Several years ago, one of the most beautiful couples of Russian ballet – Bolshoi Theater premier Artem Ovcharenko and first soloist Anna Tikhomirova – announced their wedding. Their wedding took place on August 28, 2016. Then, before the wedding, they told Wedding about how they prepared for the ceremony and why the formalities were so delayed. This couple also graced the cover of Wedding magazine. Now we want to remind you of the love story of this beautiful couple!

The wedding agency Ace Events for organizing this wedding became the winner of the Wedding Awards 2016 in the nomination “Star wedding“.

Artem: In general, everything related to the wedding is more of an emotional story for us. I want Anya and me to have such a moment when she is a bride, in a luxurious dress, at the peak of her beauty … and a holiday that we will remember later all our lives. One could probably do without ceremony, sign and go on another tour, but I did not miss this opportunity.

Memories are what unites us. Erase all the moments that you lived with loved ones, with friends, and these people will become strangers to you. And I want to live more of these moments, with Anya especially, in order to accumulate memories that will warm us in many, many years, when we are already quite old. Therefore, we want to have a wedding. Of course, there is excitement, but in general we are in anticipation of something very good.

Anna: Since we have been together for so long, already eight years, we decided that it should be celebrated. For themselves and loved ones who were looking forward to this moment, like, for example, my grandmother, who is 93 (!) Years old. She took care of the dress for this occasion six months ago, and at each of our meetings she does not get tired of reminding us how she can’t wait to dance “Gypsy” at my wedding. (Laughs.) The feeling of warmth and sincerity at the holiday is perhaps the most important thing for us. I don’t want the wedding to turn into an event, so we initially planned a celebration for no more than a hundred people, so that this feeling would be preserved and the guests would find themselves in our world, maybe even make a trip into our life. So that you can easily hear the words in our vows and in the song, during the dance of the bride with her father. As you already understood, we are in favor of more emotional moments.

Many of our friends were tormented by the question why we are not married until now. Probably, now is just the time has come, we are both ripe for the wedding. And again, the figure eight is a symbol of infinity.

You know, I never had a fix idea to get married. On the contrary, when Artyom proposed to me, on the very day we just started dating, it even scared me. (Laughs) I just didn’t know how to react.

Artem: When I arrived in Moscow, in 2003, Anya was my first partner. This is mysticism, in my opinion. I liked her right away, but our relationship started already in the theater. Then I already specifically began to look after.

Anna: “I want to live with you all my life,” Artem told me. After such statements, it is not difficult to get confused. I had no relationship with anyone, so it was very difficult for me to understand what it was all about. But I decided to give it a try. Of course, we both understood that it was too early to talk about the wedding, we had other tasks then. And even when people tried to somehow hint, they say, why and what was wrong, for me it did not matter at all. It’s important to just be together.

Artem: Recently I read such a phrase that you need to get married when there is no longer any sense in marriage. Not for something to change – I think that nothing will change in our relationship at all – but when you are just ready to take the next step. A year and a half ago, when I was holding the keys to our apartment, I decided that I wanted not just to bring Anya there, but to kneel down and propose to her again, as it should be. We understood that we would finally live together, and this is a new start for us.

Anna: We did not have time with the wedding in the summer that we wanted, and decided that we would not be in a hurry and better put it off.

Artem: But, what is most interesting, after a while we simultaneously began to think that it was time.

Anna: That is: “Let’s make a wedding?” – “Lets do it!”

Artem: Our relationship is generally some kind of non-verbal story. When two people are not discussing, but just doing.

Anna: Yes, we are used to doing everything together. Who is responsible for what at the wedding – we have no such thing. When I and my friends came to choose a wedding dress, the first thing I thought was: “I can’t choose without it!” (They laugh.)

Artem: Anya almost always doubts. For me, everything is simple: if you like it, you like it.

Anna: We never quarrel at all, because I give in to him. And I never regret that I agreed. You know, even if I don’t like something at first, then over time I still understand that it was the right choice. I trust Artyom. It was the same with the place of the wedding. As soon as we got there, Artem said: the wedding will be here. And after that I had no doubts.

Artem: I immediately realized that there we can embody all our ideas. In general, you can endlessly fantasize about a wedding! We came up with so many things together with the producer of our wedding Dasha Tinbush and the organizers, but we understood that we needed to focus on one thing. They helped us a lot! The main thing that is there is a palace. Outside, it is simply luxurious, but inside there is nothing – bare cement. And this is also very symbolic: the art of ballet is outwardly very beautiful, but this beauty hides hard everyday work. Our decorator Julia Shakirova offered a lot of interesting ideas on how to combine this beauty and work in the design. On the wedding day, the inside of the palace will be unrecognizable. Of course, guests will see more beauty. But we have an idea to make a video of us dancing among this concrete and dust, through which rays of light cut through. It should be effective.

Anna: This palace is also somewhat similar to the Bolshoi Theater …

Artem: I love the symbolic moments in our wedding. And this is another one. Every day I understand that love is only growing, and we hope that our fairy tale will last for a very long time and this is only the beginning of our journey.

Interview: Marina Kobrina.

Photo: Grigory Shelukhin.