Chic & Romantic Multicultural Chateau Wedding In France

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Photo by Storyett Photography via Bridal Musings

Simon and Sitara’s chateau wedding in France was a beautiful celebration of cultures (French and South Indian) featuring an abundance of macaroons and Ladurée inspired typography, a racing green vintage car, and even a surprise flash mob choreographed dance routine by their guests!

Simon and his groomsmen looked dashing in royal blue accessorised with fun scrabble cufflinks while Sitara’s bridesmaids wore full length blush gowns teamed with mix and match bejewelled capes. And can we please talk about how gorgeous Sitara looks in her romantic, lace sleeved, full skirted Augusta Jones wedding dress? Just heavenly!

Emotive photos by Storyett Photography tell the story of their day perfectly.

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How They Met

I was studying in Madrid in 2010 and fully taking advantage of all that the vibrant city had to offer. I loved the culture and instantly knew I had fallen in love with Madrid. But I had no idea that it wasn’t just the city that I would fall in love with.

During a night out with my friends I came home to a complete surprise. There was a man in my flat I had never met. For some reason, my first reaction was to notice his hair: it was remarkably curly and stood proudly tall. That instant I started giggling at my own thoughts – here I was in my apartment with a stranger and the main thing I noticed was his hair! After clearing the confusion and jogging my memory I came to the realisation that Simon was, in fact, my new flatmate from France, who had moved in a bit earlier than expected. We hit it off immediately and soon started dating, with Madrid being the perfect city for our mini-adventures. It wasn’t long until I found myself in his charming home village Cholet meeting his family and of course Simon meeting mine in London.

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The Proposal

I was going to Madrid for a Urology Conference in March 2015 and Simon decided to come with me. We took a walk down memory lane – down all of our favourite streets in Madrid and ended up in front of our old flat. It was raining and we were trying to take a selfie with our old street sign behind us. I was holding both the camera and the umbrella and so was finding it difficult to get a good shot. When I asked Simon for help to press the button with his free hand he brought out the ring in front of the phone instead! He couldn’t found a better place and moment, it was all so very us and outside that very special place where we first met.

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The Wedding

We knew from the get go that our dream wedding would be held in France. We chose the exact location of Cholet as that is where Simon is from and the Loire Valley is a beautiful region and so quintessentially French. We wanted to have the wedding in France not only because Simon’s grandparents could attend, but so we could share his French culture and my love of it with our friends and family from England and India. This way it was also a holiday for so many our our friends and family.

The wedding was over three days, so we felt that we had time with our guests rather than it being over in a flash. What made it so special was the marriage of two very different cultures – French and Keralan – but also religiously with the Syrian orthodox church and French Catholic traditions in the ceremony.

It was particularly touching to see all of our guests in their Indian outfits on the Friday and really enjoying wearing them. We also loved that our French friends were so enthusiastic about doing the traditional chant of ‘Nada Nada’ !

I also loved that Simons dad had a vintage car for us – it was really sweet having my father in law driving us.

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Photo by Storyett Photography via Bridal Musings

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The Special Touches

Our wedding day was celebrated with 140 of our friends and family who flew in from all over the world to celebrate with us for three days. The details we wanted for our day represented our heritage and where a little tribute to all things french. For instance, our gifts to our immediate family were in macaroon gift boxes with personalised gifts and notes.

We had such a cute surprise when our friends did flash mob – my bridesmaid is a choreographer and this was the funniest surprise she could have done for us.

I really loved our ceremony which celebrated our Catholic-Indian cultures and as Simon’s brother is a professional Flamenco guitarist he played such beautiful music that we were all in awe – we really couldn’t have had a more beautiful day.

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The Photography

Neda of Storyett Photography’s work is beautiful and we were impressed with how she catches raw emotion in an endearing way. What struck us more though was her absolute passion for wedding photography and how she interacted with us. She definitely created a wonderful experience for us. We knew we would feel comfortable having her around on the day and she worked tirelessly to produce the images we dreamed of. Her beautiful mannerism with our friends and family made our very popular and looking through our photos I can tell how relaxed and natural people felt being photographed by her.

The Videography

Simon and I cannot thank Corlaie of Wedd Fish enough for capturing our beautiful day so perfectly. (Here is a link to their wedding film.)
From the very first email we received from Coralie I knew she was the one. She was very enthusiastic, sincere and accommodating to our three day wedding!
I cry every time I watch the video because it evokes such emotion and memories and nostalgia. She has also brought to life what the essence of our wedding was – the marriage of a couple, their families and friends from two very different cultures (French and Indian).

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Photo by Storyett Photography via Bridal Musings

Advice For Other Couples

Have a unique wedding celebration that shows who you are as a couple and celebrates you and your families.
Get one or two people involved heavily from beginning as they will be in charge during the day.
We were lucky our photographer Neda planned our wedding day timeline meticulously with us and built in little time cushions and planned a lovely flow alongside our planner.
Don’t ever leave anything last minute – imagine on your wedding day all you want is to relax and be pampered.
Make sure bridesmaids know what they are in charge of and what time they must be ready by.

Don’t check your phone!