Winter wedding, Aleksandra & Michal

Winter wedding

Publishing a winter wedding in the midst of a burning hot summer was actually a great idea. The very memory of that January Saturday and the temperature on that day is an enormous relief. This was our first football wedding and hopefully not the last one. Almost despite the winter, the dance floor was red hot and the fairytale-like winter decorations made by G-fiore reminded us that the temperature had dropped well below zero degrees. Everything created an amazing atmosphere.

Football player wedding

We started with the prep shots. Michal was getting ready at his family home playing Fifa :). Michal Zyro, our groom, is a young Polish professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Wolverhampton Wanderers. He is also in the national football team of Poland.
Aleksandra decided to have her make-up and hair done together with her mum in Mokotowska Street, Warsaw, just above Slodki Slony Restaurant. Then she went to Endorfina Restaurant to carry on with the preparations. Finally, she proceeded to the Visitationist Church where Michal was waiting for her together with his best man. The bride and the groom met as a string quartet was playing Yellow by Coldplay.

The winter decorations at Endorfina Restaurant truly amazed everyone. The lights, details, accessories, the climate. All this created an amazing, enchanting backdrop for our couple. Have we mentioned the dry ice that surprised the guests during the cake cutting ceremony, the confetti shot out of a cannon during the first dance, Boys' concert, the electric violin or the illusionist? All these things were an amazing background for Aleksandra and Michał's atmospheric wedding.

And of course the wedding consultants, Ewa and Zuzanna (Kraina Slubow Wedding Planners), dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s! Girls, many thanks for the wonderful cooperation!

Aleksandra, Michal - congratulations again! It was a beautiful day and we were very happy to be part of it.

You are more than welcome to check out the gallery! Pictures taken with our beloved Leica Q & M9.

Here is the message we got from our Bride right after she’d seen the pictures:

It definitely pays off to opt for originality and the highest quality, and work with professionals! And this is why we chose WhiteSmokeStudio as our wedding photographers. We did not bump into Dorota and Michal by accident. It was numerous recommendations and many photos we’d looked at that made us feel the energy and zest they both work with. Our first thought was: ‘Ahh, that’s a masterpiece!’ We’re sure you will also see what we saw: enormous joy and love for what they do and fantastic emotions in their photos which are not always easy to recollect from your wedding day.

They are two passionate people open to suggestions and ready to offer advice that comes in handy on your wedding, which is a totally way-out day for you. You are not going to have any sense of time on that day, so make sure you can look back and find those special moments in your wedding photographs. Dorota and Michal’s photos are a perfect reflection of our wedding day. They are spontaneous, surprising and original! And we are proud to share them with our family and friends. WhiteSmoke Studio, we are forever grateful for your full professionalism on our wedding day and that we actually crossed paths with two such fantastic human beings.
We are sure you will use your services again!
We couldn’t recommend you highly enough!
Ola & Michal Zyro

Location: Warsaw, Poland
Getting ready & reception: Restauracja Endorfina Foksal
Ceremony:
Wedding Planners: Ewa i Zuzanna/Kraina Slubow Wedding Planners
Make-up: Kinga/Kolorowe Kredki
Wedding dress – Viola Piekut
Flowers & decorations: Gosia/G-Fiore
Band: Bala Band
Video: MP Studios


London Wedding getting ready

INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY AWARD | IPA

2015 International Photography Awards has announced the winners of the Competition. This year, IPA received over 27,000 submissions from 104 countries across the globe and Dorota Kaszuba was awarded the second place in the “People: Wedding” category and a Honorable Mention in the “Wedding” category for the series “Brides in cars”. 
Michal Warda was awarded a Honorable Mention in the “People: Portrait and People: Wedding” category!
Dorota’s Awarded story here.
Dorota’s Honorable Mention here.
Michal’s Honorable Mention Wedding & Portrait

London Wedding Photography
International Photo Award IPA People: Wedding

Photography bears a certain resemblance to music. We can play familiar notes or each time – rather like a seasoned musician – re-discover plans, compositions and revel in doing so. Photographers we’ve met during our workshops often ask us the same question – what’s kept us afloat for such a long time? What makes us go to the shooting every weekend? What – colloquially speaking – still makes us tick?
The answer is quite simple – we don’t think we’re wedding photographers. We don’t throw ourselves into a sack labelled ‘wedding photos’.

