Tag Archive for: destination wedding planner

First comes love, then comes marriage: an interview with Fête in France in DatingNews.com

2022 is shaping up to be a banner year for weddings – according to NPR there’s a 15% increase in the number of couples tying the knot! There are of course many forward-thinking singles in the dating pool and Nancy recently had the opportunity to speak with Amber and Ashayla from DatingNews.com. They discussed destination weddings, how to go about planning a destination wedding, and of course how a wedding planner can be a huge help in creating a memorable wedding experience for couples and their guests!

Romantic French Countryside Wedding

Sara and Jack’s romantic French countryside wedding took place on a private estate near Paris, on a very hot summer day in July. The couple met in law school and after a year and a half of dating, Jack organized a weekend with Sara’s family. After receiving her father’s blessing, Jack proposed on a walk with their French bulldog, Ladybird, at the arboretum. They spent the rest of the evening and weekend celebrating with family and friends.

For their wedding, they wanted to keep the same easy and relaxed atmosphere. Sara grew up near Paris and her family’s house in the countryside near the French capital her favorite place on Earth. It felt natural to the couple to host their wedding there, even though Jack had never set foot in Europe before!

The ambiance they looked for was a chic backyard wedding, a family garden party and a lovely evening with their loved ones. A little eclectic and not too fussy. Sara wanted a dress with a long train (because if there is really one occasion to wear a train, it was on her wedding day!), and she also wanted color. She had been eyeing a special Monique Lhuillier gown, and when she got the chance to put it on, she knew right away it was the one. It had drama with a 10 ft long train and embroidered flowers in purple, red and blue that would perfectly tie in with the wildflowers of the French countryside.

Preparations for the wedding day took place directly on the family estate. The ceremony was set in front of an old pool, with the rest of the garden in the background. The arch blended in seamlessly with the scenery and was adorned of beautiful purple flowers, the bride’s favorite color. The bridal party walked down the aisle to Sara’s uncle singing Ave Maria, just like he did for her parents’ wedding, and her grandfather officiated the ceremony, as he had done before for the bride’s parents. It was a true family affair.

The festivities continued with a cocktail hour with passed hors d’oeuvres, and guests enjoyed signature drinks while listening a gypsy jazz trio play. At sunset, guests were invited under a tent set on the main lawn in front of the house: long wooden tables were decorated with wild purple flower arrangements and lilac candles. A sprig of lavender on the menus added an extra touch at each seat.

 

After a delicious spit roasted lamb diner and moving speeches, the bride and groom had their first dance to Beyond by Leon Bridges.  They held the song dear to their heart as they had danced to it on the night they got engaged. The bride had previously changed into a purple Badgley Mischka dress so she could dance all night.

A cigar bar and a desert buffet were set up with couches for guests to relax after dinner, but the dance floor was never empty, and everyone danced until 2am!

 

Contact us to see how we can help plan your romantic French countryside wedding!

To read more about this wedding, check out the full post on Over the Moon. 

 

Planning & design: @feteinfrance
Flowers: @lilypalomaflowers
Caterer: @entre_mets_et_fragrances
Photographer: @capturelifeandlovers
Hair stylist: @ciaracoiffure
Makeup artist: @allisondepmuah
Macaroon tower: @maisonladuree
Rentals : @be_lounge
Tableware : @maison_options
Day-of paper : @studiofrenchblue
Invitations : @tiethatbinds
Bridal salon : @carinesbridal
Wedding dress : @moniquelhuillierbride

 

 

 

Micro wedding in the South of France

Steph & Mike gathered an intimate group for their microwedding in the South of France. There may have been a petit number of guests – and the bride and groom’s sweet dog Peanut – but the wedding featured all of the fabulous details of a grand celebration!

