Okay, who else took one look at that glorious photo of today’s couple seated under their fab floral canopy, in the middle of the breathtaking countryside of Provence, and has resolved to relocate their wedding to France, immediately? Just us?!.
Seriously, we are so in love with today’s Jew-ish wedding. Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Jeremy Blode’s photos are nothing short of magical – he took full advantage of the beautiful surroundings of La Verriere, an estate attached to La Chene Bleu winery, and don’t even get us started about that fantastic natural light!
Another thing we adore about this wedding? The way Jess and Octave combined their cultural backgrounds into the big day. The pair embraced Jess’s Jewish background with a Shabbat rehearsal dinner (complete with a surprise announcement!), a hora, and, of course, smashing the glass.
And the setting was a nod to Octave’s French heritage, as was their choice of a reading from Le Petit Prince in both French and English.
Jess, who looked stunning in her Jane Yeh wedding dress (chosen by Jess’s mother, without the bride herself even having tried it on!) and sweet flower crown, will take it from here…
How we met
Jess, the bride: We met in 2012 while completing our MBAs at Harvard Business School. It took over a year for Octave to convince me to go on our first date, but he eventually succeeded by proposing a weekend to visit a friend of his who was living in Barbados.
After business school, I wanted to return to Australia and Octave to Europe, so we compromised and moved to Singapore. Octave planned an elaborate proposal at the Rock Bar in Bali, flying my parents in from Melbourne to surprise me after the proposal.
We now have a 9-month-old baby daughter, Laila, and live in London.
A Winery in Provence
We got married at La Verriere, which is an estate attached to La Chene Bleu winery in Provence, France. There were several reasons that we chose the venue. Firstly, it is not a typical wedding venue and has thus far hosted only two weddings, ours and the wedding of my husband’s sister.
Second, it is in a quaint town far from the hustle and bustle of daily life, which meant we could turn our wedding celebration into a full weekend of activities.
Finally, it is breathtakingly beautiful. We were set on getting married under the gorgeous blue oak tree, which is synonymous with the property and the winery, the moment we laid our eyes on it.
A Surprise Announcement
We wanted the wedding to be casual and fun, not stuffy. We also wanted to blend our two cultures, half Jewish and Australian, half French. We had a “Shabbat” dinner for our rehearsal dinner, which included prayers and a small speech about why Shabbat was an important tradition that I hoped to continue with my family. We also chose the Shabbat dinner as the time to announce that I was three months pregnant, which was definitely one of the highlights of the wedding.
My husband and I met at Harvard Business School, so we each chose our business school roommates to co-minister the civil ceremony. The ceremony included a reading of Le Petit Prince in both French and English, very personalized vows that we had written together, and Octave smashing a glass, something he was eager to do to acknowledge that Judaism now played a role in his life too. Even though our wedding was not a typical Jewish wedding, we couldn’t resist dancing the hora, which was another highlight.
A Wedding Dress Chosen by the Mother of the Bride
I really wanted something that was not typically bridal and that blended with the casual and fun theme. I found a perfect dress by Mary Katrantzou, which had a sweet heart shape and finished just below the knee. It was metallic, which felt a little bridal, and fit perfectly.
After purchasing the dress, I floated the idea of it by Octave, who seemed a little disappointed that I wasn’t going to be wearing white. I therefore decided to wear the Mary Katrantzou dress to the rehearsal dinner.
In the end, my mum found my dress at a bridal store in New Zealand. It was knee-length, simple, and the perfect blend of casual and fun. It’s not your typical bridal dress story, but my mum bought my wedding dress without me having tried it on.
A Flower Crown
I wore a flower crown, largely because I’m not really the veil or tiara type. My dress, which was short and simple, needed a little bit of flare. I discussed the idea of a flower crown with the florist we were using in Provence (Atouts Fleurs) and she took it from there. In the end, I was really happy with how it turned out.
The handsome groom
We were living in Singapore at the time we got married, so my husband got a suit made at a recommended tailor there. He wore a light blue blazer with white pants. He wore a navy blue mesh tie from Ralph Lauren. He had a cute little flower attached to his lapel that matched my bouquet.
Ceremony
We were married by two close friends, Alexandra and Rajiv. One was a tall blonde American and the other a short British Indian, so the two helped to further the multinational feeling of our wedding. Ali and Raj were each of our flatmates in the second year of business school.
My family has a tradition of describing people we have met as ice-cream flavors. We always say that we are happy to spend time with anyone that is not “plain vanilla.” Ali therefore tailored her sermon around ice-cream flavors – describing the mixing of Octave and my flavors together and the unique flavor that it creates. Raj went with a David Attenborough impersonation describing the moment that the flying Octoporous swooped in on the endangered Jessapus (or something like that).
My youngest sister, Courtney, sung me down the aisle, my middle sister, Lauren, read a Le Petit Prince passage in English. Octave’s sister Alice read the same passage in French. Octave played and sung Elton John’s “Your Song” on the piano, and Octave’s brothers and dad played “Massachusetts,” which was the state where Octave and I met, on a variety of musical instruments.
Our vows were also pretty special. They were definitely a mixture of jokes and serious things but perfectly reflected us as a couple.
I, Octave, take you Jess to be my wife. In doing so, I promise you these things:
Family will always come first: yours, mine and now ours
I promise to tell our kids that participating in sport is as important as winning, even if I don’t believe it to be true.
