Today we are celebrating our third wedding anniversary. Time flies and so much has changed since that day but it still feels like yesterday. It was definitely one of the happiest days of my life and such a magical day we got to spend with our family and friends in the city we love so much. I’ve been going through our pictures lately to finally make our wedding album (one of the many things that have had to wait during these hectic past few years), and thought to share the story of our wedding with you guys too. I’m going to write this only in English this time since it would just be too long with all the pictures otherwise, and perhaps this can be helpful for someone planning a wedding in Paris.
When we first got engaged, we weren’t sure what kind of wedding we wanted, something in Finland, a destination wedding or if we should just elope somewhere like New York or a remote island just the two of us. At the time of our wedding we had been living in Paris for five years, so France was definitely one of the easiest options to arrange. Paris was also the first place where we went on vacation together as two 19 year olds and we had spent so much time here during the years we had been together. Then one evening we happened to walk by this little Hotel Particulier right next to Seine, behind the Grand Palais, there was a party inside and it looked so cool that we just stood there for a while admiring and decided to look it up. One thing we always miss when living in this city is to have our friends and family here with us. So it was decided then, we wanted to arrange an evening like that and to gather our friends and families in Paris with us for one night.
One thing lead to another, we started looking at venues, my Pinterest went wild and we picked a date. April in Paris seemed perfect since we love spring time here and it’s always a start of something new, not to mention it’s also the season of all my favourite flowers! We saw quite a few places, venues at hotels and Hotel Particuliers, these mansion like houses you can sometimes privatise for your event, some more or less out of our budget. However, the first one we had found by accident just felt like the one. It had this beautiful Parisian charm, it would be privatised and you could stay there until dawn. At that point, our venue wasn’t marketed as actively as the other similar venues were, so we got a pretty good deal for our soirée. It was also very conveniently located just next to the American Church which is one of the only options for a church wedding in Paris for non-catholics.
Our wedding day started at this beautiful apartment we were getting ready at with my mother and bridesmaids. Meanwhile the groom was getting ready at a hotel with his two best men. I was so tired that morning because of hardly getting any sleep the night before and so nervous about the day that before champagne my amazing bridesmaids had to do emergency pick ups of multiple venti coffees at the Starbucks nearby. At 5pm we met at the church where we had the ceremony. My mother walked me down the aisle and my new sister in law read a traditional chapter in Finnish. After saying I do, her husband sang us Annie’s song. After the ceremony, our guests walked across the Seine to our reception venue where they had a cocktail hour while we went for a stroll at Palais Royal as newlyweds. By then I had forgotten about the anxiousness and was ready to enjoy the rest of our day.
When we first started planning the wedding, we met with some wedding planners but felt like they were not for us. The French ones were trying to sell us a French wedding with all their traditions and the foreigners had this typical destination wedding in Paris package they seemed very fixed on. We were sort of in between, we are not French but since we live in Paris, it sort of wasn’t a destination wedding either. Also, we already had quite a clear idea of what we wanted and had found some of the vendors ourselves. So at that point, we decided to just try and do everything by ourselves. But, since we are in France, where pretty much nothing ever goes as planned and as the wedding got closer we started to rethink the idea of hiring a planner or coordinator.
When I finally found Billy from Luxe Paris Events, what first draw my attention was the amazing flower arrangements he does. Amazing is not even a word to describe what he does, he’s more like a flower magician. Not only is he a planner but he also does the floral design and coordinating the event, seemed like a perfect combination to have one person do all of that instead of hiring a florist and planner separately. And I have to say, there is no way we could have pulled the wedding off without Billy. Ever since meeting him and his husband Paolo for the first time, he charmed us with his personality and it was clear we had found what we were missing. An American living in Paris with his Italian other half, a true artist couple making magic in the wedding industry, Paolo creating these amazing couture wedding gowns and Billy planning events. He has this amazing talent of bringing a modern, simple touch of luxury to the very decorative French interiors while still keeping it classic and sophisticated. They truly made our wedding so much more beautiful than we could have imagined.
I really love party planning and it was sort of hard for me to trust all the decorating part to someone else, but I couldn’t be at two places at the same time and wanted to enjoy the day of the wedding too. I know I may have caused Billy some nightmares about forks and knives during the planning process not to mention my multiple very detailed Pinterest boards that got a little out of hand, but I know I could not have pulled it off together more beautifully than they did so it was easy to trust him with such an important day in our lives.
And wedding planning is so much more than just making things look pretty, there’s so much work that goes into it and it would have been a lot to deal with arranging everything by ourselves right before the wedding. Unexpected things can and most likely will happen, like me having to go have emergency dental surgery a few weeks before the wedding, and having to spend quite a lot of time at the dentist office the weeks leading to the wedding. Or when our venue didn’t provide any of the linen they were supposed to the day before. Or when our venue decided to change the catering company starting from the month of our wedding, leaving all the menu options and tastings to the very last minute. Or Paolo helping us with some last minute touch ups on our outfits that suddenly weren’t fitting anymore etc etc. I don’t know how we could have coped dealing with all the last minute stuff without them, they are truly one in a million kind of people.
After the cocktail hour we had dinner upstairs at the main salons. The venue was very decorative itself so we wanted to keep all the other things simple and white. There were these gold and red chairs at our venue, which Billy changed to these clear ones giving the space a more modern look. For decorations we had mostly only candles and white flowers, which was perfect. Not to mention Billy’s signature flower cascade on the fireplace that I wish I could have taken home with me and kept forever. We ended up doing the menus and other stationary ourselves with the help of my friend and took them to a professional printer due to the late schedule with the tastings. In the staircase we had some wedding pictures from both our sides framed. After dinner and cake we moved to a separate area for dancing and the party continued until 6 in the morning. At that point our French Dj was probably so overwhelmed by all the random Finnish songs we had him play that it was best to return to our hotel.
After initially considering eloping, I’m so happy we decided to have this wedding and share our day with family and friends. I’m not really the kind of person who enjoys being the center of attention and having a big wedding seemed a bit scary at first. However, we got to experience such a magical night in Paris together with so many of our friends and family, will be forever grateful they took the time to travel to Paris for our special day. When we first started planning the wedding, we weren’t sure how many people would actually come and having almost everyone we invited show up, truly made our day so special. Hearing all the wonderful speeches our closest had prepared was something we will cherish forever.
Sometimes I wish we could live it all over, everything turned out so much more beautiful than I could have ever imagined and I wish I could go back and breathe it in one more time. But I know it was a once in a lifetime experience and am so happy I now get to share all the wonderful memories from that day with my best friend. Sometimes we still like to walk past our venue on Saturday nights and every time when there’s a party, we stop and watch for a while. But tonight, before we’ll have our traditional sushi dinner from our wedding china on the couch, the baby’s bedtime story will be about the time we had a party at the mansion facing Grand Palais.
Planning & Floral design: Luxe Paris Events
Photography: Ian Holmes Photography
Cinematography: MG Image
Venue: Hôtel Le Marois
Ceremony: American Church in Paris
Hair & Makeup: Harold James Paris
Bridesmaids hair: Modern Beauties
Bridesmaids dresses: J.Crew
Invitations: Tankerville Press
Calligraphy: Studio French Blue
Cake: Synie’s