The Planning

DESIGN / VIBE / VISION

When we started thinking about the location, it was easy to decide on the South of France as we love it and have always been spending a chunk of our summers there with Michael’s family. However, we had never visited Gordes before, but then we found Airelles’ La Bastide de Gordes and we were sold from the get go. It had all of the things we were looking for and more – elegance, the simple luxury feel and the pinch-me views over a gorgeous valley. One of the first things I did when we decided that we would have our wedding a year from the proposal was to create a presentation that included visual mood boards for each aspect of the wedding from the location, the drivers for each event, the stationery, the flowers and photography all the way to details about our own as well as our families’ attires. The overall keywords were: intimate, timeless, effortless & chic with a fresh touch of the la dolce vita vibe. When I went over this with our incredible wedding planner, Aurelie, and our talented floral designer, Elise, they immediately understood our vision and were fully aligned. They embraced and embellished all of our ideas and brought them to life through gentle chic and playful floral arrangements for the aisle set up, the ceremony arch, cocktail bar, the tables setting, and made sure everything worked in harmony with the chairs, the plates, the glasses and all of the other details.

PROPOSAL STORY

Michael proposed on August 12, 2020, in Chianti, Tuscany, Just between the two Covid waves, we were able to get out of London and went to spend a month in the sunny South of France followed by a week in Tuscany. After a few days of exploring Firenze, we went to the Chianti region and Michael had arranged for us to stay at what I found, when we arrived, one of the most beautiful and serene places. It was set right in the heart of Chianti, overlooking endless vineyards and the city of Siena. On our last evening there, we went down for aperitivo and after being extremely particular about where we should sit, Michael asked if I wanted to go for a walk to take some pictures of the sunset over the hills. As I was walking behind him, all of a sudden, he stopped and went down on one knee holding an engagement ring box and started reciting this beautiful speech that I made him repeat after because I was too shocked to hear anything the first time. It was just so natural and perfect. Just the two of us and a magnificent sunset setting over the vineyards and olive groves of the Tuscan hills.