Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • Models walk down a runway and across stage lights for a high fashion bridal show featuring designer gowns. The cosmopolitan city of Monterrey is modern and industrial attracting young people with money to spend.
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  • Model takes a smoke break backstage as she is styled for a bridal fashion show. Wedding dresses and evening gowns were part of the formal wear shown off to eager young fashionistas in Monterrey, Mexico.
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  • Dressed like a little princess, a young member of a bridal party crosses the ma nicured lawn of Lyndhurst estate. The restored mansion is open to the public, p roviding a setting fit for elegant weddings and receptions like this one where the bride and groom arrived in a Rolls-Royce touring car.
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  • A model adjusts her veil and bridal attire backstage at Expo Tu Boda, a bridal fashion show. Designer gowns and evening wear were featured during a convention center wedding extravaganza in Monterrey, Mexico.
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  • Dressed in formal attire, a couple donned crampons to walk on ice to be married on Mendenhall Glacier. A helicopter swept them onto the icefield where they said their vows that were recorded by a videographer to save their memory.
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  • A newly married couple dances while wearing crampons and formal attire as they celebrate on Mendenhall Glacier. Many passengers arrive on cruise ships making tourism the fastest growing industry in Southeast Alaska.
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  • A big congratulations wish to a couple dressed in formal attire who donned crampons to walk on ice to be married on the Mendenhall Glacier. They took a helicopter onto the icefield and said their vows, then were toasted husband and wife.
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  • Rose Wedding Festival couples in a motorcade to Century Park. Seventy couples participated in a mass marriage event that started at a shopping mall and ended up in Century Park for the ceremony.
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  • After the church wedding, the bride and groom are escorted through the streets of town following musicians. They collected family members who carried food to the street blocked off for the party. <br />
Mexico's narrowest point is the Isthmus of Tehuantepec--flat, country where the Zapotec culture is still strong.  Women take leading role in business and government.  The Isthmus never became part of the Aztec Empire and resistance to the Spanish was strong in the mid-1500s.
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  • This mass wedding took place at the Great Wall outside Beijing. After reading many surveys about how money was more important than love, I watched and photographed this woman all day. She never smiled.  Marriage can be a great social and financial leap forward.
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  • A mass wedding at the Great Wall of China.
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  • Weary Chinese middle class groom to be on wedding shopping street in Guangzhou, China
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  • The bride and groom put their heads together and share a private moment at their wedding party.  Weekends are full of celebrations complete with traditional food and dancing in the street. After the church wedding, the couple walked through the streets of town following musicians. They collected family members who carried food to the street blocked off for the party. <br />
Mexico's narrowest point is the Isthmus of Tehuantepec--flat, country where the Zapotec culture is still strong.  Women take leading role in business and government.  The Isthmus never became part of the Aztec Empire and resistance to the Spanish was strong in the mid-1500s.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187034.jpg
  • A mass wedding at the Great Wall of China.
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  • A mass wedding at the Great Wall of China.
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  • A mass wedding at the Great Wall of China.
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  • A mass wedding at the Great Wall of China.
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  • A wedding party takes photos outside the historic Fox Theatre on Woodward Avenue.
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  • After the wedding ceremony on the Mendenhall Glacier, a newly married couple waits to fly back to their cruise ship by helicopter.
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  • Hands clasped, a couple shows their rings after the wedding on Mendenhall Glacier.
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  • A bride and groom prepare to take their wedding vows at the Khailino town hall.  The groom wiped sweat off his face just before the “I do” moment.  The group in the background is getting ready to record their footprints as a married couple for posterity in a Russian tradition.
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  • Leopard-skin high-heeled shoes are worn by a bridesmaid  at the port in Petropavlovsk, second largest port in the world. Fish go out and inexpensive Chinese shoes come in. <br />
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The Russian port has a deep, flat bottom and a well-protected entrance, and is the location of a major submarine base. The port at Petropavlovsk is where 30 percent of all the fish in Russia are shipped out – all production goes down the east side of the Pacific Rim – to Japan, China and South Korea. Even though the port is thriving, Petropavlovsk lost 30 percent of its population in the 90s after default and is still in slow decline.