The Château Saint Georges is located up in the hills of Grasse and offers spectacular views from the grounds. The wedding took place in early September, which is an ideal time of year in the South of France – the peak vacation period of July and August is over but the weather is still fabulous. The perfectly named Temple of Love was the setting for the exchange of vows and the warm South of France summer climate made for a wonderful outdoor reception. The design of the event was carefully thought out, with beautiful florals from Miss Rose by Perrine, and featured a palette of pale tones of blush and pink. The pale, ethereal feel was carried through to the wedding cake design, with delicate ricepaper flowers adorning the 2-tier confection by Made In Cake. The bride was stunning in her Vera Wang gown, with hair & makeup expertly done by Trine Juel. And just because you have a small number of guests doesn’t mean you can’t party! Benjamin of Discotecnik helped create a festive post-dinner atmosphere.

We loved creating this beautiful and intimate celebration for Steph & Mike. Intimate weddings allow the bride and groom to have real quality time with their guests, and the added benefit is that we also get to know guests better. Need help planning your microwedding in the South of France, Provence or another region of France? We would love to hear from you!

Featured on Carats & Cake | Photography: Le Secret d’Audrey | Cinematography: MG Image

South of France château wedding planned by Fête in France

Château Saint Georges in Grasse, France

South of France wedding designer American Wedding planner in France Intimate wedding in the South of France planned by Fête in France South of France wedding planner

I’ve postponed my wedding due to Covid-19 – now what?

Our hearts go out to all of the couples who have made the decision to postpone their destination wedding in France because of Covid-19. Many couples have the weight of changing their date, and all of the work that represents, solely on their shoulders. This can add to the stress of an already stressful situation!

You might not have thought about having a full-service wedding planner as part of your vendor team because you planned to do much of the work yourself, and perhaps for budgetary reasons. It’s true that we’re best known for our Full Wedding Planning services, however we do offer a variety of Partial Planning services depending on your needs. We also are happy to announce a new offer, in response to the couples who have had to postpone their date.

Here’s a quick recap of our Partial Wedding Planning services:

Planning Support
Hourly packages (1/3/5 hours) which provides access our expertise in wedding planning. We discuss your planning concerns and offer best practices and vendor recommendations. Our hourly planning support can also be used to conduct research, request and review quotes and manage vendor communication. From 300€ per hour.

Month-of Coordination
This service starts 30 days out from your wedding date and allows you to hand off the project to an experienced coordinator. We review the schedule of the day – or help you create one – and double check all of the vendors and services that have been booked. On the wedding day, a team of coordinators will be on site to oversee that all goes according to plan, freeing you up to be fully present with your friends and family. From 3500€.

New! Postponed Wedding Support
This service is for any couple who has postponed to a later date, whether it’s a Fall 2020 wedding or a 2021 wedding. We provide support and guidance as you update your vendors due to the date change, help put into place any vendors not yet contracted or find replacements for any who are not available on the new date, set the logistics plan and orchestrate the on-site coordination so you can fully enjoy your day. Contact us for more information!

How to plan a wedding in the uncertain times of Covid-19

Many countries around the world are more than a month into confinement, and it seems that it’s having the desired effect of flattening the curve. We can be cautiously optimistic but the reality is that it will still be a little while before things are “back to normal”.

We’re still facing a lot of uncertainty, but couples who make it through confinement are coming out even stronger. And if the trend we’re seeing in China holds true for the rest of the world, 2021 is shaping up to be a particularly busy year for weddings.

We’ve shared some advice on postponing your wedding and while some couples have opted to shift their date to later in 2020 or even 2021, there are still some couples who are holding out hope that they will be able to maintain their late summer wedding as planned.

We wanted to share some additional advice on planning your wedding amidst the ongoing crisis. Our recommendations come from having 14 years of wedding planning to our credit, but since every situation is unique, only you can know the right decision for your celebration.

Holding out hope for a 2020 wedding

We completely understand if you’re holding out hope for your original 2020 date. Many countries are expecting encouraging news in May, which will give more visibility on when businesses will be able to open to the public, and when international travel will be allowed.

The advice we’re giving to couples in this situation is to set a deadline of at least 2 months out in order to give yourself (and your planner) enough time to get the rest of the planning finalized, and your guests enough time to arrange their travel.