We will share all home responsibilities equally as we raise a BIG army of children
I promise to hold my tongue when you hyphenate words incorrectly
I promise to pretend that Melbourne is the center of the universe in the same way London is, when statistics clearly suggest otherwise
And, I promise to love you more tomorrow than I do today, forever and always.
I, Jess, take you Octave to be my husband. In doing so, I promise you these things:
Family will always come first: yours, mine and now ours
I promise to tell our kids that being a nerd is better in the long run than being cool, even if I don’t believe it to be true.
We will share all home responsibilities equally as we raise a SMALL army of children
I promise to hold my tongue when you hit the snooze button for the third in a morning
I promise to pretend that London is as livable city as Melbourne, even statistics clearly suggest otherwise
And, I promise to love you more tomorrow than I do today, forever and always.
A Family of Musicians
My sister Courtney sung us both down the aisle. Octave walked down the aisle to Over the Rainbow (Israel Kamakawio’ole). I walked down the aisle to Songbird (Eva Cassidy).
Octave has a family of musicians. Octave played Your Song (Elton John) on the piano during our ceremony. It was the first song he played for me on the piano when we began dating. Octave’s siblings and dad played Massachusetts (Bee Gees) in honour of the US state where Octave and I met.
Our song from the day we met was Rocky Racoon (Beatles). Weirdly it came up on our first or second date as each of our favorite songs. We have sung Rocky Racoon together a lot. However, it’s a really awkward song to dance to. Partly because it has lyrics about a bar fight and partly because it has a talking melody. I came home a month or so before the wedding and Octave had managed to edit the song into an almost danceable speed. We choreographed a hilarious dance, which included some Irish dance moves we had once been taught on a rooftop farm party in Brooklyn.
Flowers
We gave our florist a pretty wide brief – we wanted beautiful flowers that had a country-chic feel and blended with the broader Provence landscape. I also sent through a picture of a stunning floral arch that I had seen pictured in a magazine. Atouts Fleurs, the florist, was unreal. The floral arch she created was more beautiful than the original picture I had sent her. The flowers around the venue were simple and elegant and I loved my flower crown.
Our fabulous Photographer
The only thing that I really cared about was finding the perfect photographer to capture the day. This was difficult to find in a remote part of the country liaising in French, a language that I speak but not particularly well.
Thankfully, Jeremy Blode, an old family friend, reached out to say that he was travelling through Europe and to ask whether I would be interested in hiring him for the wedding. I didn’t even really need to look at his pricing structure or his portfolio to say yes. I had seen the magical photos that he had produced from several weddings that I had attended and knew that he would be incredible.
He managed to capture the day so seamlessly. My husband hates sitting and posing for photos, which I had told Jeremy in advance. Jeremy managed to capture hundreds of amazing shots around the vast property in less than an hour. This included several group family shots, which required coordinating more than twenty people per photo. Most of my favourite photos were taken in the moment – Octave and I dancing to Rocky Racoon, Octave smashing the glass, the crowd after hearing that I was pregnant, Octave being thrown up on a chair during the horas. Each time I look back on the photos, a small part of me feels like it is back in Provence reliving the most magical day again.
Wedding weekend
Friday night was very personal, with my pregnancy announcement. My two oldest friends from high school, Amanda and Vanessa, gave very personal and beautiful speeches. Each of our mums spoke, Octave’s predominantly in French and mine in English.
We woke up the morning of the wedding and convinced all of the wedding guests to go on a group walk around the beautiful medieval town of Vaison La Romaine. My dad made us order champagne and gelato on the walk and proceeded to whistle “I’m Getting Married in the Morning” from My Fair Lady the whole walk.
A Joint Speech by the Bride and Groom
My dad spent most of his speech giving shout outs to all of the countries in attendance at our wedding. We had people from close to 30 countries. Octave was born in Paris and grew up in London and NYC, I was born in Melbourne, we met in Boston, and we were at the time living in Singapore. This meant that we had friends from all over the place, which was incredibly special.
Octave and I did a joint speech. We spoke at length about our different backgrounds and the incredible role fate had played in bringing us together. We laughed a lot about how our first date involved a bus ride from Boston to NYC and then a flight from NYC to Barbados. It was elaborate but the only way that he had got me to say yes :). As we arrived in NYC, I realised that I had left my passport in Boston thereby ruining the whole weekend. He blamed me for doing it on purpose, I told him he was being ridiculous and then after some crying, we shared our first kiss after which we decided to change our holiday plans to spend four days in Washington, DC.
Silent disco
We had friends who had flown in from all over the world and we wanted the night to kick on. The grounds had a noise policy after 2am so from 2am-5am we organised a silent disco, which worked brilliantly.
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
Stay as relaxed as possible. Unplanned things will happen. The audio for our ceremony stopped working for 2-3 minutes; it was a much hotter day than we expected, which meant we had to push the ceremony back by an hour so that people were not standing in the boiling sun; one of Octave’s best friends missed his flight so had to do his speech on the Saturday night rather than the Friday night, but we just didn’t let it bother us. The day will be amazing irrespective of what happens. Don’t stress about the weather and the things you can’t control and just enjoy.
Jess & Octave’s little white book
Photography – Jeremy Blode
Venue – La Verriere
Bride’s dresses – Jane Yeh and Mary Katrantzou
Bride’s shoes – Prada
Groom’s sttire – Reizo and Ralph Lauren
Flowers – Atouts Fleurs
DJ – La Comtesse
Silent Disco – Silent Disco France
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