1. Real Weddings

Amy & Bryan: A Traditional Wedding in Wellesley, MA

Few things compare to the feeling you get when you open your mailbox and find a letter -- not a bill, not junk mail, but a real letter. It’s something

Few things compare to the feeling you get when you open your mailbox and find a letter -- not a bill, not junk mail, but a real letter. It’s something felt less often these days, thanks to the many mediums of immediate communication, but there are those out there who consider letter writing a lost art. Amy Hsu and Bryan Tung are among them. The Bride Amy Hsu, 33, editor The Groom Bryan Tung, 35, legal examiner The Date July 10 The two met at the wedding rehearsal of close mutual friends in 1998. Soon after, Amy passed the word along to her friends that she’d like them to get to know each other better by writing letters (she lived in Boston at the time; he in Washington, DC). He agreed, and so began a long-distance relationship, based solely on the written word, that lasted several years until Amy moved a bit closer (to New York City) and they finally started seeing each other “officially.” The still long-distance dating finally culminated, though, in a three-page letter Bryan sent to Amy with the postscript: “P.S. I have something to ask you.” He timed the letter’s arrival perfectly with a weekend visit, and just as Amy finished reading the note, she looked up in surprise to find Bryan on one knee with a beautiful ring.

Celebrity chef, and Blue Ginger owner, Ming Tsai supervised all the food prep for Amy and Bryan’s wedding. “Of course, the meal was exceptional!” says Amy. Chef Tsai was even gracious enough to autograph all the guests’ menus and pose for photos.
Bryan and Amy had their first dance to Eva Cassidy’s “Songbird” and ended the night with “At Last” by Etta James.
Following the ceremony, guests made their way to Blue Ginger restaurant for the reception. The snail mail theme revealed itself there as well, in the form of tables named after the couple’s favorite postage stamps. (Amy and Bryan’s sweetheart table featured the “Love Letters” stamp.)
Amy says she loves the classic look of roses, so she carried a multicolor bouquet of the ubiquitous flower, accented by calla lilies and delphinium in orange, red, and deep blue hues. Bryan matched her with a red rose boutonniere.
Amy’s four bridesmaids looked perfectly sweet in pomegranate-colored silk shantung separates from Simple Silhouettes. The tops were sleeveless V-necks paired with flared skirts.
Once guests took their seats, they found favors wrapped the old-fashioned way -- in brown paper tied with tan string. Inside was a letter opener, a tool that will surely serve the friends and family of these snail mail-lovers well. “The [letter opener] favors were actually the first thing we bought for the wedding, but we didn’t want anything you could just buy at an office supply store,” Amy says. “So Bryan did some online research and found a German company, Lerche, whose designs we liked.”
The Cocktail Hour
The Ceremony Decor
The two recited their vows before a large marble altar with the mid-afternoon sun streaming in from a skylight overhead. Amy also found an atypical, but perfectly suitable, reading for the ceremony: a passage written by Friedrich Neugebauer. “It was about writing and how each stroke of a handwritten letter reflects what the writer is feeling,” she says. “It fit really well with how we got to know each other and what our letters meant to us.”
Amy and Bryan created a custom rubber stamp of a postmark with their wedding date and city for their wedding stationery.
The Bridesmaid Bouquets