At Hotel Hippocampus, Kotor, Montenegro
Taken by Irene Berkotovka
OUR WEDDING(S)
We met at a comedy show on the lower east side. There was an empty seat behind her that I quickly occupied. After our performances we sat at the bar and talked about things I cannot remember then planned a date together in two days. That morning we met for coffee, bought jeans, ate Korean food, visited a nature museum, drank at a local pub, then woke up.
The Novel CoronaVirus kept us together and one night I had enough, the world was in chaos mode and I had to ask her to marry me, spoiler alert, she said yes. Our families are many thousands of miles apart and with CoronaVirus restrictions wavering but still hyperactive so we decided to have a lovely marriage in Manhattan, Kelsie in a double breasted powder blue suit with gold corset and me in a tan linen-blend suit with a monkey lining, along with two of our closest friends. The next day we flew to Montenegro for our lovely symbolic ceremony and to party in the 2000 year old city of Kotor.
NEW YORK CITY HALL
We got married at City Hall with some friends who were so kind to the witnesses to our marriage so people know the rings have paperwork. Kelsie wore a sky blue double breasted suit, a golden steel corset, and carried light blue Hydrangeas to match. Rolando wore a custom designed and fitted linen blend suit with patch pockets and a Russian made moonphase watch by Raketa, which translates to rocket, that interestingly stopped working days after the invasion of Ukraine. Our wedding in lower Manhattan near City Hall was amazing, we made sure we were stylish, and did the best we could with our first marriage.
MONTENEGRO ELOPEMENT
It was the most interesting town, one thousand years old and everyone wanted to party, and it was filled with cats. We ultimately decided on Montenegro because the CoronaVirus shut everything down, and even though my family in California could attend a New York wedding, it was suggested that her family in New Zealand not leave the country for extra time. The trip was separated in two parts, the first was Kotor which was a mini-ultra old town with no vehicle traffic. Everything was stone and the people absolutely loved to party. Loud music all night and it was amazing. The town was filled with cats that just walked around and sat around. We got married at the top of the Serpentine, which is a very windy road up a mountain, which I really enjoyed driving.
The second part of the adventure was Porto Montenegro which is the newest part of the area and filled with dogs and super yachts. We stayed at the Regent Porto Montenegro which was very elite, we had everything we could want, and great restaurants were all throughout the pier.
We started documenting our travels on the Montenegro trip, one of those videos is on our Kelsando YouTube titled Montenegro part one and two. It was mix of phone and camera footage, now we have tons of equipment and have built a small collection of great videos that we post online to document our adventures, because we love to party and we love each other, and those two elements tend to mix well with new friends.
NYC WEDDING PARTY AT THE WILLIAM
It was so fun having our whole families together, dancing and talking at various levels, at a private and elegant venue in midtown Manhattan. It was great except there was one moment when Kelsie's silk dress caught fire, but thankfully it burned like paper and not like plastic, and the fire was put out by Kelsie's family friend Carl and his heroic bravery while I was oblivious to my wife burning. She was fine and ended up changing into the wedding dress that we were married in our Montenegro wedding.
NYC WEDDING PARTY AT SPAGHETTI TAVERN
We celebrated the rest of the night at Spaghetti Tavern on the Upper West Side. It was closing in a couple of weeks and was our neighborhood bar. They used to serve spaghetti in a cloth bag and has moose heads and everywhere were relics of a lived in bar. We loved that place, it was filled with wood and Whiskey and we knew everyone who worked there, and we're so happy to have experienced it while it was around for the two or so years of it's existence.
Wedding planner: @dsa_weddings
Wedding coordinator: @weddingfairy_montenegro
Photographer: @berestovskaya_photography
New York photographer: @jaciberkophoto
Videographer: @uliyanoff
HMU: @nataliadanilova_stylist
Flowers: @wedding_flower_dada
Ceremony music: @victoria_music
Dress: @georgiayoungcouture
Accessories: @leletny
Rolando’s suit: @regular_rolando
Rolando's Tuxedo @knot_standard
Rolando’s accessories: @charles_tyrwhitt & @rampleyandco
Rolando’s shoes: @crockettandjones_official