Marina & Julia’s
Beautifully Industrial Pier Wedding
Philadephia, PA
The Couple
Marina and Julia wanted their wedding in Philadelphia to be a “fun, beautiful, and true to us” experience, and they thought through every detail of their wedding locations and activities with tremendous care. All of that planning paid off! Their wedding was utterly unique and one of the most heartfelt celebrations Kyo has photographed.
The Day
They started the day at Washington Avenue Pier, an exquisite sliver of a park jutting out into the Delaware River. Washington Avenue Pier is a peaceful oasis in the midst of the industrial waterfront. It was a stunning location for wedding portraits — especially the “Land Buoy”, an art installation by Jody Pinto. Visitors can climb the spiral staircase on it to get a 360 degree view of the river and city.
The Details
During the ceremony, we loved the sign they posted for guests entering the ceremony area.
We absolutely love the adorable little potted succulents that adorned the tables.
I also asked Marina about the significance of the tiny gold dinosaurs adorning the tables. She laughed.
“It’s a bit of a funny story. When we first got engaged, people kept asking me what our “wedding colors” were going to be. This was before we had a venue or even a date, and so I had no idea and wasn’t particularly worried about it, so I joked that our wedding colors were “tiny gold dinosaurs.” And somehow, what started as a joke became a real thing. They felt like a way of making sure we remembered to be goofy in the face of all this wedding planning.”
The Next Wedding Day
If this wedding day wasn’t enough creativity and joy for you, guess what — Marina and Julia couldn’t squeeze everything they wanted to do into one day, so they decided to make it a two day celebration!
Basically, they have a lot of friends. They invited their closest friends and family to the Race Street Pier celebration on Saturday… and then they invited all their favorite neighbors, co-workers, and buddies to join them on Sunday for another celebration: a wedding block party.
The wedding block party was a more casual affair, with a ceremony on their front porch with everyone seated on folding chairs in the street. And then… it was dancing in the streets.
Their band, the West Philadelphia Dance Orchestra, is one of the greatest party bands we’ve ever heard, specializing in East European, Balkan, Gypsy, and Ashkenazi Jewish music. It was literally impossible not to start dancing. The whole street was filled with people linking arms, kicking up their legs, laughing uproariously, and getting down. From babies to grandparents, everyone danced.
Food was takeout from some of their favorite local ethnic restaurants, served under simple white tents filled with picnic tables.
And since there were lots of kids on the scene, they had lots of playful activities: sidewalk chalk, a bouncy house, and a piñata. (Although, as you can see from the pictures, the adults partook of the activities as much as the kids did!)
