Want Fireworks? Say ‘I Do’
An elephant. Water cannons. A five-kilometer race at 7 a.m. These are just some of the elements that couples are incorporating into their weddings. For the elephants, American couples need look no further than California-based Have Trunk Will Travel. Kari Johnson’s five elephants can each be rented for about $6,500, elaborate outfit included. Her clients are not limited to South Asians. “We did one that was a Jewish wedding, and the elephant smashed the glass for the groom,” Ms. Johnson told The Times.
Save Our Ships New York, meanwhile, will shoot water from all six water cannons on its 1931 fireboat, the John J. Harvey, for half an hour at a private event. The cost: $2,500. For those not content with traditional ceremonies, it seems the sky is the limit. Or, in some cases, the sky is part of the show. Fireworks are also an option, as are aerial banners and skywriting.
Concepts that sound simple on paper can be tricky, and expensive, to pull off. “The bane of all wedding planners these days is Pinterest,” Steve Kemble, an event designer in Dallas, told The Times. Couples “see this stuff online and have no idea what it costs.”
Some couples put themselves and their guests through physical tests as part of their big day. Laura Oliver and Paul Donnelly, who met in a running club in Illinois, ran a five-kilometer race along with their guests before their ceremony. Heather Suddaby and her husband, Aaron, both military veterans, braved Vermont’s Tough Mudder along with their best man and officiant after exchanging their vows. Of the mucky 16-kilometer run through 20 punishing obstacles, the bride said: “It is horrible. I’m not going to lie.”
Which is why some couples either make wedding activities optional or go it alone. Even yoga may be beyond the abilities of some guests. “You have to think: Can Grandma do downward dog?” Kellee Khalil, the founder and chief executive of the wedding planning site Lover.ly, told The Times.
Many couples planning their second wedding feel it gives them an opportunity to have a ceremony more to their own liking. “The second time around, people get to act upon the things that are important to them that got lost the first time in the hubbub of mothers and mothers-in-law, money, the whole wedding-industrial complex,” Matt Mendelsohn, a wedding photographer in Virginia, told The Times.
One difference is that whereas a couple’s parents often pay for a first wedding, the bride and groom are more likely to be covering the costs the second time. “They’re paying, so they’re calling the shots,” said David Beahm, a Manhattan-based event designer.
Andrea Seabrook’s first wedding was a “tasteful” event in a historic Episcopal church, and Kirk Easton’s was a 10-minute civil ceremony in a hotel basement. When they married each other, they did so in a Quaker wedding service on the West Lawn of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington. “It was exactly what we wanted to do for the least amount of pomp and circumstance,” Ms. Seabrook said.
This is what Mr. Mendelsohn hopes for with all the couples whose weddings he photographs. Then again, he said, “The lucky ones are the ones who figure out how to do the second wedding the first time.”