Bringing the French Countryside to the Shores of Bali

Erin Lepperd
September 29, 2017
Categories: Destination, Real Weddings, The Blog

When plans for a wedding in Provence fell apart, this couple turned lemons into lemonade and brought the French countryside (and a team of amazing vendors) to the shores of Bali. Incorporating the prettiest pastels, an amphitheater style ceremony overlooking the ocean and a petal toss bar designed by Call Me Madame and Bloomz Fine Flowers, this celebration is the perfect mash-up of these equally gorgeous locales. Pore through stunning images by Studio Ohlala and the cutest film by The Barefoot Bride.

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From the Bride…We had originally planned our wedding at a beautiful chateau outside Aix En Provence. I loved everything about Provence and how romantic the tones were, but when that fell apart it was such a blessing in disguise because we ended up with a Provencal wedding in Bali- which was a lot more of a personal, spiritual place for us. And I can’t imagine anything better than that. We had the whole package of pastel tones in the sea, the sky, and the flowers, the breathtakingly peaceful scenery, the magic of Bali, and to top it off an all french wedding team.

We had polaroids of all 90 wedding guests strung from the trees to make it feel more personal, lawn games, a pick your own petal confetti bar, donut wall, and my favourite which was the Splash Zone. It was a large canvas covered in white balloons filled with pastel and gold paints, and all guests got to throw a dart and help create an artwork. Later they signed the back and that was our guest book.

My favourite moment was definitely the ceremony. Our planner worked with Janice, from Bloomz Bali who could not have created a more magical setting. We had Mayan temple inspired arch, an aisle lined with blue and white chinoiserie vases filled with pastel pink and white flowers, and custom made pink, beige and blue and white linen pillows for guests to sit on, with a guitarist playing an acoustic version of the Little Mermaids “Kiss the Girl”- which was my favourite thing in the world because it was my husbands genius suggestion.

Our wedding venue was already the most beautiful place in the world, and was made even more so with all the beautiful details and flower arrangements. The staff at the Ayana Hotel were beyond expectation. For example they quickly realized that Joe liked tequila shots, so there was a waiter by him at all times with a full tray of shots, even on the dance floor! My gown was the most beautiful thing. I didn’t find myself to be the type to wear a big cinderella gown, and then I came across this Inbal Dror piece at Morgan Davies in London and immediately fell in love. It was simple in shape, which perfectly balanced all the beautiful detail. The whole piece glittered. I worked with my planner to help personalise the wedding favours. We had custom scented local soaps with coconut, rose and rose petals, local coconut oil, dried banana and chips, and tote bags with our wedding logo with gold foil labels. Our cake was essentially a naked victoria sponge cake, with an island touch in that the base was coconut. We can hardly get over how perfect our whole experience was. We had the best 2 weeks of adventures like river rafting and diving with manta rays with 90 of our favourite people in Bali, and just when we thought it couldn’t get any better the skies cleared, the sun came out and we had the most beautiful day of our lives. I’ve always heard and expected that little things will go wrong on your wedding day, but with our planner Alice from Call Me Madame it was literally flawless. Throughout the planning process she helped create the wedding of our dreams from the other side of the world without a single moment of stress or worry, and we’re so grateful for her. Most photographers in the region have a different style that doesn’t compliment the whole romantic provencal air we were trying to create, so we were over the moon when Alice suggested Saya from Studio Oh Lala in Paris, who also spends part of her year in Thailand and was exactly what we were looking for. Selecting the right photographer to capture your wedding is so important. We also found an incredible videographer in Kurt from the Barefoot Bride and between the two of them we had the best company and the most magically captured memories.

• What is one piece of advice that you could give brides-to-be? Have your wedding in Bali with Alice. I would also suggest to not stress on small details, and to have a friend remind you throughout the day to be present, because it really is the most beautiful day of your life and it’s so important to really be there. And if you need a summary of me and Joe;

Joe and I met 5 years ago through mutual friends in Los Angeles and immediately connected over mutual interests. I was living between London and Bahrain, and had been back visiting a year after graduating from university in Los Angeles, and although we lived on literally opposite sides of the world it was never an issue. We connected effortlessly and spend the next 5 years traveling around the world together laughing, expereincing and becoming even stronger partners, and now I’m lucky to call him my husband