Intimate Wedding at Süllberg, Hamburg Blankenese

This was not their first wedding. They had already celebrated once, in China, but his family is here, so they came back to do it again with them. The ceremony was on the Süllberg terrace, the Elbe below, a container ship or two moving past. Quiet, a little windy, the water its usual grey-green.

She wore a white qipao for part of the day, a quiet, deliberate contrast against the green of the garden and, later, the warm wood of the Alm Restaurant. No big production at the reception, just his family: people who had not seen the two of them in person for a while, gathered around long tables as the river went from grey to gold over the course of the evening. Small group, but nothing about it felt small.