wedding weekend Archives - Fête in France

A grand yet intimate wedding at the Ritz Paris

We always say that an intimate wedding can be every bit as grand as a wedding with many guests, and Hannah and Christopher certainly treated their guests to a grand yet intimate wedding at the Ritz Paris.

We loved planning this wedding weekend of events to show off the best of what Paris has to offer. The couple welcomed guests to Paris with a wonderful cocktail party cruise on the Seine and capped off the festivities with a brunch at the famed Angelina tea house. But the main event was the elegant wedding day at the Ritz Paris.

Wedding preparations at the Ritz Paris

The bride spent the morning of the wedding getting ready in her beautiful room at the Ritz. The bride’s Monique Lhuillier ballgown wedding dress was a perfect choice for the elegance of the Ritz. Sanni Sorma did a wonderful job making the bride fresh and beautiful in her classic bridal look.

The spacious suite had an entirely separate living room, where the groom donned his Tom Ford tuxedo and French cuff shirt with elegant cufflinks.

Paris wedding details

Bride Hannah was very interested in all of the beautiful details for the wedding. She and her mom worked with Union Street Papery on a beautiful invitation design from Bella Figura. It featured an ornate border motif in gold foil with elegant letterpress type in French blue (naturally!) The invitations were adorned with vintage stamps from her grandfather’s collection. The bride also chose a lovely shade of blue for her maid of honor’s dress.

A romantic ceremony in the gardens of the Ritz Paris

The Ritz is a Paris icon for so many reasons. The architecture of the Place Vendôme is as breathtaking as the sparkling objects in the luxury jewelers that ring the square. The Ritz Paris is also graced with a wonderfully lovely garden, and it was in this oasis of green in the middle of the city where the couple’s ceremony took place. We thought carefully about the design for the ceremony with the bride and florist Sol Y Flor, and love the way the floral pillars and aisle decoration fit with the symmetry of the background.

An elegant wedding reception in the Cesar Ritz room

After the ceremony and cocktail hour, guests crossed the gardens to the salon Cesar Ritz. This intimate reception room was set with round tables decorated with abundant low centerpieces, and elegant gold-rimmed glassware and plates. Studio French Blue created custom menus, keeping the ornate border from the invitations and each menu was hand calligraphied with the guest’s name.

Let them have cake! An intimate wedding afterparty

In our opinion any wedding, even the most intimate wedding, can have a dance party! After dinner, which included a delicious American-style wedding cake, guests were invited to the underground ballroom. We transformed the room into a club, complete with a DJ and dancefloor lighting. And because you can never have too many sweets, we brought in a Ladurée macaron tower. The bride carefully chose the flavors to allow for the pretty pink ombre effect!

As seen on Carats & Cake

Wedding

Château wedding Southwest France | Château de Malliac

The beautiful countryside of the Southwest of France was the setting for Emmie & Jon’s French château wedding. The globe-trotting couple has lived in Beijing, Montreal and San Fransisco, but their true love is for France. The first time they visited our beautiful country together, there was an immediate connection. They kept coming back, and each time it felt more magical. It felt natural for them to host their wedding in the country they loved so much.The relaxed yet elegant château wedding venue they chose is located in a region known for it’s food and wine. The rambling property is surrounded by vineyards which produce wine as well as the region’s famous Armagnac. The château also has the feel of a family home with plenty of accommodations on site, so friends and family were able to stay together and enjoy the grounds for the four days of festivities.The château and grounds have several spaces perfect for a wedding weekend of festivities, which allowed us to create a different ambiance for each event: beautiful ivy-covered courtyards, a rehabilitated barn with two big high-ceilinged rooms, a swimming pool, and a massive garden.The bride was stunning in an elegant strapless Vera Wang gown and loose chignon updo, and the groom dapper in a black tuxedo and velvet slippers. After the “I dos” the bride added chic accessories for her reception look, donning puffy tulle sleeves, golden dangly earrings and letting her hair down.

The floral decor was inspired by fall colors with warm tones mixed with greenery. The bouquets, arch and flower arrangements all had a lot of texture, with an elegant combination of fresh and dried flowers.For the cocktail, we invited guests to another part of the garden, where they could spread out between the trees and relax on lounge furniture set up on the grass. A live band played folk and pop music to add to the perfect late summer ambiance as the sun set on the vines behind the domain.

The dinner took place in the main courtyard, under garlands of lights which created a warm and intimate ambiance. The couple enjoyed their meal surrounded by friends and family and their moving speeches. After champagne flowed for dessert, the bride and groom surprised their guests with fireworks, before leading them to dance late into the night.

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

As seen on Magnolia Rouge.

Planning & design: @feteinfrance
Venue: @chateaudemalliac
Flowers: @fleurs-de-mars
Photographer: @marionhweddings
Videographer: @moonandbackco
Hair stylist: @ciaracoiffure
Makeup artist: @sannimakeupartist
Caterer: @lacostetraiteur
Tableware and rentals: @maison_options
Band: @chelseychantelle

Inspiration

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!

Wedding

How to plan a wedding in France

You’re engaged! Amid the whirlwind of all of the wedding possibilities, the idea of a wedding in France pops up: an elegant Paris wedding, or a romantic château wedding, or a relaxed countryside wedding… Then you wonder if you can really make this dream work. And you take to the internet to start looking into how to plan a wedding in France.

The search often begins with French wedding venues – the where of it seems like a good place to start. When you’re doing a first dive into venue search, it’s easy to get swept away by visuals or submerged by the daunting task of sifting through different websites, but it’s hard to know the what to really look for .

