The hochzeit-seychellen.de review of 2015

Every year again… I sit here at the end of December and marvel at how quickly the year has passed. And every year I rack my little brain and think about which events of the past twelve months might be of particular interest to you!

In any case, 2015 was a very exciting year with lots of great weddings at home and abroad. Of course, we also went to the Seychelles again. I was there three times in 2015 – and if I hadn’t always had almost every weekend “packed” with wedding photography assignments long in advance here in Germany, I would probably have flown even more often to photograph weddings in the Seychelles.

For example, the wedding of Christian Tews, the RTL “Bachelor” from the fourth season. He got married at the end of May on the main island of Mahé and his fiancée Claudia asked me if I could photograph their dream wedding in the Seychelles. But it simply wasn’t feasible in terms of time, as my weekends were taken up with weddings in Germany – and so the “Bachelor” had to do without the “photo man”.

At the beginning of July 2015, I returned to Germany from my 15th trip to the Seychelles – but I wasn’t alone: my dear friend Robert “Sunny” Agnes, probably the best-known tour guide in the Seychelles (see also La Digue Tour Guide), accompanied me home to the beautiful Lower Rhine. Ideally, we had chosen the absolute peak of the hottest German summer ever and so Robert didn’t have to adjust to the temperature at all when he ended up here with me in the beer garden on the first evening and at a real village shooting festival on the second evening! Robert couldn’t believe that you can even dance on the tables here! And he was amazed at how quickly the waitress in the beer garden brought our beer, served the 15 other tables all by herself in no time at all and cleared them away again. In the Seychelles, three waitresses need several hours for this… 😉

The next day, my friend Alex invited us to check into the freezer section of his EDEKA supermarket for a few moments. At -20 degrees Celsius, “Sunny” got a first rough impression of what this “winter” must feel like. He then gratefully declined the offer to visit the indoor ski center in Neuss… 😉

The following day we went to the annual meeting of the Seychelles Forum (Seychelles Forum) to Düsseldorf – and during the subsequent stroll through Düsseldorf’s old town you could see “Sunny” literally soaking up all the new impressions. By the way: The next meeting of the Seychelles Forum in Düsseldorf will take place on Saturday, 30.07.2016 from about 2 pm! New faces are very welcome! For more information about the meeting just send me an e-mail to info@hochzeit-seychellen.de !

In addition to two “honeymoon trips” to the Seychelles, another trip to the Seychelles was on the agenda at the beginning of December: the Seychelles Tourism Board asked me if I had the time and inclination to take part in a larger press trip to the Seychelles and document this trip.

A large part of this highly interesting trip through the Seychelles, in which thirteen German journalists (including from ARD) took part to report on the Seychelles, took place on a large catamaran. It was really great to discover the Seychelles from the water and “hop” from island to island!

On the second night, for example, we anchored just off the coast of Curieuse and I spent the wonderfully balmy night on top of the catamaran in the open air. No light source far and wide, not a cloud in the sky, almost no wind. I couldn’t even begin to describe this phenomenal starry sky to you. It was simply incredible!

Just three days later, there was a meeting with Alain St. Ange, the Seychelles’ Minister of Tourism, on the main island of Mahé. An incredibly down-to-earth guy who seems to lack any “political celebrity airs and graces”. Among other things, I asked him about the fact that parasols have been rented out at La Digue’s Petite Anse for a few weeks now – a fact that any true Seychelles lover would consider a “moderate disaster”. The very next day, the umbrella rental was stopped. In a nation with just 90,000 inhabitants (the population of the entire Seychelles is therefore almost exactly the same as that of the small town of Flensburg), the distances are fortunately usually short.

Other “Seychelles highlights” of 2015, which is coming to an end soon: In the fall, there was a big photo competition on Facebook with the theme “I love Seychelles”. The jury had to sift through many thousands of entries from all over the world to select the best pictures, which were then entered into the “Weekly Finals”. Facebook users then voted for their favorites from the weekly finalists – and the ten best pictures (two of which were taken by me!) went through to the grand final, where Facebook users were invited to vote for their favorite. The main prize was a return flight to the Seychelles with Air Seychelles – and now guess which wedding photographer from the Lower Rhine won this main prize? 😀 😀 😀

Other pleasing “awards” of 2015: There was also a photo competition in the fotocommunity – here on the subject of “The best stories to go with the picture”. Here, too, I achieved 1st place! 😀 The link to the picture and the story: 1st place in the fotocommunity

Viajes”, the Spanish travel magazine of “National Geographic”, published two of my Seychelles photos; I also took the cover photo of the current “Reise und Preise” (with a ten-page Seychelles special!) – and all over the Seychelles you can now see photographs of me, which the Seychelles Tourism Board prints and distributes. Our son Tom will certainly be amazed when we travel through the Seychelles in February and he discovers himself and Esmeralda – the giant land tortoise living on Bird Island, which has even made it into the “Guinness Book of Records” due to its size and weight – on the large poster that hangs in numerous places on the islands.

I’m assuming that 2016 will be at least as exciting a year as 2015 and will hopefully be able to tease you again at the end of 2016 with a review of the year… 😉