Sarah and Lance held a wonderful, laid-back wedding affair in Hoi An this spring. And I think Sarah’s vintage-look 1940s wedding dress is now my all-time fave. Red Bridge once again proved itself the best venue in town, and big thanks to Nadine for helping organize everything. I’ll be back in Hoi An at least twice for weddings this year, and to be honest, I can’t wait to get back.

And I couldn’t have hand-picked a better couple to shoot with if I wanted to. Ngoc and Tyler are one of the most fun and friendly couples I’ve had the luck to meet in this line of work. And to make it even tastier, Tyer is a kickass wedding photographer in the Bay Area, so it was great shooting another photographer and talking shop the whole time. We banged out some ideas on the fly together during the portrait shoot, and although you might think it would be stressful having another photographer as a client, it was actually really interesting and a whole lotta fun.

We managed to get in a morning shoot in Hoi An, nice and early before all the shops opened and tourists descended on the old town. Hoi An is great at that time of day, and you can just wander around and use the simple colors and lines of the old doors and walls to frame your images, before they get cluttered with Coca Cola stands and mannequins wearing garish clothes. It’s hard making a clean frame between 8am and 6pm in Hoi An, and getting up early always pays off.

In the afternoon we reconvened for ceremonies at Ngoc’s family’s home in Danang, and then headed out to a massive wedding hall for a much larger reception for friends and extended families, where we roamed from table to table toasting all the guests, as is Vietnamese custom (see last image below). It’s a great custom, showing respect to every guest that attends the reception, but the one problem is that the bride and groom never get a chance to eat, and after toasting 40-50 tables it can get a little exhausting. At the end of the day, we drove to a little fried chicken place and wolfed down some delicious food after a long day. A beautiful day. A long, beautiful day with wonderful people and amazing food (ask Ngoc and Tyler about the banh my stand in Hoi An. That woman is a sandwich artist!) And a whole lotta humidity. And beer. And on that note…. Một, hai, ba… Yo!

In the meantime, a preview from the awesome Tyler and Ngoc in Hoi An, Vietnam.

Big, big “thank you’s” to Kim and Dane (that’s Kim above, looking gorgeous), Vinh and Diep, Anthony and Sammi, and Marc and Hien, whose images are in the magazine.

Anthony & Sammi – China Beach

Sammi, Anthony, Aidan and I got up at the crack of 4:15am to catch the sunrise, with first light starting to paint the sky around 4:40. Ouch. But it was well worth it, with a half hour of beautiful blue/purple light, and the beach largely to ourselves. Voted as one of the top ten beaches in the world (I think Conde Nast), the east-facing China Beach is really best experienced at dawn for sunrise.

The day was split into two: in the morning session we all headed to a pagoda in Danang, where Anthony and Sammi, dressed in traditional Vietnamese ao dai, had a Buddhist ceremony and exchanged rings. The western ceremony took place in the late afternoon, on the beach, and we ended the day with another Vietnamese tradition: lighting paper lanterns and lofting them into the wind towards Marble Mountain.

Thanks to everyone for helping make these pictures happen. It was a great weekend, and an incredible wedding. We had an amazing time!

All images on the site Copyright © 2008 Julian Abram Wainwright and Aidan Dockery. All rights reserved.