A Vibrant Wedding at Mas de Florette in Provence

Svetlana's preparations centred on the final details of dressing: her gown, shoes and veil. Arnaud prepared separately in the grey suit he would wear for the ceremony.

It was the beginning of a day in which both would eventually change their look, saving a second outfit for the evening celebrations.

Provence was chosen in large part because it allowed Arnaud's grandmother to attend. With much of his family already living in the region, it meant an important generation of the family could be present without a difficult journey elsewhere.

She was among the roughly eighty guests gathered at Mas de Florette for the ceremony.

For a couple whose lives had already crossed France, Russia and Switzerland, the wedding continued that mix instead of setting it aside for the day.

Svetlana wore a full-length gown with a fitted bodice and long veil for the ceremony. The veil was particularly prominent in the outdoor portraits, lifting in the wind and later wrapped around the couple during their golden-hour photographs.

Her bouquet followed the colourful direction she had chosen for the wider wedding rather than introducing a separate bridal palette.

The portraits moved between the gardens and open landscape surrounding Mas de Florette.

After the ceremony, Arnaud and Svetlana stepped away from their guests for portraits around the property.

There was little staging required beyond the landscape itself. They walked through the fields and along the stone paths surrounding Mas de Florette, with the later images catching the warmer light towards the end of the day.

The least formal moments came through clearest: the two of them walking, laughing and embracing rather than holding a fixed pose. Golden hour ended the sequence with Svetlana's veil pulled around them.

The ceremony outfits weren't intended to last all night.

Arnaud began the wedding in a grey suit before changing into a checked three-piece for the reception. Svetlana also left her ceremony gown behind and changed into a simpler dress for the evening. It meant both had a second look for the party, more relaxed than the grey suit and gown of the ceremony.

As daylight disappeared, the celebration moved into an outdoor dinner beneath strings of lights. The reception carried the ceremony's colour into the evening: bright flowers stayed on the tables, joined by candlelight, gold details and personalised place settings.

For around eighty guests, it became the main gathering point of the evening before Arnaud and Svetlana cut their wedding cake and moved into dancing. By then, both were in their second outfits, the tables were candlelit, and the formal part of the day had given way to the party.

Svetlana didn't want a neutral Provençal palette. She asked for vibrant colour and flowers in full bloom, and that decision carried from the ceremony into dinner.

The ceremony arrangements brought stronger colour into the surrounding landscape, while the reception tables combined pink and orange flowers with gold cutlery and individual place cards. The flowers were not a background accent; colour became one of the most visible elements of the wedding.

Against the stone buildings and surrounding landscape of Mas de Florette, the brighter palette gave the celebration a distinctly different direction from the whites, greens and muted neutrals often used for weddings in Provence.

The same attention continued into the smaller details: stationery, jewellery, perfume and Svetlana's shoes, and a dessert table filled with individual strawberry tarts.

Mas de Florette is a Provençal stone farmhouse in Lioux, in the Luberon area of Provence.

For Arnaud and Svetlana, getting married in Provence wasn't simply a decision about landscape. Much of Arnaud's family lived in the region, and marrying there meant his grandmother could be part of the wedding.

The property then provided the different settings the day itself needed. Gardens and open countryside for portraits, outdoor space for the ceremony, and a reception that continued outside after dark.

In a region with many wedding venues in Provence chosen for landscape and architecture alone, this wedding began with a more practical question: where could the people who mattered to them actually be together? Mas de Florette gave them that place.

Beyond the ceremony and portraits, the wider group who travelled to celebrate with them shows up throughout the gallery. Guests gathering on the lawn, a bridesmaid joining Svetlana in the fields, dinner after dark and the final move into the party.

What carried through the whole day was the reason Arnaud and Svetlana chose Provence in the first place: not the landscape, but who it let them bring together. Eighty guests, Russian traditions, bold flowers and two changes of outfit all followed from that one decision.