Paris-Inspired Seattle Ballroom Wedding

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With royal blue, a towering croquembouche & plenty of bubbly, Pema and Brian turned their grand Seattle ballroom wedding into the prettiest Parisian fête.

Flying all your nearest and dearest from the Pacific Northwest across the world to France isn’t easy, and perhaps it isn’t even necessary. Admirers of all things French, the Seattlite couple decided to take all that they love from the city of light and create the ultimate Parisian-inspired wedding day celebration.

Our favorite French details? Likely the desserts (after all, the patisserie is the first thing I hit whenever landing in Paris!) Not only did the couple have a traditional wedding croquembouche made of a tower of choux, their wedding cake was decorated in French style with figs, grapes & berries.

And adding a little extra Parisian-chic is Pema’s cool leather getaway jacket, adding the perfect je ne sais quoi to the end of their Francophile day.

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Our Love Story

We met very serendipitously at a friends cabin on Camano Island, Washington.

We were hosting our annual New Year’s Eve party. That year it was hosted in a beautiful artists loft across from the piers and the dress code was black tie. As I (Pema) was getting ready, twenty-five of our friends had arrived early and were hiding. As I came out all of our friends were there and Brian had a guitar. Then he sang me a song and proposed.

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The Wedding Style

We wanted something timeless that we’d love looking back decades ahead of us. Pema grew up watching old movies (like Sabrina with Audrey Hepburn) and has a love for the timeless styles that hark back to more elegant eras. Also, we are both in love with everything Parisian.

The Dress & Attire

Elegant, timeless, mid-century, Parisian (see our bridesmaid dresses), with a flair of royalty, were my influences for attire.

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Favorite Moments

The ceremony was beautiful and very authentic to us. Also, having the band was a nice touch as the venue had a beautiful stage. Joining our cocktail hour to greet our guests was wonderful. Our gigantic long head table was beautiful and a highlight was our champagne escort card display. Also, our dessert table was a beauty!

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The Flowers

We wanted blues and pinks with a very organic shape for our flowers. They reminded me of what you might pick from a beautiful old French garden.

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The Wedding Cake

We had a beautiful three-tier buttercream cake with figs and berries as decoration – it was French-inspired.

Advice to Other Couples

If you don’t have a wedding planner, we think it’s really important to have a clear vision of what you want in theme (at least) while giving yourself some wriggle room in expectation versus execution. Our vision was pretty much the same from the start and we had a wonderful planner which was the best thing we did for our wedding. So if you are doing it yourself and don’t have a planner, it could exponentially become more frustrating to have to keep changing your vision since that could mean starting from zero.