A Rustic Handmade Wedding in France!

A beau­ti­ful wed­ding in France! Laura & Stuart

Wed­ding venues:

• Mairie de Vulaines sur Seine (civil ceremony)
• Eglise de Samoreau (Church)
• La Grange aux dimes (recep­tion) in Samoreau

Wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher: Freddy Fre­mond

www.freddyfremond.fr

How would you describe your wed­ding style?

Rus­tic chic — we wanted a laid back style that suited the French venue and the surroundings.

We wanted to bring some Eng­lish tra­di­tions and mix them up with some French styles (the favours were mini jam pots cov­ered in blue and white ging­ham, tied with gar­den twine, filled with Con­fi­ture au Lait.

We also wanted it to be din­ner party meets party.

A lit­tle about the wed­ding ceremony:

We had a civil cer­e­mony (which is oblig­a­tory in France) fol­lowed by a church wed­ding with a local Eng­lish vicar.

The civil wed­ding was reserved for fam­ily (35 guests) and every­one else joined us at the Church (85 guests in total). The church ser­vice was still very inti­mate and also in Eng­lish but in an amaz­ing rarely used French church.

Which read­ings did you choose?

Corinthian 13:4 8A and an Irish Wed­ding Blessing

Tell us a lit­tle about your wed­ding venue styling and details:

The Grange aux Dimes is a 13th cen­tury tithe barn, it is a beau­ti­ful rus­tic build­ing and we made it look very clas­sic yet sim­ple. We used ivory table cloths, chair cov­ers and tied navy rib­bons around them, which matched the bride­maids’ dresses.

We also had some lace details to cover the stage area and my Mum echoed that in the cake she made, which was the main fab­ric of my dress. we kept the dance area quite small and cen­tral which made it look full at all times and made it dif­fi­cult for peo­ple not to get dragged up!

Invi­ta­tions and recep­tion stationery:

We used Vistaprint, it was very rea­son­able and did very sim­ple yet ele­gant designs. We ordered Invi­ta­tions, Menus and Thank You cards and were more than pleased with the qual­ity and ser­vice they offered, as well as the price com­pared to most wed­ding stationery.

Wed­ding music and entertainment:

Julien Roman (DJ Air) was our DJ, he was great, we met him before hand and he played all the music we requested. He was French but has an Eng­lish mother so under­stood our eclec­tic music tastes. He put on some 1920’s French music dur­ing the gar­den drinks and some excel­lent music choices to get peo­ple danc­ing with all sorts of tastes.

Laura wore:

Mag­gie Sot­tero Doreen dress, Jimmy Choo shoes, acces­sories by Krausz jewellery

Stu­art wore:

A cus­tom made suit by Moss Bros, Prince of Wales check, 3 piece tai­lored suit.

Mem­o­rable wed­ding day moments:

The cut­ting of the cake was very mem­o­rable, it wasn’t some­thing we expected, the DJ sug­gested we have some music as in France it’s tra­di­tion that the Cro­quem­bouche is rolled in to music. So we took his advice and every­one gath­ered round, he played a dance ver­sion of Pirates of the Caribbean and it was amaz­ing, it kicked off the disco, we had a cham­pagne foun­tain and it really got the party started!

For me (Laura) — enter­ing the church and see­ing all my fam­ily and friends there, the major­ity of them hav­ing trav­elled over from Eng­land, it was very emo­tional, and then see­ing Stu­art, just the best feeling!

For Stu­art — (apart from the beam­ing smile on my face see­ing my wife) it was danc­ing to some crack­ing dance music and look­ing around see­ing my friends, cousins and even my par­ents danc­ing along. It was just the best night out but with absolutely every­one you know there! See­ing people’s faces when each French wed­ding sur­prise came out, the trou nor­mand (cal­va­dos with sor­bet after the first course), buck­ets of French wine, etc.

Wed­ding day advice:

Make time to spend time as a cou­ple, have peo­ple who can con­trol the day for you, so you don’t have to worry about a thing, enjoy it and do hire a good pho­tog­ra­pher because they are pho­tos you can cher­ish forever!!

Freddy was great, there are so many pho­tos that make up our album that we didn’t even now he had taken. Do some­thing dif­fer­ent to sur­prise your guests.

Rec­om­mended wed­ding suppliers:

• Krausz jew­ellery www.krauszjewellery.co.uk/
• Freddy Fre­mond wed­ding pho­tog­ra­pher http://www.freddyfremond.fr
• DJ Air (French wed­ding DJ) http://www.djair.fr/
• Go Bridal (wed­ding dresses, Birm­ing­ham) www.gobridal.com/gobridal/GoB-Bir/
• Jimmy Choo wed­ding shoes www.jimmychoo.com/collections/bridal-boutique/icat/bridalrw/
• http://www.vistaprint.co.uk