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  • Partygoers cheer as the groom searches for his bride's garter.<br />
He lifted the bride and carried her into the warm glowing heart. They danced  and the lights came up and the festivities continued with hands-free-garter-diving in a heart-shaped flaming border of love. It is a tradition in Kamchatka, Russia.
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  • Flower girls and ring boys and a ringbearer at a wedding.
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  • Marriage is different in China, from mass weddings like this, to the “bare branches” phenomenon where there are not enough women for all the men to marry. Couples aspire to the ideal of the billboard above them—the one-child family. But will their son be able to find a girl? According to the 2010 census, there were 118.06 boys born for every 100 girls, which is 0.53 points lower than the ratio obtained from a population sample survey carried out in 2005. However, the gender ratio of 118.06 is still beyond the normal range of around 105 percent, and experts warn of increased social instability should this trend continue. For the population born between 1900 and 2000, it is estimated that there could be 35.59 million fewer females than males. So maybe everyone eventually has a car, but can every boy have a girl? It is important for China’s leaders to placate the Comfort Class. From issues of grave consequence to trivialities, the government has made clear that it will do whatever it takes to keep the swelling middle class happy. In Beijing, for example, newly prosperous residents are snapping up automobiles at a rate of 1,000 a day. The number of vehicles on the capital’s sclerotic roads has doubled in the past five years, to 3 million, or about a million more vehicles than in all of New York City.
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  • The bride and groom at their wedding reception.
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  • The bride and groom at their wedding reception.
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  • Young girls in their finest dresses dance as the wedding party in the Khailino town hall that celebrated the first event in several years.
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  • A bride checks her makeup in a mirror as she readies herself for the wedding ceremony.
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  • A bride and groom talk with neighbors as they go through various rituals after their wedding.
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  • Tourists are wed on Mendenhall Glacier in the Tongass National Forest. He marks the spot of their ceremony with a GPS while behind them a guide leads hikers up an icy trail. She blissfully basks in the sun as they wait for their helicopter return back to Juneau.
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  • A couple rides in a limousine to the airport to take a helicopter to the Mendenhall Glacier for their wedding.
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  • Dressed in elegant formal wear, a bride and groom walk to the helicopter to fly up onto a glacier for their wedding ceremony in Southeast Alaska.
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  • A bride and groom cut the cake and kiss after their wedding ceremony that was held on the Mendenhall Glacier. Champagne, flowers, music and a linen table cloth set the scene for their atypical, romantic celebration.
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  • A bride picks up the groom for the kiss completing the wedding ceremony. The couple strapped on crampons beneath their formal wear and flew by helicopter onto the Mendenhall Glacier for a memorable experience in Southeast Alaska.
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  • A surreal and beautiful setting for the wedding ceremony. A cake and champagne are placed on a table covered with a linen cloth. A camera on a tripod records the couple's wedding vows taken on the Mendenhall Glacier. They said they were married in "God's Cathedral."
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  • A couple arrives by helicopter and carefully negotiates walking on ice onto the Mendenhall Glacier for their wedding ceremony in Juneau, Alaska.
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  • A couple rides in a limousine to the airport to take a helicopter to the Mendenhall Glacier for their wedding. Holding flowers for the ceremony, they share a warm moment in anticipation of the event.
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  • A newly married couple dances on Mendenhall Glacier. They took a helicopter onto the icefield and celebrated after the ceremony. Although dressed in traditional wedding formal wear, they were careful to step over the melting ice in their crampons.
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  • Tourists are drawn to the beauty of Alaska and its glaciers, and some come for the ultimate and most unlikely experience—donning crampons for their wedding on ice.<br />
If the weather cooperates, couples can arrange for a limousine pickup from a cruise ship to the airport for a helicopter flight onto a glacier. They had a traditional ceremony with tuxedo and white wedding dress and extra touches including wedding cake, music, and flowers.<br />
The groom pops the cork on a bottle of champagne provided by the planner who married this couple on the Mendenhall Glacier.