Postponing to a 2021 wedding

If you’ve made the decision to postpone your wedding to 2021, you’ve likely already made a majority of the design and vendor decisions. Most vendors are applying deposits to the new date and are not charging change fees. However, if you’ve already set the design but decide to go in a completely new direction, there may be a cost for the extra work. Along with shoring up the new date with your previously booked venue and vendors, you’ll also want to get any other remaining vendors secured for the new date.

Planning for a 2021 wedding

The majority of our postponed weddings are being shifted to 2021, mostly into May and June. So if you have your heart set on a weekend wedding in Spring/Summer 2021, we encourage you to get the planning started as soon as possible.

The first step of planning your wedding is getting the venue and date set. With the expected swell of couples for 2021 and the current international travel restrictions, we’re encouraging couples to think a bit differently about venue search and selection. In-person visits may not be possible in the immediate term, so consider doing a virtual/video tour with your top picks to get a feel for the spaces before booking.

If planning site visits is an essential part of your wedding planning experience, this will likely push your decision date out. In order to increase your chances of booking in your preferred month we recommend considering a weekday wedding. As celebrated event designer David Beahm noted in a recent Harper’s Bazaar article, “Perhaps Wednesday weddings are going to be the new thing for a while, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Weekend, Wednesday or any other day of the week, we offer different levels of support depending on your planning needs. We would love to hear about your vision for your day and see how we can help with your plans!

 

Should I postpone my wedding? Your wedding and the COVID-19 emergency

Updated on April 14, 2020

Greetings from (continued) confinement in France! I am riding out the lockdown in the countryside of Brittany, grateful to be in a house with a lawn as opposed to my Parisian apartment.

We’re going through a scary and uncertain time and there’s unfortunately very little we can control right now, but there is a lot of information we can gather to arm ourselves as best possible once the situation gets a bit clearer.

The news cycle is spinning so fast that it’s not easy to make heads or tails of what to do. At this point we’re looking at each of our upcoming weddings and evaluating on a case-by-case basis. We’re here providing support to all of our couples, collecting as much information as we can and updating as the situation changes.

If you’ve been planning your own wedding and have been in direct contact with your vendors, I wanted to share some advice on how we’ve gone about things:

1. Review your venue and vendor’s postponement and force majeure policy as stated in their contract. Review your wedding insurance policy (if you have one). *It’s not entirely clear on how insurers are viewing the pandemic, and it may not fall under force majeure, so it’s always best to contact them directly to clarify.

2. Reach out to your venue and vendors to understand what adjustments are being made to their policy in light of the COVID-19 emergency. If you have a wedding planner, they are here to help facilitate these discussions. Here at Fête in France, our standard contract has a penalty clause in the event of a change in date or venue, however given the extraordinary circumstances we are waiving any change fees.

Once you’ve collected the above information:

3. If your wedding is between now and early July, you are likely in decision-making mode vs. wait-and-see mode. Time is of the essence, especially if any guests will be travelling, so you may choose to send out communication to your guests without yet having a date rescheduled. That said, if at all possible, have your new date set before communicating with guests – it will save you a step down the line and will be appreciated by any guests who need to rebook travel!

4. If your wedding is in mid-July or later, we recommend waiting until mid-May to understand how the situation evolves and reassessing then. If you still feel strongly about postponing, the same advice applies: if possible have your new date set before communicating with guests.

We know this is a stressful moment and it can be difficult to keep emotions at bay. The people surrounding you – your fiancé(e), your wedding party, your family and your key wedding vendors – are here to support you and guide you, and can’t wait to be part of your wedding, whenever it may be.

What wedding planning services do you need?

If you’re in the beginning stages of research for your wedding, you may be wondering what wedding planning services you need. Here at Fête in France we break out our services into two categories: Full Planning services and Partial Planning services.

Full Planning services

Are you looking for an experienced professional to help you navigate the entire wedding planning process, from start to finish? Then Full Planning services are for you. These services generally include venue search and booking assistance, but may also start after your venue and date have been set.

