Operations Manager Emily, who works in accountancy, married her love Adam, an Associate Directory within banking, on 11th May last year, at Chateau De Puissantut in the Gascon countryside in Southwest France.
As the couple are both big foodies who are continuously inspired by French cuisine, this drove their initial decision to get married in France. Once they had visited Toulouse, ate a ton of French food and driven through the beautiful countryside searching for Chateaus, they knew without doubt that they had found the most perfect location for their wedding after discovering this magnificent chateau.
Emily had a very specific aesthetic and colourway in mind and spent many hours, days and weeks on Pinterest with the help of her friend Stacey if Navy Tux events who was the couple’s wedding planner, trying to create the perfect mood boards. I always loved the aesthetic of French weddings so, I tried to keep that as the vision.
Chateau De Puissantut
We always knew that we wanted to get married in the South of France but, we never knew in which venue. We spent around a month looking at possible venues that we could visit beforehand, and we had narrowed it down to four chateaus.
We then travelled to the South of France and hired a car so that we could visit each venue and decide where our big day would be held. Chateau De Puissentut was the last of our venues to visit and it stood out from all the rest. Not only was the venue beautiful but the owners, Angela and DK, were incredibly accommodating and completely understood our vision from the get-go of our perfect day. After an in-depth discussion over a cup of coffee with DK and looking directly at the beautiful fields, we knew we had made the right decision of having our wedding at Chateau De Puissentut.
Our planner is also a great friend of mine, Stacey Koks of Navy Tux Events, and she was absolutely fabulous. Stacey helped us in every way possible to plan the most perfect imaginable and we couldn’t have done it without her.
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Bridal Beauty & Accessories
My veil was a bespoke piece designed and hand made by my dressmaker, Sue Bargh. The veil didn’t sit over my face, it was placed over the top of my pinned bun.
My shoes were Steve Madden Milano Sandal Bont Patent Heels.
I am obsessed with all Byredo products and Byredo Super Cedar is by far my favourite fragrance. Cedarwood is my favourite ingredient in a fragrance and this is perfectly balanced with a floral rose scent.
I kept it really simple with the jewellery I wore and only ever wanted a gorgeous pair of earrings as a had my hair pinned up. I recall looking for months and finding nothing before remembering that my mother-in-law had these beautiful pair of rutilated quartz earrings that she bought from Harrods years before.
She kindly lent me these for the day which were the perfect addition to my wedding wardrobe.
The Bridal Party
My bridesmaids wore satin green slip dresses from Warehouse that are sadly no longer available. They also wore white two strap heels from Public Desire. They wore the green aventurine necklaces from Daisy Jewellery
My flowergirl wore the Estelle dress from Monsoon and a pair of white sandals. The page boys wore beige linen shorts and white shirt from Next. Their sandals were mini boys brown RI cage sandals from River Island.
The Groom
Adam wore a beige linen/cotton mix suit purchased from Hawkes and Curtis. He also wore Le Labo – Santal 33 aftershave which was a wedding gift that I bought Adam especially for our wedding day.
Fragrance is something extremely memorable; people have scents that take them back to a memorable time or experience and this was definitely the case with this fragrance. Even when he wears this fragrance now, it takes us both back to our big day.
Flowers
Our floral designer was Phill Greenwell of Maison De Shuppes. We chose neutral and pastel colours such as cream, lilac, pale pink and greenery for our flowers to tie in with the current aesthetics of the Chateau, we didn’t want anything too bright to veer away from the simplicity of our wedding décor.
We had hints of bright orange for the groom and groomsmen which really stood out against the neutral suits. Our flowers were absolutely beautiful and working with Phill was a blessing, we had a few calls and he completely understood our vision for the day.
Photography
We chose Jonathan Continente to photograph our wedding, because his style of photography was exactly what we had imagined for our big day, his photos were professional but extremely personable and intimate. Once we had spoken with Jonathan and he completely understood that we didn’t want our wedding photos to be forced, we wanted them to be completely natural and captured effortlessly throughout the day, we knew he was the perfect person.
I would most definitely recommend Jonathan as a photographer, not only was he amazing to work with and blended in perfectly throughout our day, he captured every moment and more that we could of wished for.
How They Met
Myself and Adam met when we were younger and had been in a relationship for six years prior to getting engaged. We got engaged on the Queens Park Bridge in Handbridge which is a five minute walk from our home over a bottle of champagne and traditional fish and chips. It was completed unexpected from my part but, it was perfect.
We were engaged for three years prior to getting married, we were originally supposed to get married in May 2021 however, COVID prevented the original plans and we pushed our wedding back to May 2022. Nevertheless, it was worth the wait!
Reception, Decor & Detail
Our wedding cake was a beautiful pièce montée filled with vanilla, pistachio, chocolate and lemon choux pastry profiteroles and topped with spun sugar around the tower.
We kept things simple and French so left a lot of the venue as it was with a focus on flowers and family. For the ceremony which took place in the Pigeonnier, we had hanging baskets of flowers and simple seating to keep it all about the couple.
The venue also have a barn used for the evening which was decorated with vintage rugs, fairy lights and rustic furniture making it the perfect place to let your hair down into the early hours
We actually stumbled across a gorgeous patisserie when visiting Toulouse which I cannot recall the name of, it was run by a lady called Ann-Marie who created our masterpiece.
Entertainment
We hired Aquarius Strings for the evening entertainment. Our first dance track was Helium, by Sia. This was extremely difficult for us because we never really had a ‘song’. We’re both fairly strong and independent individuals but, everyone has their down days and we always spoke about how when one of us isn’t feeling so strong and positive that, the other would pick you up and carry that weight.
Unknown to anyone else, there was an occasion in our evening do where we selected ‘Honey’, by 070 Shake to be played which is one of our favourite songs when were together. We have spent so much time dancing and joking around to this song with one another in the house and at events so, I would say this really was our ‘first date’ track and it felt even more special because we weren’t centred in the middle of the dancefloor whilst everyone was watching, we were just in the midst of our wedding party spinning each other around and laughing. It was great fun.
Favourite Moments
If I personally had to choose, it was in the morning when the remainder of our suppliers were arriving to complete the finishing touches, our guests were getting ready and having welcome drinks and Aquarius Strings were playing the most beautiful string covers in the courtyard. This moment felt like a fairytale and I couldn’t believe the day had finally come.
We wouldn’t have changed a thing, we originally had doubts of having such an intimate wedding of only 24 guests but in the end, it was perfect. There really isn’t anything that we would of changed.
Words of Wedded Wisdom
Don’t stress and if you do stress trust me, everything will work out and it’s all worth it in the end.
I would always suggest sticking with your gut feeling when deciding on plans and a vision for your big day, I’m so happy that I never veered away from my original vision because I think it can fog what you originally had in mind. It’s so easy to look at other couples weddings and start thinking about ‘oh but, I don’t have this and I never did that’ but, it’s not about anyone else and their vision, its about you two and exactly what works for you and your big day.
I spent a lot of time on Pinterest looking at wedding inspiration as opposed to Instagram or pages, I felt there was a lot more variety in ideas on Pinterest whereas certain Instagram pages or websites would have specific looks only that I wasn’t really looking for.
Our original budget was between £20,000 – £30,000 and we spent around £28,000.
We tried to keep the costs reasonable because it is so easy to overspend and start changings and purchasing additional things prior to the wedding but, we were both fairly controlled when it came to our budget.