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  • A bride and groom deliver food and drink and greet shut in villagers in their homes.
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  • As the wedding approaches, a woman pretends she is a bride surrounded by her family.
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  • After the official ceremony at the Khailino town hall, the newly married couple is followed by the wedding party to visit everyone in town who could not leave their houses to attend the three-day party.  <br />
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Following Russian traditions, they drink a shot of vodka with each shut-in and share a little food, then go to the next home to visit other Kamchatka neighbors who are too elderly or infirm to participate in the event.
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  • A wedding photo on a bridge with the Pudong skyline in the background.
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  • Rose Wedding Festival couples in a motorcade to Century Park.
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  • Bridesmaids prepare for a wedding.
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  • Flower girls at a wedding.
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  • A bride prepares for her wedding.
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  • Brides line up for the Rose Wedding Festival, a mass marriage.
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  • A groom signs a wall with a kiss at the Rose Wedding Festival.
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  • A bride puts lipstick on her groom at the Rose Wedding Festival.
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  • Brides numbered 32 through 43 line up in their queue at the Rose Wedding Festival. Seventy couples in this mass marriage ceremony started at a shopping mall, then traveled to Century Park for the ceremony. The marriage-age consumer is a prime target for first-world companies. The middle class’s under-30-consumer market alone will be the size of the entire EU market in the next decade.
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  • Adjusting a bride's veil for marriage at the Rose Wedding Festival.
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  • Some of the 70 couples in the Rose Wedding Festival, a mass marriage.
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  • Some of the 70 couples in the Rose Wedding Festival, a mass marriage.
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  • Some of the 70 couples in the Rose Wedding Festival, a mass marriage.
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  • Some of the 70 couples in the Rose Wedding Festival, a mass marriage.
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  • A woman tries on her wedding dress at a dressmaker's shop.
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  • A woman tries on her wedding dress as her Australian fiancee looks on.
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  • A bride and groom deliver food and drink to the villagers that are homebound after their wedding.
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  • A bride and groom are fitted for crampons before taking a helicopter flight to the Mendenhall Glacier to be married in the icefield.
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  • A couple steadies themselves with crampons and kiss while waiting for their wedding on the icy Mendenhall Glacier in Southeast Alaska.
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  • A young girl waits for her turn to go at an 1800's fashion show at the Waleski Farm.
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  • A bridge and groom stand before a heart-shaped candles of live that the community of Khailino made to celebrate their wedding. A rare event in Kamchatka, Russia. It was actually as beautiful and touching a scene as I’ve ever experienced though in the setting of a basketball court in a small town on the same latitude as Siberia.
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  • The grooms antics amuse the bride during a wedding reception in Khailino in Kamchatka, Russia. It is important to note that some of the theater of this wedding happened because it is Russian tradition. The community has endured great hardship and a people who have adjusted to being really kind to each other to all survive together.
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  • A bride irons a bridesmaid's dress. Khailino in Kamchatka, Russia has not had an event in the last three years. The community mustered up a wedding and invited the entire community. Although the bride was seven months pregnant, she worked doing laundry and ironing for all her brothers and sisters on her wedding day.
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  • A bride's father supplies caviar from his fishing camp. He got enough caviar to feed 200 people at his daughter’s wedding. <br />
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The bride is one quarter indigenous—there is, however, an easy mix between indigenous and white Russians. This family decided to have a wedding although the bride is seven months pregnant. Common-law marriages are the norm among the indigenous people, so the entire town prepared for almost a year for this event.  Most of the decorations were brought in by MI-8 helicopter.  <br />
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Russia wanted to “tame” the salmon zones in Kamchatka, so some moved to the northern communities that were technically war zones with the United States.  To do so, they had to have connections and get permits, then move to where they make eight times what they can in Moscow in government wages. When default happened and their state-subsidized salaries disappeared, all they were left with was the resource—salmon.
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  • Couples at the Rose Wedding Festival, a mass marriage.
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  • A bride at the shopping mall.
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  • Rose Wedding Festival couples in a motorcade to Century Park.
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