International Photo Award IPA Honorable Mention, People: Wedding
International Photo Award IPA Honorable Mention, People: Wedding

Each and every time we try to re-discover the routine of a wedding day and get excited about tiny fleeting moments. We play with the form, the frame, the light. We experiment with new means of expression, each and every time surprising ourselves and – by photographing their wedding day in a unique way – delivering satisfaction to the newlyweds. Some elements are constant and they define the WhiteSmoke Studio but each and every time we try to look at a wedding in a novel and original way.
We sometimes send our photographs to contests dedicated to wedding photography. It’s a kind of test. We check what gets the industry’s approval and what doesn’t. More and more often we see that wedding photography is not immune to fashion and trends. It’s often a concept of a frame or a place – rather than a genuine story – that is encouraged. What’s interesting today tomorrow might be seen as the proverbial little column in a studio. You have to skilfully balance between kitsch, fashion, architecture and the simple tasteful reportage. Or simply remain faithful to what you can do best. In our case it’s the reportage. We don’t try to conceal playing with the light or making references to contemporary document makers. One thing remains constant – people in our photos are always authentic.

We haven’t been sending our photos to serious contests. After all, we don’t go to war zones, we don’t deal with difficult social issues. We photograph simple people in ordinary, everyday situations on their special day.So little. So much. Does it mean that such photography is worse than one based on this world’s serious matters? We don’t think so. Each and every photo has a role to play. Our photos have one, too. However, it’s sometimes a good idea to put them side by side with photographs from other areas. This year’s IPA was such a competition for us. Plenty of photographers, different categories. From advertising through beauty to architecture or social matters and news. Among all those there were also our categories – portrait and wedding.
We sent our submission almost at the deadline, in between trips. We sent what’s characteristic for each of us. And this is why we’re so glad those particular photos got noticed. Perhaps we didn’t get the top places in the main categories but participating in the competition gave us an interesting perspective of our work and plenty of motivation for the winter. Dorota took the second place in a category that’s important for us and Michal got an honorable mention in the category of portrait, which we’ve been involved with for a very long time.


Britta and Pawel, Cracow Wedding Photography

Britta and Pawel many congratulations once again! We wish you all the best and thank you for the fantastic atmosphere! Enjoy the photos! Here are a few words from our Bride to inspire all the brides-to-be!:) Dear B, thank you for sharing this story with us!

We were both travelling a lot the months before our wedding and had only half a year to organize everything so I believe that it must have been quite a rush. The funny thing is though, that we completely forgot about the stressful moments of the preparation but are just amazed how this ugly little “caterpillar-wedding” turned into a big beautiful butterfly (a big thank you to all the people who helped us to reveal the butterfly, a few of them are mentioned below) – with some flaws of course (amongst the major and minor disasters, we lost 150 delicious cupcakes on our way from church to the reception and I forgot to throw my wedding bouquet – fortunately, there were still some single ladies ready to catch it two days later) but it is true what they say: this day is so great that you just don’t care.

I know that it sounds really cheesy but we still have tears in our eyes when we think about that beautiful, dreamlike day: the way to the church, the gleam of sunlight that suddenly broke through the painted church window and covered everything in this warm, surreal light (despite the terrible weather forecast), our first kiss, the beautiful sunset in the garden during our reception, our first dance and most of all, the happiness on the faces of our loved ones (most of them travelled a lot to be with us)…

We are so happy to have had Dorota and Michal with us that day to catch these beautiful moments and put them into incredible, stunning pictures – we just cannot stop watching them over and over again. It is truly amazing how these pictures reflect the atmosphere of our wedding, the softness, the spiritual moments of the ceremony, the beautiful lights at the reception, the crazy dancing… and always with this inimitable WhiteSmoke-Style.

Location: Cracow, Poland
Getting ready: Hotel Stary
Ceremony:  Dominikans Church
Reception: Dwor Sierakow
Wedding planners: Kinga/Raz w Życiu
Wedding gown: Rime Arodaky
Make-up / Hair: Karolina Ciochon (Mac) / Dziedzic
Flowers: Eva Klimek
DJ / Band: Sternsanchez (DJ) & ProjecTorBIT
Wedding cake: Red


Bristol Hotel Love Story

Love Story in Bristol Hotel Warsaw

Client: Bristol Hotel, Warsaw

Bristol Hotel, our favourite landmark, is one of the oldest and most beautiful hotels in the Polish capital. We can say we are regular patrons of the hotel; we have had a number of photo workshops there, we meet our clients there, we go for dinner there, we grab a glass of wine, or just a coffee at Cafe Bristol. It is the place in Warsaw where we work most frequently and the venue that is very often chosen by our couples, who are interested in showing their guests a piece of pre-war Warsaw, The Old Town and who want to have their wedding in stunning Art Deco interiors. We have photographed both small, intimate weddings and big, lavish ones there.

