Real Bride Caroline - 1 year wedding countdown

It’s Friday and we are delighted to welcome back real bride Caroline on the 1 year wedding countdown to her big day! Last time Caroline shared how they had found and shared their wedding venue in France, and if you haven’t red it you can catch up here. Caroline shares her wedding planning story on the blog below…..

Wedding day – 1 year, I can finally start counting the days without looking like a crazy person yeaaaaah

I’m saying that because most of the time when people discover that you are “already” preparing your wedding, most of them are surprised and wondering what’s wrong with you 😂 But I think that marrying in Provence is spicing up the challenge because people come from all over the world to marry there (like in Toscana for example which is also one of the “romantic” popular destination). This is why you simply cannot afford to plan things in a “reasonable” time. Indeed, wedding providers get booked more than 1 year in advance there 😱

But, I’m happy to tell you that thanks to my “early bird” technique, preparations are going well !

We have now booked a band for our cocktail that we found after listening hundreds of them on the LiveTonight website. From my side, I always dreamed about a Jazz band for my wedding cocktail/diner. I think that I have been marked for life since I saw Jessica Rabbit singing 😍 . However, my Fiancé was more for an acoustic group. Oh oh, first wedding organization couple disagreement 😬

So… as we had different ideas about the topic, we decided to select our 2 favorite bands in each category (Jazz and Acoustic) and to listen to them again and again while imagining being a guest at our wedding cocktail. Indeed, the place and the occasion are two decisive factors while choosing a band. The style of the music has to fit with our party location in Chateau de la Garde´s garden and you don’t want your guests to feel like they are at a concert and being totally absorbed by an “over-present” band. However you still want the band to be present enough to animate your guests and bring them slowly into a party mood. So, as you can see, it is all a question of balance and also whether you still like the band after listening to it in loop 😅

In the end, this is how we decided ourselves for JazzMood, you can find some extracts of what they play on their YouTube channel “Heaven, I´m in heaven…” I can’t stop singing I love it so much 😍😍😍). They are an exceptionally talented jazz group and we are sure that they will bring the perfect light and happy touch that we are looking for our wedding cocktail 🥂🎶🥂. We hope that our guests will appreciate our musical choice and that the ambiance will start from the cocktail on 🎉💃🕺

We also found a photographer and a videographer who will come from Spain just for us 🤩 ! I found them while watching videos of weddings which already happened in Chateau de la Garde on Vimeo and I totally felt in love with their work. I needed to have them as well, like NOW‼️So I checked their Instagram account and contacted them. They are actually a couple who is used to work together for years so it is just perfect👌. I feel also very reassuring that they already know our wedding location, I think is a big + and their work is just gorgeous so I´m really looking forward to play the model for Eztiphoto ! 📸👰🏼🤵

After having booked the band and the photographer, it was time to pass to the next big step i.e. the wedding stationery. So at the moment, my Fiancé and I are looking for a Save the Date to send to our Germany located guests in priority as we want them to be able to find affordable flights. A Munich-Marseille flight should be around 180€ but sometimes you can find better offers so the sooner the better ! We expect that some of our Germany located guests will unfortunately not be able to come and celebrate with us in France because of the cost that it involves but we hope that they will be as few as possible🤞

Because of this specificity with the distance and the travelling costs, we have to hurry to choose our wedding stationery and it is not something to do thoughtlessly because it kind of launches the “theme” of the wedding. I feel like at least the colors and the style (romantic, minimalist, elegant etc.) of the Save the Date and the actual wedding decoration on the D-day have to match. However…, as we are still hesitating between peach/baby blue and peach/pastel green for our wedding colors, this is why we haven´t been able to choose a Save the Date yet 🙈🙃

Oh and besides that, I still have to sound out the market to find a hair stylist, a make-up artist, a decorator florist etc.

Finally, on the Church’s side, I have some positive news…, I have been in contact with the Priest from a Church over the Marseille harbor, beautiful ! Of course, I would have wished to find a Church nearer to our party location (it is now about 45 minutes away) but it was not possible and I am happy to marry in the city where I come from and to offer our guests a small taste of Marseille with a beautiful view on “le vieux port” 🤩.

I should meet the Priest during my next trip to France at the end of June, hopefully I can secure the date and time slot of the wedding with him during that visit.

Although the Church wedding time slot is still under discussion between my Fiancé and I (again a wedding organization disagreement ??? 😂). Indeed, we were thinking to start at 16h (or at 15h if you listen to my Fiancé) knowing that the ceremony should last maximum 1 hour, then we would have around 30 minutes in front of the Church to greet everyone and take some pictures. So at 17h30 we would leave for the Château de la Garde which is 45 minutes away i.e. we would arrive there at 18h30 the latest. However in the meanwhile my “Husband” (at that time 🤗😍) and I should be able to find 30 minutes to take some couple pictures during the famous “golden hour” and only after that, we will join our guests and start the cocktail at 19h.

As you can see it is quite tight as we would also like that our guests have time to pass by their hotel and quickly check-in which is why we are still hesitating to start between 15h (👎) or 16h (👍😂). Nothing is fixed, yet, but I think that we won’t be far from that initial schedule. It is a real brain teaser this wedding day time table because you always worry about letting too much (or not enough) time in between each step so the guests don’t feel bored/rushed.