I’ve been married for 6 months and I don’t mean to be cliché, but it was the BEST day of my life! After planning for over two years with postponements due to covid and worries over travel restrictions and airline strikes, the day finally arrived and it was even more magical than I had ever expected.
Throughout my planning I found it helpful and interesting to read about other real weddings and all the details they put into it, so I wanted to walk you through our wedding day. I’m also writing lots of other posts on different aspects and details of our wedding, but this focuses on the timeline and main highlights from the day. Prepare for lots of photos!
Destination
Our wedding took place at the beautiful Chateau Eza overlooking the French Riviera, one of the most luxurious places in the world. The weather was beautiful on the day of our wedding with the sun shining, blue skies, and that beloved South of France heat.
Getting Ready
When I woke up in the morning I felt quite nervous, however, by the time my bridesmaids arrived at our suite to get ready together, all the anxiety disappeared and I was just left with excitement. I had my hair and makeup trial a couple of days before the wedding so was relaxed and confident that I was going to be happy with the final look, as I only wanted to make a few small changes to the trial. Everyone actually kept asking how I was so relaxed in the morning, and I think it’s because after all the planning and postponements, I was just so happy that the day had finally arrived. Also having a makeup artist and hairstylist meant that I didn’t need to worry about getting ready and messing up my hair or makeup, I could just sit back and relax.
Whilst I got ready with my bridesmaids in our suite, Aaron and his best men got ready in my parents room as they also stayed at Chateau Eza and we had to be ready before them to give enough time for the photos and videography.
First Look
We knew we wanted to have a first look for a couple of reasons. The first was that it meant we could have that moment when we both see each other for the first time on our wedding day private, and we can spend some time together just the two of us before the wedding.
Another big reason why we chose to have a first look was because it meant that we didn’t need to spend any time away from celebrating with everyone, as we had all our portrait photos beforehand. It’s a personal choice but for us it was definitely the right decision and would definitely recommend it.
Our Ceremony & Cocktail Hour
Our ceremony took place on a beautiful balcony overlooking the French Riviera, with mountains in the background on the other side. We chose to have these beautiful huge vases filled with flowers as we didn’t want anything that would obscure the wonderful views. We had guests both at the top and bottom to give plenty of room for everyone, and umbrellas at the top for those who needed some shade, especially those with children. Aarons auntie conducted our ceremony which had been personalised to us, we both wrote our own vows making it even more special, and I walked down to our wonderful string quartet playing “I’m kissing you” by Des’ree.
After the ceremony we had a couple of photos with just a couple family and friends as it was so hot at this point before starting our cocktail hour, but we did get a great group photo with everyone. We had an open bar with Moet & Chandon champagne flowing, and eight different canapés including the most delicious prawns for our guests to snack on. Our string quartet played music we had already chosen whilst our guests enjoyed themselves and mingled with others.
Wedding Dinner
After the cocktail hour we made our way inside to enjoy a wonderful six course 1 Michelin Star meal including lobster cooked in coral butter, and a rack of lamb in a delicious sauce. The tables we decorated with flowers, personalised Laduree macarons for each guest, and beautiful oyster shells with each guests name hand written in calligraphy. Our table numbers were painting of our favourite Laduree macarons on a gold leaf oyster shell, corresponding with the table plan sign so everyone knew where they were sitting.
Halfway through the meal was when Aaron did his speech, followed by my dad, then Aarons brothers who were his best men. The wine was freely flowing and we had relaxing music played in the background, complementing the incredible view from the restaurant.
Cutting of the Cake
After dinner we all headed back outside to cut the cake which was covered in trailing flowers and created by Patisserie LAC which is a lovely place to visit for different patisseries and you’re ever in Nice, France. We had a couple of layers with different flavours which included:
Fraiser – Genoise sponge with vanilla bean cream and fresh strawberries.
Craquelin – Composed of a 66% creamy Caribbean dark chocolate mousse whose taste is sublimated by the puff pastry praline and its chocolate biscuit.
Guérande – House classic consists of a 66% dark chocolate mousse, roasted apples with butter caramel, a caramel milk ganache and fleur de sel all deposited on a delicious almond biscuit.
The End of the Evening
As we had all already eaten so much, we decided to have the cake packed into little boxes for all our guests to take away with them, but before the end of the evening we had our first dance followed by last celebrations with our friends and family. At the end we walked everyone to the taxis at the front of Eze Village and it was so lovely to walk back through the empty village with Aaron as we made our way back to Chateau Eza where we relaxed and reminisced on the day from our jacuzzi on the balcony.
There are many more wedding related posts to come, but I thought it would make sense for the first post to be an overview covering the highlights of the day before going into more detail.
Rebecca x