Bristol Love Story

We are very happy about our cooperation with Bristol Hotel. A few months of planning and meetings with an amazing team resulted in a one-day session which we had been looking forward to. The effects of the session can be viewed on the hotel’s website.
As it says on their website, ‘We know how to make every wedding special at Bristol Hotel in Warsaw. We have witnessed unique love stories and we perfectly understand that true love lasts a lifetime.’

And this was the main idea behind the session - we were to illustrate the possibilities offered by the hotel based on a love story from the engagement on the Glorietta terrace, to the ceremony and wedding reception tailored for each couple. As for the lifestyle session, our task was to show emotions between two people, their passion, their energy, their good mood and romanticism in a contemporary yet classic way in order to emphasize advantages of a city wedding.

 

 

 

And this is the incredible team that contributed to this session:

Models: Sylwia Sucharska and Jacek Jelonek
Make-up: Patrycja Dobrzeniecka
Hairstyles: Emil Zed / Van Dorsen Artists
Stylist: Gosia Białobrzycka
Production: Gosia Jankowska & Piotr Wojtasik

Big thanks to everyone involved!

Also, a massive thank-you to the staff and the Board of Bristol Hotel for their fantastic cooperation and Leica Camera Poland for hiring the Leica SL camera for the session. Some of the pictures were taken with our favorite Leica Q;) Can you guess which ones? And what was great about this job was that were asked to do the post-production the same way we work with our wedding photography, natural colours and not much retouching. Sylwia and Jacek simply look so gorgeous!


First dance

Caroline and Robin's Wedding in Korzkiew Castle

Caroline and Robin got married in Korzkiew Castle

Here are a few words from our Bride to inspire all the brides-to-be!:) Karolina, thank you for sharing this story with us!

I felt lucky to have fallen for a man who wanted to get married in Poland, my birthplace. But for many months I resisted his whims and continued working out the early details of our beach wedding in Isla Mujeres, Mexico. Robin eventually convinced me that, while many of our family members and close friends would not be able to make the long trek to Europe, a celebration in Poland would be more true to who we are. With nine months to spare, we embarked on the process of planning a series of festivities (a welcome party, a wedding, a day-after party and a post-wedding “buddymoon” to Prague and Munich). To this day I cannot understand why we did not engage a wedding planner, a travel planner, or any sort of planner for that matter. In hindsight, I would strongly encourage anyone considering cross-continental nuptials to enlist some kind of professional help. We chose, instead, to put ourselves, my patient Mom, and our vendors through the chaos of finalizing all details and personally negotiating all contracts via email. We booked our wedding venue before either of us had ever seen it in person and chose multiple party menus without ever tasting a single dish, keeping our fingers crossed that because of all of the love and sleepless nights we poured into the planning, everything would work out for the best in the end.

As the day approached, our “to-do list” seemed daunting still, with many loose ends and one very major task – to hire a wedding photographer. While I had reached out to several photographers in Krakow, I randomly stumbled across the blog of WhiteSmoke Studio in the process. Dorota and Michal’s photos were so much more natural than anything else I had seen. Where others’ work often came across as staged or forced, it was as if moments had truly stopped in time in their photos. This honest quality to their work convinced us that they were the right photographers for us. In the weeks after we signed our contract, Dorota’s thoughtful and helpful follow-up emails solidified for us that engaging WhiteSmoke Studio was the best decision we had made yet.

As I type this summary, I look back at our photographs to retrieve our wedding day from my memory. It was the most perfect, sunny day. The air, unusually warm for the end of September, wreaked havoc on my already over-tousled hair. I recall the beautiful words spoken by Robin’s brother-in-law and my sister during the ceremony and the many tears – Robin’s tears, my tears, our parents’ tears. I can practically feel my heel getting stuck in the ground and losing my footing as we said our vows. Those memories are all so vivid because of Dorota and Michal’s ability to capture them in snapshots, all while seemingly never being present to take them (Robin and I still talk about how we barely noticed Dorota and Michal the entire evening). My only regret is that we did not get to know them better in advance and take them up on an offer to photograph our other festivities that week. That is just how much we love our photos. Like many couples before us, we cannot wait to have another pretext to work with the “Dragons.”

