Au printemps dernier, Jules et Jools nous embarquaient dans un tendre tête à tête londonien . Aujourd'hui, nous les retrouvons en Provence, entourés de leurs familles et amis pour célébrer leurs voeux. Une semaine au soleil à Gigondas, en plein mois de Juillet. Pour leur mariage, ils avaient rêver d'un bel endroit dans le Sud de la France, d'emmener leurs plus proches vers une destination hors du temps.
Avec les belles images de Neupap Photography , Jules & Jools nous en disent plus...
LA RENCONTRE
" We met at the wedding of our mutual friend Caroline, two years before we got married. We were seated next to each other at dinner. When we started talking, we realised that we had grown up in the same area, and had lots of similar interests.
LA DEMANDE
We got engaged in Hay-on-Wye. It is a a beautiful countryside area in the UK. We went for a walk up a big hill/mountain and had taken a picnic and a bottle of champagne. I thought we were celebrating a year since our first date, but Jools proposed to me then! It turned out that he had asked my father a month before, and had been planning this for a while !
LE LIEU
We were so lucky to have found the most beautiful wedding venue. Villa Theophile is located in a beautiful part of Provence, and is beautifully decorated with immaculate gardens and a swimming pool. It is perfect for a wedding, but we were actually the first couple to hold a wedding at the venue. We were lucky to receive a lot of support from the wonderful owner Phillipa and her husband, along with the caretakers Ian and Jon. We rented the house for a week, which had eight bedrooms, so our close family and bridal party were able to stay. The ceremony, cocktail reception, dinner and band were all outside in the grounds of the house. This meant that we could have a very relaxed and informal wedding.
LES PREPARATIFS
We found our venue, our photographer and our band ourselves online. We were glad that we took the time to add our own personal touches, to make our wedding really special. We made all of the decorations ourselves in the UK and brought them over on the Eurostar with us! All of the invitations, order of service and menus were designed by us as well. We were lucky that we had so many friends and family staying at Villa Theophile to help us to decorate it on the day. It was amazing to see our ideas come to life on the big day - they helped with laying the tables, arranging the flowers, putting up the photographs, the signs and the hired furniture !
LE JOUR J
On our wedding day it rained. for most of the morning. We couldn't believe our bad luck, because it had been beautiful weather all week, and we wanted to escape rainy London and have a sunny summer wedding! We were lucky that the showers stopped and the sun came out in the afternoon, so that we could continue to have our wedding outside as we had planned. We were very pleased with the caterer that we used for our wedding - Bruno from Chef@home, and a lot of people commented on the delicious provencal food, especially the canapes. Our celebrant Virginie from Unique Ceremonies was amazing, and took a lot of time getting to know us, in order to make our ceremony really personal. We had a few skype conversations and knew that she would work well with us. Our table decorations and flowers were delivered by our generous florist - . We sent her pictures and diagrams to explain what we wanted to achieve, and despite the language barrier she produced exactly what we wanted. We found the band - Orange Trio , via google. It was a risk as we had never seen them before. They played during cocktail, and then after dinner. Everyone loved them, and the whole party was dancing until the last song (and asking for more !)
LE BUDGET
Weddings are expensive! Unfortunately you spend a lot of money on boring but necessary things, like furniture and toilets! Because of the area we were able to afford much nicer food and drink than we would have done if we had married in England. All of our guests travelled from outside France, and so we were happy to spend a bit extra to stretch our celebrations into three days, and make the most of the beautiful venue.
MEILLEUR MOMENT
The day went so quickly - and we don't have one best memory. instead, we have a number of great memories in the preparations, the ceremony, cocktail, dinner and party. Having so many close friends and family to celebrate our day with us was a highlight. We were pleased that we had three days of celebrations so that we could have a chance to properly talk to our guests and enjoy ourselves !
SI C'ETAIT A REFAIRE
There's not much we would change ! We had the most amazing day. But if we were to do it again, we would get our photographer Didier to photograph all three days of our wedding celebration. We had a cheese and wine tasting party the evening before (led by Olivier Hickman at Wine Uncovered), and a pool party BBQ the day after. our friends took some good pictures, but it would have been great to have had more. We love the pictures of our wedding day that our photographer Didier took ! Also, we read that many people wish they had a videographer on their wedding day - it is expensive, so we didn't. But if we were to do it again then we probably would ! "
Jeu de briques
Snake
Pacman
Bubble