And what if the best way to the where and an understanding of the what started with the who?

After an exasperating or frustrating start to their venue search our couples often are so excited to find us. And learn that we’re native (American!) English speakers. And that we’ve been wedding planning for a while now (more than 5 years… more than 10 years…) creating close to 350 weddings of every shape and size, including some very beautiful and logistically complex celebrations. This depth and breadth of experience helps us navigate you through the planning process with ease, and allows us to keep things cool, calm and on track.

We’d love to hear from you and help you figure out the what and the where of your wedding!

Wedding

Wedding weekend in Burgundy: Texas BBQ Rehearsal Dinner

We’re delighted to have this wedding featured on Carats and Cake and it was just the push we needed to write the next chapter of this exceptional 4-day wedding weekend. It was easy to find inspiration for the rehearsal dinner when the groom is originally from the Lone Star state and the bride is a champion horserider and manages a ranch outside of Fort Worth. After Day One’s “White Nights” theme Welcome Party, we headed deep in the heart of Texas for a rehearsal dinner bbq on Day Two.

We knew we needed to build all of the reception spaces, and that there would be a main tent for the wedding and brunch, and another tent for the rehearsal dinner. We wanted to make sure the feel of the rehearsal dinner was different but still coherent with the rest of the structures that would be on the property. Tipi tents were a perfect solution for both the rehearsal dinner and tent village we built to host some of the wedding guests.

The tipi structure hit just the right note of rustic and the design we selected with Madame Artisan Fleuriste made it festive, pretty and inviting. Details like horseshoe escort cards (collected from the bride’s ranch, naturally), state of Texas shaped cookies and a University of Texas groom’s cake. And what would a Texas-themed rehearsal dinner be without barbecue? The team from Melt totally delivered on the true Texas bbq experience, hanging out by their custom made smoker under a popup tent to keep dry. The native Texan and Paris-based smokemaster wowed the crowd, many of whom said it was the best bbq they had ever eaten!

Wedding

Wedding weekend in Burgundy: White Nights party

The elegant wedding weekend in Burgundy started with a welcome party two days before the big day. The theme was “White Nights”, the famous (at least to the father of the bride) 80’s movie featuring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines. Guests were instructed to wear white, and the color palette for the decor was inspired by the colors of the summer night sky in Saint Petersburg.

As you probably know by now, the weather did not at all cooperate. The party, which was supposed to take place around the château’s beautiful pool, was moved inside the main tent. Despite the change of location, guests had a fantastic time and most importantly were warm and dry, with plenty of delicious food and drink.

Wedding

Summertime garden wedding in Normandy

2018 gave us incredible summer weather – even in places that have a bit of a reputation for being rainy. So it was with great delight that for L&A’s Normandy summertime wedding we had an abosolutely perfect day.

Preparations took place at the chic seaside Grand Hotel in Cabourg and then guests were brought inland to a beautiful private garden tended by the indomitable Madame & Monsieur Noppe. Their gardens, a labor of love over the past +25 years, was the site of the ceremony. During the planning, we had spent hours one day searching out the perfect spot based on the amount of space needed, the position of the sun and the amount of shade!

Guests enjoyed another part of the gardens during the cocktail hour and were then led to the rustic-chic reception space, where beautiful tables set with Lily Paloma’s gorgeous centerpieces brought the garden feel inside. A gourmet meal was served including the Norman traditions of a trou normand (palette cleanser) of apple sorbet and apple brandy, and of course a delicious selection of cheeses. Given the couple’s backgrounds, American (on the bride’s side) and French (on the groom’s side), they had not one, but two wedding cakes: a tiered wedding cake, with sugarpaste decoration inspired by the floral motif on the bride’s dress; and a traditional French croquembouche, or tower of cream-puffs held together with caramelized sugar and always presented with sparklers and great fanfare!

The couple deeply wanted to encourage conversation between the two sides of the family, so to overcome the language barrier there were two interpreters present at the wedding to translate the speeches in real time and help facilitate conversation with the guests. The couple also had the wish to have dancing take place outside. Any open-air plan is sure to make a wedding planner nervous – even moreso in a region that’s known for being green and lush (=rainy!) Fortunately it was clear, sunny and warm in the days leading up and on the day, allowing the dancefloor and band to be set up under the stars.

The wedding day was just one of three days of celebrations organized for the couple and their guests. To kick things off, a welcome dinner was planned at a Michelin-starred restaurant in the charming town of Beuvron. And to cap off the festivities a next-day brunch took place in the elegant ballroom of the Grand Hotel. All in all a perfect wedding weekend for this lovely Franco-American couple!

Wedding

Elegant wedding weekend in Burgundy

We’re always curious as to how our couples find us – sometimes it’s through a simple google search, or via a wedding blog feature – more and more it’s through Instagram. But we’re always the most excited when they come to us on recommendation from venues or vendors we’ve worked with, or from former clients. And so it was that Constance and Nick contacted us for their chateau wedding in Burgundy.

We’re starting off with a post about the wedding day, which was on the third of a spectacular four-day wedding weekend. By this time, guests had gotten to know each other and were used to the less-than-ideal meteorological conditions. As with the previous days, back-up plans had to be called on (yes, the gorgeous ceremony setting was a plan B!) But as with the previous days, the sunny disposition of the bride & groom and the warmth of their families and friends more than made up for a bit of rain.

For more of the story, check out our feature on Style Me Pretty and stay tuned for future blog posts!