Today, we are whole heartedly celebrating the first day of spring with a sunshine filled, crazy beautiful wedding in Provence. We have the South of France, an open marquee, lots of bunting, a vintage citreon 2CV, and a cheesecake (no… an actual cake made of cheese)… hows that for amazingness so far? Add Kathryn from Sages Comme des Images to the mix for beautiful photographic evidence and you’ve pretty much got what i’d call an ideal situation here – but I’ll let you be the judge of that !

Aoife was born in the UK but moved to Ireland when she was 16. She met Jamie on the first day during morning hymns at the chapel. They now live in South Africa so we were really intrigued to find out why it was this globetrotting couple chose France and Aoife was more than happy to tell us…“We would have loved to have our wedding in Kerry on the West Coast Ireland. The cost (we think there would have been over 350 guests turning up), the weather and the logistics of planning a wedding in such a remote place in Ireland while we both lived in South Africa deterred us. A great friend of ours Cat, has a house in the Luberon Vally in Provence and we have been lucky enough to be invited several times and we fell in love with the rolling hills and the villages perched steep on the cliffs and hilltops. We also have a healthy love for good food and wine! We love the country markets, the warm friendly people and the sunshine!! When it came to planning our wedding we knew that we wanted more time with our family and friends as we don’t get to spend enough time at home as it is such a long haul journey from South Africa. If we married at home we would have had 1.5 days of time with everyone but in France we got over a week so it was an easy decision. We had people travelling from Ireland, UK, Canada, USA, Hong Kong and of course South Africa and everyone stayed at least 4 days and most a week or more. We chose to honeymoon with family and friends afterwards to prolong our time together also and along with having the wedding in France, it was the best decision we made.”

And the proposal?“Jamie whisked me away for my birthday weekend to one of our favourite places in South Africa, Franshoek. We went to a wine farm where they had prepared a beautiful picnic basket for us which we set out by the river. Jamie was in a terrible rush to finish lunch and I got a little suspicious. He said he had something for me and took out a beautiful tiny snail shell and a smooth stone that I had given to him on the beach in Kerry years ago and he had kept ever since. Then he gave me 12 green envelopes. The first had a picture of us at a party where we first kissed and the rest progressed through the years, our favourite moments together in our favourite places, until I got to the last envelope. When I opened it there was simply a piece of white card with a question mark on it. He said told me it was to fill with a picture from this weekend and then wobbled up to one asked knee and me to marry him!! I cried a lot of happy tears, said “about time” until he eventually reminded me I had to say yes. Which I did!”
The important job of choosing the shoes…
Good choice going for the red Aoife! So much fun and so bright in the sunshine.

France is one of my favourite countries in Europe. There are so many beautiful towns all over but the Luberon Valley is pretty spectacular. The villages, some of which are over a thousand years old are so picturesque but the town that Aoife and Jamie were married, Roussillon is nearly unique. Ochre mines can be found below the village of Roussillon and the orange-red of the rocks in the mines, mirror the stunning colours of the houses in the village – see for yourself.


Another reason why I love France – the vineyards and the wine!

“The biggest challenge was planning from so far away! We started without a wedding planner but ended up getting one for the last four months which made life a lot easier. We were nervous that, as foreigners, we may not be able to get married in the church but Pere Basil and Madame la Mairie were fantastically welcoming and accommodating and I think they really enjoyed the hundreds of our family and friends invading the tiny village!”

I’m a big fan of this cheese cake.. especially in France and served to guests along with some great local wine.

Todays wedding was such a pleasure for us to feature. Congratulations to Aoife and Jamie and big thanks to Kathryn from Sages Comme des Images for sharing her fabulous pictures of their wedding with us. Aoife and Jamie also hired a wedding planner, something we think is a really important thing to consider if you are planning a destination wedding. We are going to leave you today with some invaluable advice from the bride! Enjoy x“Get everyone involved!! Everyone wants to help and delegating is the best way to get things done. We got married in an old farmhouse and had 10 of the wedding party staying with us for the week before. Before I had even thought what jobs needed to be done they were miraculously done. I blinked and the lawn was mowed, the glasses set out, the name tags written. It was phenomenal to see everyone pull together. That and they got a great holiday in the sunshine with their best friends. The day of the wedding was also very hot sand if we could change anything, we would have had more water for guests. Also, don’t get sunburnt before the wedding – my bridesmaids we military in stopping me from getting strap marks!”

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