With Full Planning services, you benefit from our expert insight from day 1 to the big day. Our Full Planning services allow you to be the executive decision maker, ensuring that the wedding is a true reflection of who you are as a couple, and our role is to project manage, keeping an eye on timelines, budgets and the overall cohesiveness of the events.

We break out Full Planning services into three phases: Design, Planning & Vendor Management, Event Coordination

We start the Design phase by discussing in detail the ambiance and atmosphere you’d like to create for your day. We also review any inspiration images you have already collected, and add additional ideas to round out the initial design. We rely not only on your wedding inspiration images, but also your interests and hobbies, family heritage, and any other element to make the event as personal as possible. We also discuss the flow of the day, to ensure that your experience on the day is as seamless as possible.

Once the design direction has been set, we shift into the Planning & Vendor Management phase. In addition to providing general advice and best practices, an important part our role is to streamline the time-consuming tasks of research and vendor communication. We offer curated suggestions based on the design direction and conduct all additional research needed to unearth the hidden gems to make your wedding a memorable experience.

The final phase is Event Coordination which means that we’ve made it to the big day! Our team of coordinators are on site to oversee vendor deliveries and setup, and ensure that all goes according to our carefully constructed logistics plan. Having a well-thought-out schedule is one of Fête in France’s strengths, and clients and vendors alike appreciate how on point our timings are. A solid and well-communicated plan is also essential because the more you plan for upstream, the more space it creates to tackle the inevitable unforseen situations that pop up during an event.

Partial Planning services

Not all couples need or have the budget for Full Planning services, so we also offer a selection of Partial Planning services. Below are a few of our most popular Partial Planning offers:

Venue Search: Accompany you through the venue search and selection process, including a scouting trip of 2-3 days to visit short-listed venues.

Planning Support: Hourly packages (1/3/5 hours) which provides access our expertise in wedding planning. We discuss your planning concerns and offer best practices and vendor recommendations. Our hourly planning support can also be used to conduct research, request and review quotes and manage vendor communication.

Month-of Coordination: This service starts 30 days out from your wedding date and allows you to hand off the project to an experienced coordinator. We review the schedule of the day – or help you create one – and double check all of the vendors and services that have been booked. On the wedding day, a team of coordinators will be on site to oversee that all goes according to plan, freeing you up to be fully present with your friends and family.

What planning services do you need?

Contact us for an initial consultation to tell us about your vision for your day!

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Dubai

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Wedluxe Trend Report Cover Feature

Doing an inspiration shoot in the desert was a major departure for us. Our regular scene is elegant Parisian mansions and romantic French châteaux! The launch of our satellite office in Dubai and sister brand Fête Event Planning was the perfect excuse to do something different. So we dove right in and explored new colors, textures, and ambiances. We were delighted when news came that the inspiration shoot would appear on Wedluxe. But we were over the moon when we discovered that the feature was the front cover of the Wedluxe Global Trend Report!

The main sources of inspiration was the intricate motif of the Iranian Mosque in Dubai. The gorgeous palette of colors was the perfect spark to get our creative minds working.

The paper goods elements were original creations by Studio French Blue. The unique calligraphy style used a back-leaning slant to mimic arabic script.

We created a cosy seating area by framing the space with bougainvillea plants. The woven rug and cushions in tones of blue anchored the setup. Accents in brass and orange gave a bit of pop and shine.

Dubai has incredible resources when it comes to having things custom made. We decided to design a dress that would be flowy and beautiful in the desert breeze.

Thank you to the incredible team of creative partners who helped bring the vision to life!

Event Design: Fête in France | Photography: Ken Tan | Florals: Florette | Hair stylist: Merita Orrensuo | Makeup artist: Lina Molsa | Paper goods & Calligraphy: Studio French Blue | Rentals: Mint Event Rentals | Model: Bareface | Crown headpiece: Dorramarra | Gown: Anne Mulvihill

Tag Archive for: destination wedding planner