Getting ready, ceremony and reception: Korzkiew Castle, Cracow
Flowers and decorations: Pracownia Dekoratorska Janusz Rojek
Catering: Jurek Catering-Serwis
DJ: Grupa Partner

Bride:

Wedding gown and veil: Marchesa Bridal
Second dress: Anthropologie
Shoes: Kate Spade

Groom:

Tuxedo and shirt: Bonobos
Tie: Zara
Shoes: Via Spiga


Wedding Photography in Belvedere Restaurant - Warsaw Poland


Martyna and Piotr Lake Wedding in Poland

Here are a few words from our Bride. Martyna, thank you so much!

“For me it was love at first sight. Although I usually go for recommended options, this time I listened to my intuition and had no doubts whatsoever that I had made a good choice. Chemistry is the key factor when you’re in love, it is also vital between the photographers and the couple, and I was sure there was a strong chemistry between us and Dorota and Michał already after the first meeting. Wedding photos taken by Dorota and Michal look more like fashion shoots for Vogue, they charm you with their natural beauty and ease, as we didn’t have to pose at all, the photos were just happening. No wonder that our photographers’ nickname is Dragons – they are ones! They  take their photos as if they are not there, they are virtually invisible. They guarantee a professional approach even in difficult weather conditions, they were working hard in boiling heat of 30 degrees and still giving their best performance! We never thought we would say that, but here goes: we should think about having babies soon to have the pretext to invite Dorota and Michał to photograph another important event in our lives.”

Martyna & Piotr

Location: Warsaw, Poland
Ceremony: Palac w Jablonnie
Reception: “U Rozyca”
Cake: Sweet Home

BRIDE:

Wedding gown: Bizuu + Slubne Atelier
Shoes: AGA PRUS + Melissa
Bracelet: Pandora
Make-up: Grzegorz Kasperski
Lingerie: Li Parie
Flowers: Lidia i Anna Mainka
Wianek: handmade:)

GROOM:

Suit: Zara
Shirt: Bielenia
Tie: Zara
Shoes: Kazar


Gosia and Ivan, Cracow Wedding Photography

Cracow weddings are as amazing as the city itself. Gosia and Ivan's wedding wasn't an exception. Everything was perfect. The couple looked amazing, especially the bride who looked astonishingly beautiful in her gauzy wedding dress. The guests didn't disappoint either. And everything had been so well planned that we even had time for a session on the wedding day. 

Dear Gosia and Ivan, working with you was a sheer pleasure and we hope to see you again!


Anna and Ajit - Rozalin Palace - outdoor wedding ceremony

Outdoor wedding ceremony

An outdoor wedding at Rozalin Palace, a marquee reception, guests from all corners of the world and brilliant weather. It could not get any better. And all this in a great familiar atmosphere with no rush typical of the wedding day. Just because everything happened in one place there was time for a quiet session on the very wedding day, a portrait of the Bride before the ceremony and photos of details. And we made time to support the Polish national football team, too.
Ania and Ajit live in Brussels, they have two little children and very busy lives. Due to the large number of international guests they decided to have their wedding in Warsaw. Organizing everything long-distance is not easy, but Ania managed to tie up loose ends perfectly.
Ajit is of Indian origin hence the idea of a fusion wedding, the combination of jazz and music from Bollywood movies, a riot of colour and Indian decorations only seemed natural.
Our couple were looking for someone who had a lot of experience shooting international weddings and so they came across us. Thank you very much for your trust in us and congratulations again!

Below are some words from Anna and Ajit. Check out the photos from their wedding!

Dear Smokes, 

The photos are wonderful! Thank you so much for being our wedding photographers. You were the only ones I wanted to photograph my wedding day. I fell in love with your photos and your style straightaway. And it was definitely worth putting my foot down and convincing Ajit that the Smokes would be the best option for us :). To quote Ajit: ''Amazing photos!!! These guys really have some talent." Going through the pictures yesterday we started dreaming about an elopement session for our anniversary. With you :)

Massive hugs,
Ania i Ajit