The couple is Angela Nikolau and Ivan Kuznetsov, the climbers from Skywalkers, the Netflix documentary, who scale skyscrapers for a living and film all of it. So before anyone calls this a stunt for clicks, sit with that part for a second. This is what they do. This is who they are. For them, climbing the tallest thing in the city and proposing at the top might be the most them thing imaginable. The most insane thing you could picture, and to them, probably the best.
Was it also dangerous and very much not legal. Yes. They came down to a charge sheet eight deep, burglary and reckless endangerment and possession of burglar’s tools among them. Fifth Avenue closed. An arrest. I’m not handing out a how-to, and please do not climb a building.
But the part that stuck with me isn’t the climb.
We are all posting everything right now. The proposal, the dress reveal, the first look, the reception exit, the flat lay of the invitation suite laid out on somebody’s kitchen counter at 7am. And that’s fine. I love a good share. I run a whole network on people wanting to see something beautiful and feel something.
For Angela and Ivan, it lines up. The content and the truth are the same thing. Scaling a tower is their actual life, so filming it isn’t a performance, it’s a Tuesday. When who you are and what you post are the same, there’s no line to cross.
You’ve seen it by now. Everybody has. If you haven’t check it out below.
For the rest of us, it gets blurrier. You start planning the proposal around the angle the videographer needs. You pick the venue because it photographs, not because it’s yours. You catch yourself writing the caption in your head before the moment has even happened. Nobody decides to do this. It creeps in, one Pinterest board at a time.
So here’s what I tell couples who ask me how to keep the day theirs.
Pick one moment that belongs to just the two of you and put every phone away for it. The proposal itself, your first look, the ninety seconds right after you say your vows. One moment, no lens, nobody filming. When you know one part of the day is yours and only yours, the pressure lifts off all the rest of it, and you can hand the reception over to the cameras completely, because you already kept the part that mattered.
For everything else, use the drawer test. Would the moment still have been the moment with every phone in a drawer. If yes, post all of it. Film it, share it, let it be beautiful for the whole internet. If no, that’s worth knowing before the day, not after, because you still have time to change it.
Two more things. Book the photographer whose work makes you forget they’re in the room, not the one with the trendiest grid, because the whole point is to stop performing for the lens. And decide the guest list, the vows, and the food before you touch a single thing about how it looks. A wedding built around the shot and a wedding built around the two of you can look almost the same online. They feel nothing alike in the room, and the room is the part you actually get to live in.
One of my favorite things we’ve ever run on Brooklyn Bride is Ayanna and Sully’s wedding. Two brides on the granite steps at Brooklyn Bridge Park, twenty-five people in person the perfect size for a micro-wedding. Ayanna in a satin gown with a light blue corset from Pantora, the Black-owned salon. Sully in a white ASOS jumpsuit. Both of them in Pride sneakers by the after-party. Burnt orange and light blue everywhere you looked. None of it built for a feed. That’s the feeling. Them first, and everything else after.
You don’t have to climb a building. You don’t have to hide from the camera either. You just have to know, before you plan the shot, that the moment would have been yours even if nobody was watching.
Images from couple @angela_nikolau @beerkus and Video from NBC News
Affiliate links used in this post