A Hand-Painted Wedding With Pink Leopards, Bejeweled Lilies and Bubble Guns

Every figure on that wall began as a painting by Elena and Alexandr. The pink leopard, the moon with a face, the women in indigo and violet: all of it came out of their own sketchbooks.

Elena is an artist, and she and Alexandr married at Soma Island with Drugoe Events planning, Marito Decor building the installation and the florals, and Pavel Yavnik behind the camera alongside second photographer Yulia Fomina.

“Given the green light to do something truly unique, ‘nothing like the usual,’ we suggested they create their own universe,” says the team at Drugoe Events. The universe got a title, The World Through the Eyes of Someone in Love, and the couple set one rule for it. “It was important to us that our wedding feel like something that couldn’t belong to anyone else.”

A Ceremony on a Blank Canvas

The ceremony installation is the same artwork before the color goes on. Drugoe Events pulled the outlines from sketches Elena and Alexandr never finished: two rabbits, a tall vase, a cat. Each was cut flat and white with the linework left black, and after the vows, guests picked up brushes and filled the shapes in.

Elena wore a strapless white gown for the ceremony, the bodice built from layered petal appliqué, with a white scarf thrown over one shoulder and pearl drops at her ears. Alexandr chose a deep burgundy double-breasted suit. Kotova MUA did hair and makeup for both of her looks.

How They Met

The two of them met in the fall of 2020 through a mutual colleague, and Elena was not impressed. The rumor was that Alexandr was a serious hustler and a spoiled rich kid. They followed each other online for almost two years without much more than that, until September 2022, when he started messaging her through a hard stretch. She sent him a silly 20-question quiz about the future and family life, mostly as a joke. He filled it out. A few days later, he asked, “Lena, who do I remind you of?” She answered, “My future husband.”

Instead of petals, every guest got a bubble gun, and Elena and Alexandr walked back down the aisle through a cloud of them. Cheaper than petals, and nothing to sweep up.

The Pink Look

“I didn’t choose my dress based on what is traditionally expected of a bride. I was looking for something that would feel truly like me,” says Elena. The pink look was custom-made with Knyazeva Brand, styled by Torba Evgeniya, and designed as they went: a pale blush satin off-the-shoulder gown with a draped wrap bodice, a full skirt with a long trailing train, sheer pale blue gloves to the elbow, dark red flats, and a red lip. The blue and the gloves were added mid-process. Neither was part of the original plan.

Her gloves were sheer pale blue to the elbow, with faceted rhinestones in crystal, mint and iridescent clustered across the fingers. With the pink look, the rhinestones took the place of her rings. Drugoe Events traced her love of glitter through the whole day, from the look to the flowers to the cake.

Marito Decor built the bouquet dark: near-black calla lilies dotted with rhinestones, burgundy blooms, a red anthurium, pink nerines spiking out and amaranth trailing down. Against the pale blue gloves and blush bodice, it was the only deep color in the look.

“It was important to me to feel like myself on that day,” Elena says, “just a slightly more festive version of myself.”

The World Through the Eyes of Someone in Love

Soma Island’s hall is glass-roofed with white arched beams, and the installation was built to use all of it. The mural stands in freestanding panels at staggered heights in front of the windows, so daylight comes through around the figures rather than behind a flat wall. One long table runs the length of the room in a hot pink ruffled skirt, and the chairs are clear acrylic. The pink pops straight out of the mural.

Seeing the room for the first time was the moment that got them. “It was surreal to see something we had created in our heads slowly become real,” Elena and Alexandr say. “We could finally look around and think: this is ours. We actually made this.”

Overhead, the leaping pink leopard, the lavender crescent moon with a sleeping face, the cupid on a cloud and the golden sun hang from the glass roof. Each is a cutout lifted from the paintings, so the figures float above the table.

Some of the flowers on this table were grown for the day by Elena’s parents. Marito Decor arranged them in vases the couple painted themselves, and at the end of the night the vases went home with the guests, flowers and all. The charger plates are custom too, one with the leopard painted at center, others in blue with their own motifs.

Look closer at the lilies. Every petal is dotted with self-adhesive gems, hearts and tiny flowers in teal, orange, pink and purple, Elena’s love of glitter carried all the way into the florals. Easy to borrow: hand your florist a pack of gem stickers, or make it a bridesmaid craft afternoon with faux stems a month or so out.

The self-irony lives in panels like this one. A toy wagon carries a bottle of vodka, cherries with eyelashes, a hot sauce labeled Hey Hot Stuff, a pink disco ball and three striped fish. “Things that make sense especially to the two of us,” as Elena and Alexandr put it.

The Party

The party ran on games they built. Two food-delivery rovers from Yandex, where Alexandr works, raced a custom obstacle course with guests on the remote controls. A homemade deck of Imaginarium cards gave every card an image tied to a story about someone at the table. DJ Kurepin handled the music.

Antonina Cakes made four pale pink tiers with scalloped piping, studded with faceted jewels in green, purple, amber and clear, and the skirt of Elena’s pink gown was matched to it. On top sits Lightning McQueen, number 95, a surprise from Elena to Alexandr because he loves the character.

They could not agree on a first dance song, so they left it to fate. Their favorites went into a box, Drugoe Events had each one cued and ready, and they drew one blind on the night. A sweet fix if the two of you can’t agree either.

Instead of flowers, guests were asked to bring Christmas ornaments. New Year’s is the couple’s favorite holiday, and at the end of the night a tree Elena and Alexandr had painted themselves was decorated with everything their friends brought. At midnight they made wishes and handed each guest a personal letter. “Now, every Christmas, we’ll be able to put these ornaments on our tree and remember the people who gave them to us on our wedding day.”

Congratulations, Elena and Alexandr!