t accessible right now. But we wouldn’t be who we are withoug at least looking to see if we coiuld get in. And a couple very friendly builders didn’t mind us coming in. So that’s how we crawled under scaffolding, jumped over tools en climbed up a very dusty stairwell to get to the second floor. Yvonne just lifted her dress a tad bit higher and Erik made sure he didn’t lean into a newly painted wall. And be honest, the photos are worth it, aren’t they!

After the photosession of the bride and groom we went back to Haarlem for the wedding ceremony at the city hall. I have no clue what that weed is during up there, but it’s pretty funny.

The arrival of the bride and groom in Haarlem.

What I really like about this Haarlem wedding hall, is that the groom gets to wait halfway for his bride. Yvonne was escorted down the aisle by her mother.

The most official part of the day. With the wedding invitation in the foreground.

The Kiss in silhouet.

Bubbles and a kiss at the city hall terras!

Reception, dinner and wedding party all took place at Riche aan Zee in Zandvoort. We photographed a small impression of the venue and we did the formal photos there, at the beach. And to give all the guests enough time to drive to Riche, we took a detour to this cool location for a few more photos. Special thanks to Daan from Business Class Chauffeursdiensten who seemingly effortlessly guided this huge care through a very small entrance. It was an awesome day and I can’t wait to start working on Yvonne and Erik’s wedding album soon!

The most important parts of a wedding album are obviously the photography and the design, but here at Sassen en Verstraaten we’re also very proud at how nice our bespoke wedding albums look! All our albums, with the exception of the Australian E-Lay albums, are handmade right here. The printing, the making of the bookblock, the binding of the album, everything is done in our studio. There’s nothing better than a gorgeous wedding album with your greatest images to remember your wedding day by, and we love making unique wedding albums for our brides and grooms. The best part is, we can make the album to match your wedding day.

I often forget to take photos of the gorgeous albums we make, but I’ve got a few images of two albums and the matching albumboxes we made recently. Charlotte and Hans‘ theme colors on their wedding day were silver and purple and we made their albums with those colors. They had two albums: a wedding book with photos from the wedding day itself and a mini-studio book with images we made in the mini-studio during the party.

Saskia and Remco had bright pink as their theme color and we obviously used that for their wedding album.

The most exciting ‘album project’ is hanging in the studio right now: a wedding dress for me to cut up and use for the wedding album. Totally cool! I’ll definitely post photos from that album as soon as it’s done.

After a wonderful day in Amsterdam, where Carolyn and Peter had their civil ceremony, an even better day followed in Amerongen. A day filled with love and friendship, on which their wedding was celebrated first in the church called Andrieskerk and then at the Amerongen manor, Buitenplaats Amerongen.

The bride started her day at Sterkenburg Castle. Her sister, best friends and her flower girl helped her get ready for her wedding day. Meanwhile, Peter was at Buitenplaats Amerongen, together with his witness/best friend/master of ceremonies.

The father of the bride came to the castle to take his daughter and her flower girl to the church.

All guests assembled at the Buitenplaats, from where they walked to the church together.

When everyone was seated, Carolyn and her father entered the church. Such a special moment always!

Marco photographed the bride and groom’s recession from the balcony. They quickly walked around the building, so their guests could form an honor row for the couple outside!

Just married… And not visible on this image: a whole bunch of noisy cans behind the great getaway car: an old Volkswagen Beetle convertible.

The weather was great, so the reception took place outside. The wedding cake was cut outside as well, at the Buitenplaats’ Oranjerie’s terraces..

The master of ceremonies kept to his tight schedule of the day to make sure all went as smooth as possible….

A stolen kiss – with the bride’s father and brother in law looking on….

Flower girl and ring bearer. It doesn’t get much cuter than this!

Cool photo of all the guys in tail-coats:

After the not-too-formal formals, we had some time for a photosession with the bride and groom. I love Buitenplaats Amerongen for photosessions, as it’s so diverse, it’s very easy to get all kinds of different settings and backgrounds. Carolyn and Peter had thought they wouldn’t like to pose, but afterwards they had to admit they had had a great time in front of our cameras.

Dinner took place at the Buitenplaats coach house. It looked totally stunning, so much eye for details and the flowers were absolutely gorgeous as well. An overview.

After dinner, the bride and groom had some alone-time. When all their evening guests had arrived, they entered the room to start the party with their first dance.

Later that night, Carolyn and Peter stood in a heart made from little candles while everyone released wish balloons.

Men and their cigars…

Party at the dancefloor. You’ll see more of that big white wig on our blog, as I will follow up with one more blogpost on Carolyn and Peter’s wedding: featuring their mini-studio!

It sure wasn’t love at first sight for Carolyn. It wasn’t even love at second sight. However hard Peter tried with roses and romantic dinners – Carolyn wasn’t falling in love. Not immediately, at least. But when Peter let go of her and turned his attention elsewhere, it was like she finally woke up and she decided to work on getting ‘her’ man back. And everything came together on this sunny Summer afternoon in Amsterdam. Peter was going to be her husband and she was going to be his wife. Carolyn’s family and friends had come over from Frankfurt to celebrate their wedding with them, and Peter’s family and friends were there as well. And what location would be better to tie the knot than the Amsterdam Amstel river, close to the Magere Brug (the ‘skinny bridge’). Everyone had gathered at the Stopera when the bride and groom arrived. By bicycle.

We then all boarded the canal boat, including the city’s the registrar.

The ‘I do’ and the kiss, at the Skinny Bridge!

We had a great captain. The groom’s nephew knew how to handle that boat.

Christian Louboutin, anyone?

We quickly stepped of the boat for a few images near the Skinny Bridge. And right when we got there it started raining big fat drops of water. A little kid, seated at the back of his Dad’s bicycle, started screaming: “It’s raining, it’s raining!”. His Dad replied: “No, that’s not rain, those are lovedrops for the bride and groom!”.

The boat stopped again at the Stopera, to let the registrar off. And when the bride and groom unboarded to wave him goodbye, their friends and family took the opportunity to  unboard as well and shower the bride and groom with hands full of rice!

More from Carolyn and Peter’s wedding next week, as their civil ceremony on Friday was followed by the church ceremony and a huge party on Saturday. Stay tuned!

Terschelling is a beautiful little island. It becomes even more special if you’ve been visiting the island since you were a little kid and your boyfriend proposes to you at that same island! And that’s exactly why Terschelling was the perfect place for Yvonne and Erik’s engagement session. On a chilly Saturday morning we took the ferry from Harlingen, to arrive at Terschelling an hour later. We were in a holiday mood as soon as we arrived. The beach, a bit of sunshine, lots of tourists out on the terraces. And us, with our camera’s ready to go. We had a lot of fun capturing Yvonne and Erik at their engagement session – resulting in a beautiful and very personal wedding invitation. I’ll soon post more photos of Yvonne and Erik, their wedding day was a few weeks ago and we got some really cool photos to share from their wedding as well.

The front of the wedding invitation: