Meet Mylène and Geoffrey—the power wedding planning duo behind White Eden Weddings. No, they didn’t just plan this gorgeous wedding you’re about to experience… they are the beautiful Bride & Groom. As they do with all of the weddings they design, they poured their heart and soul (with a little extra love) into this Big Day and they’re giving us the most incredible behind the scenes of every detail. With moments to live on forever, thanks to Tatyana Chaiko, Vicky Lamburn and Matthias Guerin, it’s without question a French Riviera wedding dream turned reality.
From the Bride… An enchanted interlude; this is to us what a wedding should be. When it came to our wedding, we wanted it to be an interlude for us, an interlude from the wedding season, and for our guests, we wanted it to be an unforgettable interlude, out of time, as many of them don’t live in Cannes and were traveling for the occasion.
In order to enjoy as long as possible this special day, we’ve had quite a unusual schedule for the day starting with early drinks & canapés in lieu of lunch around the pool to welcome our guests. This first part was entirely experience oriented! We just wanted everyone to spend a great moment and have time to greet our guests before the ceremony. Our rehearsal dinner the night before was only with our bridal party and very close family, so that was the perfect occasion to catch up with everyone.
We got engaged in December 2016 and we took a year and half to refine and think of every moment and every detail that would help build the perfect day. We are both very family oriented and getting married in Geoffrey’s grand parents’ home was very meaningful and very inspiring.
The ceremony… let’s talk about it! As destination wedding planners, we’ve seen and help creating many of them, but it was finally our turn, and God only knows why, we were stressing over it until the last minute! It turned out to be the most special, moving and magical moment of the day that no words can describe.
The ceremony happened in the middle of the afternoon and was sheltered by a ceiling made of flowers and greenery which created a very intimate and fresh space in the middle of the domaine’s garden. The ceremony itself was officiated by our witness, who happened to be the genius guy who introduced us six years ago, back in Moscow, Russia! It was punctuated by a peonies’ ritual (don’t even google it, it doesn’t exist, but we thought, why not creating our own ritual?). Peonies are our favorite flowers and we wanted it to symbolize our marriage by bringing together two beautiful ones in a vase which symbolized our union. The ceremony was followed by a sweet cocktail hour, literally! Ice creams, pastries & champagne were to us the best way to celebrate such an emotional moment until the sunset.
We wanted the reception to be great but a different experience for everyone. We wanted it to be glamorous but really fun! We had an alfresco dinner and party, overlooking Cannes bay which was simply the best thing we could have hoped for, and it was a blast! We played with our theme in order to create beautiful table arrangements, with tones of soft pink in the flowers and white & gold table setting displayed on bespoke linens.
Refined, bespoke & consistent. This is our line when it comes to style weddings and ours was no exception. We really are into details, and we pay attention to every single of them so they can create an overall consistent styling. From the choice of the linens to the exact foliage or even the escort cards’ table display, we wanted the decor itself to tell a story.
We truly love the place where we got married, not only because it’s sentimentally close to our hearts, but because it’s naturally really beautiful. We chose not to add much in terms of colors in order to let the beauty of the place express, so we went for neutral and soft hues, light blush, cream, and greens
As we both love music, we’ve had several bands and musicians throughout the day to entertain and create a nice atmosphere.
We hired a sketch artist, Märta Wydler to create both an entertainment for everyone (our guests loved coming back and forth watching the evolution of the painting and were so happy to see the finale result!) but also a unique piece of art for us.
In order to keep a great ambiance, we had a strolling band going from tables to tables playing on demand songs and getting the party started. Our amazing DJ Thomas Dusseune took over and got us dancing until 4am under the stars. It was truly the best day and party we could have hoped for!
I think that having designed weddings for years, we knew just how important the choice of who’s on your team really is! There’s nothing better to be confident and to know that everything will be perfectly handled on your wedding day by the vendors you’ve chosen. As wedding planners it was obviously a bit special for us as we have had the very best team we could dream of and several of them actually became friends throughout the years.
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Tell us anything and everything else you can think of! Inquiring minds want to know!
Ambiance Vision: We knew that our day schedule was not common and was longer than most weddings, so it was extremely important to entertain our guests and make them feel as comfortable as possible. We also know from our business, that atmosphere is the key and -to us- it’s useless to plan a beautiful wedding if you don’t have a great atmosphere and if everyone doesn’t spend a great day.
Cool/Fun/Quirky Details: Well… We can say it, we both are Swifties and have contacted Taylor Swift to ask if she was available to perform at the wedding (we knew she was in Europe at that time for her tour)! Her agent kindly told us it was not even possible to consider this as she wouldn’t take any extra performance during the tour (so we unfortunately wouldn’t be the extra date of her European trip!). However, knowing how destroyed we were (of course, just kidding) our witnesses have recreated Taylor’s Shake it off video clip featuring most of the guests of the wedding and they played it at the end of the dinner! Of course we weren’t aware of this; and if we usually are not big fans of video surprises during wedding, this one was an hilarious one and we really had so much fun!
Although we always encourage our couples to do their first dance, but we actually didn’t do ours! We went to dance classes, learnt waltz, rumba… but it just really wasn’t for us! Instead of stressing over this, we really bet on our entrance at dinner. And it was such a blast! Our song was « Baby » by Bakermat, we had a live saxophonist who played over the song, we went between all tables, high fiving everyone, everybody was dancing, clapping, having fun, we were carried by the enthusiasm and kindness, these were 5 amazing minutes and set the festive tone for the night. To us, much better than an awkward first dance!
Most memorable moment: The ceremony, definitely! A true, sincere and unforgettable moment! Every word was meant, every moment was joyful. We’ve had 4 speakers during the ceremony, our 3 witnesses and Mylene’s mom, each of them read speeches they had written themselves; it was simply moving, fun and kind. We wrote our own vows and from perspective, that’s the best decision we’ve made about our ceremony. So yes, it takes time and it’s a bit more stressful than classic vows, but 100% worth it. Besides, we’re so happy that we bought Elmo Paperstories’ stylish velvet vows books, they’re the best way to make sure you keep your vows after the wedding day and you can read them anytime you feel like it.
Photography: Tatyana Chaiko | Photography: Victoria JK Lamburn | Cinematography: Matthias Guerin | Floral Design: Mademoiselle Jules | Wedding Dress: Pronovias | Shoes: Harriet Wilde | Makeup Artist: Amandine Baron | Hair: Les Ciseaux De Marie | DJ: Thomas Dusseune | Groom's Suit: By Monsieur | Cocktail Hour Music: Becky And Belha | Dinner Music: The Jukes - Sounds of Riviera | Planning & Design: White Eden Weddings | Rentals: Options | Robes: Le Rose | Sketch Artist: Maerta Wydler | Vow Books: elmo Paperstories ltd.