The day

Fanni and Bálint married at the Votive Church on Dóm Square in Szeged, and celebrated at Liget Rezidencia, a three-hectare estate of old trees and open lawn at Zákányszék, sixteen kilometres outside the city. We flew in from Cyprus the day before to walk both locations and work out where the light would be by evening.

The estate belongs to the couple for the whole weekend, which changes the shape of a wedding day. There was no hotel to check out of and no schedule but their own. Fanni got ready in the bridal room in the manor house with her bridesmaids and her mother, and the morning stayed unhurried in a way destination weddings rarely manage. The weather predicted was rain, but we had a feeling things would turn out just fine… and they did.

Then into the city, to the Dóm a church big enough that the congregation looks small inside it.

Afterwards the whole party spilled onto Dóm Square for photographs, and then drove back out of the city and into the trees. Dinner ran in the white marquee with the sides open onto the grill terrace, and the party carried on into the early hours long after most weddings have called it a night, and long after the last guests would have had to leave if the venue hadn’t been theirs alone.