Before I got married, I used to read all the wedding blogs where brides gushed about how their wedding suppliers were 'fabulous' and ended up being 'like friends', and I never really understood. Surely the caterers / wedding photographer / florist were just good people doing the job you'd hired them to do? Now that I'm on the other side, I completely understand. I LOVE all my wedding suppliers. They were the BEST team ever, and this feature is all about gushing about their fabulousness. If you get married in Provence, or anywhere on the Riviera, you should definitely hire these people.
Kerry from Lavender & Rose Weddings
aka The Best Wedding Planner in the World. I can not gush enough about Kerry. She is amazing. I still don't think I have a full handle on how hard she worked on my wedding day, because she's like a swan - furiously paddling underwater, and magnificently smiley and serene above. Let's just say I had a lot of wedding details, and a very clear idea of where I wanted them to go, and she made everything perfect. And that's just the work she did on the day. In the months before my wedding she found us a caterer, a florist, a wine merchant and dozens of other suppliers {some of which I didn't use....hello synchronised swimmers for £5000 for one song??!}. She worked to our tight budget, and was unfailingly friendly and kind, even when things got tense. And when the Ash Cloud threatened to prevent all my guests from flying out from the UK, things really did get tense. I love her. You'll love her. Hire her. She's worth every penny.
Chloé Brown from Caught the Light
Another incredible human being. There's not many people in the world who are through-and-through nice people. Chloé is one of them. She's generous and charming and the perfect guest at your wedding. And she takes the best pictures ever. I'm still absorbing the fabulousness of our wedding photographs, and I'm thrilled we had two bites of the Chloé-cherry with our two weddings. Apparently some photographers clock-watch and charge you at every turn. Chloe is the opposite. Hire her too. She's based in London, but she's happy to travel.
Marrou
Fantastic caterers found for us by Kerry from Lavender & Rose Weddings. She negotiated a fab price for us, and on the day they turned up with all the tables and chairs and everything else needed for our wedding feast. The food was incredible, the serving staff charming and attractive, and they would have stayed till dawn for no extra cost. Beat that!
Stéphane Tévenin
Stephan is a brilliant florist. He's charming and kind and happy to listen to a bridezilla speak broken French to him for hours. French florists are often old-fashioned and like to do things 'their way'. Stephan is the opposite - he designed the flowers exactly how we wanted them, and didn't even take offence when we chose to buy the baby's breath at cost from the market. I say we - that was another job that Kerry did for us.
Quatuor St Jean
Our lovely string quartet, who played their hearts out and made our wedding sound beautiful. They were so good that some of the guests in the church thought that we were playing a CD! They're run by the lovely Jenny How who is Australian {English-speaking, yippee!} and hugely helpful with music choices and suggestions. Jenny even recommended her hairdresser, who made me very happy and my hair very beautiful.
Joel at Kératine in Aix-en-Provence
A lovely man, and a talented hairdresser, he also tolerated my broken French, and made me feel gorgeous for my wedding day. Love him!
Other Star Suppliers - Wine & Champagne: La Cave Aixoise {Puyricard: 04 42 92 06 83}, Wedding Dress & Veil: Delphine Manivet, Bride's Shoes: Halston Heritage, Bride's Eyelashes: Lash Lab.
Picture Credits: All the photographs by Chloé at Caught the Light
aka The Best Wedding Planner in the World. I can not gush enough about Kerry. She is amazing. I still don't think I have a full handle on how hard she worked on my wedding day, because she's like a swan - furiously paddling underwater, and magnificently smiley and serene above. Let's just say I had a lot of wedding details, and a very clear idea of where I wanted them to go, and she made everything perfect. And that's just the work she did on the day. In the months before my wedding she found us a caterer, a florist, a wine merchant and dozens of other suppliers {some of which I didn't use....hello synchronised swimmers for £5000 for one song??!}. She worked to our tight budget, and was unfailingly friendly and kind, even when things got tense. And when the Ash Cloud threatened to prevent all my guests from flying out from the UK, things really did get tense. I love her. You'll love her. Hire her. She's worth every penny.
Another incredible human being. There's not many people in the world who are through-and-through nice people. Chloé is one of them. She's generous and charming and the perfect guest at your wedding. And she takes the best pictures ever. I'm still absorbing the fabulousness of our wedding photographs, and I'm thrilled we had two bites of the Chloé-cherry with our two weddings. Apparently some photographers clock-watch and charge you at every turn. Chloe is the opposite. Hire her too. She's based in London, but she's happy to travel.
Marrou
Fantastic caterers found for us by Kerry from Lavender & Rose Weddings. She negotiated a fab price for us, and on the day they turned up with all the tables and chairs and everything else needed for our wedding feast. The food was incredible, the serving staff charming and attractive, and they would have stayed till dawn for no extra cost. Beat that!
Stéphane Tévenin
Stephan is a brilliant florist. He's charming and kind and happy to listen to a bridezilla speak broken French to him for hours. French florists are often old-fashioned and like to do things 'their way'. Stephan is the opposite - he designed the flowers exactly how we wanted them, and didn't even take offence when we chose to buy the baby's breath at cost from the market. I say we - that was another job that Kerry did for us.
Quatuor St Jean
Our lovely string quartet, who played their hearts out and made our wedding sound beautiful. They were so good that some of the guests in the church thought that we were playing a CD! They're run by the lovely Jenny How who is Australian {English-speaking, yippee!} and hugely helpful with music choices and suggestions. Jenny even recommended her hairdresser, who made me very happy and my hair very beautiful.
Joel at Kératine in Aix-en-Provence
A lovely man, and a talented hairdresser, he also tolerated my broken French, and made me feel gorgeous for my wedding day. Love him!
Other Star Suppliers - Wine & Champagne: La Cave Aixoise {Puyricard: 04 42 92 06 83}, Wedding Dress & Veil: Delphine Manivet, Bride's Shoes: Halston Heritage, Bride's Eyelashes: Lash Lab.
Wedding Venue: Chateau Grimaldi near Aix-en-Provence
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