Tartan inspired Bordeaux wedding

This is the Tartan inspired Bordeaux wedding of Chris & Mathilde.  Chris and his family are from Réunion Island and Mathilde’s are based in Paris – so people travelled from near and far to share in the celebrations.  As the location for their wedding they chose Chateau Bellevue Gazin in the Aquitaine region of France.  Mathilde’s grandmother is from that area so they wanted somewhere close to her.

Photographer Rachel Marsden captured the wedding and takes us through the big day: “I am based in Berlin but it was only a short flight to Bordeaux and I was invited to stay at the Chateau for two nights.  This made my job very easy as I could start shooting first thing in the morning up until the very early hours of the following morning.  The whole idea of their wedding celebration was that they wanted to celebrate with family and friends not be too formal about it. 

 The weather didn’t play nice. It rained all day so they had to move their ceremony indoors but this only added to the warm atmosphere.  We still managed to pop outside to the vineyard to take a few photographs before retreating back into the warmth of the Chateau and the vibrant celebrations. 

My photographic style is very much about documenting the day so the couple and their families can look back and see the full story of the wedding day with all it’s many personal details, emotions and moments.  Chris and Mathilde’s wedding was full of these wonderful moments.  Chris is the oldest of seven so there was a lot of family to photograph.

Chris chose to wear a Laxey Manx Tartan kilt to honour his Isle of Man heritage.  Getting the kilt meant a trip to the Isle of Man to collect it but it was well worth it.  The tartan colours represent blue for the sea, green for the hills, gold for the gorse, purple for the heather and white for the cottages.

There was plenty of entertainment and surprises throughout including games, hilarious quizzes for the couple, epic slideshows, trophies, speeches, dancing, cocktails, laughter, limbo and more dancing until the very early hours of the morning.  There was even a molecular cuisine demonstration.

Instead of having a traditional cake-cutting which they thought was too formal they had an array of delicious mignardises laid out for dessert.  There were many melt-in-your-mouth macarons and bite sized morsels that my taste-buds still remember fondly to this day.

For their dragées (wedding favours) they gifted their guests with a bottle of wine from the Chateau with a personalized label with a photograph taken during their engagement shoot in Berlin earlier this year. Anne-Sophie from the Chateau did an amazing job organizing the decorations and later in the evening what was earlier the ceremony location became a cocktail bar and dance floor. 

It was a truly epic wedding celebration where family and friendships were at the centre of the day.  I feel very privileged to have been invited to capture it on camera.”

Whilst many people choose to get married in Franc due to the weather, it does show that you should always have a wet weather plan!  There are so many wonderful elements to this wedding, but I also love Rachel’s portrait work of the wedding guests, just priceless capturing the emotion on their faces.

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Wedding Venue: Chateau Bellevue Gazin
Dress, shoes and accessories: Pronuptia
Photographer: Rachel Marsden