JULIE, ARCHITECT AND PROFESSOR & ROGER, ARCHITECT AND PROFESSOR
ONE SENTENCE SUM-UP OF THE WEDDING VIBE: Flashmob wedding!
FAVORITE THING ABOUT THE WEDDING
The park we were married in—it was the place we had our first date. And a bunch of our friends were the “officiants” so it was really special.
OTHER COOL STUFF WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT
Renting the bakfiets bike was pretty cool. My husband found it and drove me around in it after the wedding ceremony.
My dress was made by a guy in China, which only cost me $600. I gave him an image of a Vera Wang dress and he was able to make almost an exact replica. Pretty amazing. Unfortunately, I don’t have his information anymore.
Photographers are really expensive in Switzerland so we asked one of our amazing students if he would come to photograph our wedding if we paid for his plane ticket. He was more than happy to do it because he wanted to get an internship in Zurich anyway. So it all worked out. He got a ticket from us… then got a summer internship in Zurich. It was way cheaper than paying a photographer in Zurich. He did an amazing job, and I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else.
HOW THE FLASHMOB WEDDING CAME TO BE…
My husband, Roger, and I are both architects and professors of architecture at Syracuse University. I met Roger in Switzerland during graduate school. He is Swiss. I am American. We had a long distance relationship for two years and then he moved to the US to be with me after we finished grad school. We were together for nine years before we got married. He proposed in Switzerland on one of our visits. So, we thought it was fitting to get married there since it was where we had met.
It took us a while to settle on a place to have the ceremony because neither of us are religious and there are not many public places to have a wedding in the city of Zurich. In the end, we asked the city if we could have our wedding ceremony at the Lindenhof Park, which is in the city—where we had our first date! They were not okay with us having a long, drawn out wedding there since its a public park in the middle of the city that many tourists visit. They were willing to give us a “permit” to set up two tables, but nothing else. We were quite concerned about this because we obviously wanted people to sit and hang out for a little while.
So, this is where we got the brilliant idea to have a flashmob wedding. We were able to find adorable, tiny colored fold up chairs for everyone to grab as they came up to the “wedding area” of the park. We had two tables for drinks and finger food, fifty umbrellas in case it rained, and a quartet to play music when I arrived. At a moment’s notice—theoretically—we could have moved the entire wedding if we needed to! But it all worked out and it went great. And as soon as the wedding was over, we folded the chairs back up and no one even knew there was a wedding there (except for the thirty tourists gawking at the woman in the white dress!).
The day was beautiful. The accent color was a lime green that matched the trees beautifully. And to top it all off, Roger found an old-fashioned Dutch bicycle called a bakfiets bike that has a wooden carrier in the front for me to sit in! So, he and I rode down the hill, through the old village, while everyone opened up their umbrellas and strode down the street with us! It was a great event and a lot of fun. Afterwards, I got my dress and my bare feet really dirty (those dress shoes are uncomfortable!) walking through the streets of Zurich. Then we had the reception at an old paper factory for dinner and dancing till four a.m.! It was so much fun and I will never forget that entire day.
