Meet Your Team

MEET {Y}OUR TEAM

{ e s t . 2 0 1 3 }

With bookings for 2021 now rolling in, we’ ve now been a part of nearly 100 beautiful weddings.
Our work has been featured on Green Wedding Shoes, Wedding Chicks, Rock My Wedding, Love My Dress, Festival Brides, Whimsical Wonderland Weddings, La Mariée au Pieds Nu, and French Wedding Style blogs, as well as in print in
You & Your Wedding and Brides Magazine.

We’ve worked hard to build our business model on honesty, transparency, and collaboration over competition.
We value integrity and creativity above all else. We share information freely and we don’t believe in the hard sell, nor
commission-based partnerships. We’ re on a mission to help lift up and spotlight the super-talented and incredibly
hard-working wedding creatives we feel very honoured to work with every day.

We want to raise the standards and change the game for weddings in Southwest France.

We feel incredibly fortunate, season after season, to have more client enquiries than we can possibly take on – which gives us
the amazing luxury of getting to hand pick only like-minded couples whose style and vibe match up with our own,
and those projects we feel totally jazzed about. We take a creative, organic and entirely bespoke approach to working with each and every couple.

We get almost as excited about the tiny details of your wedding as you do, and by the time your big day rolls around
we’ ll feel like dear old friends.

{about us}

Creative Director

Bonjour!

Moving to Paris on a whim nine years ago changed my life. I’m an American transplant in the Dordogne (via California > Indiana > New York > Paris & the UK) So that gives me: A Midwestern work ethic with California style, and a touch of New York Drama and French flair.

I have a background in Studio Art & design, and a suuuper-practical degree in Musical theatre (jazz hands.) I started my career in weddings working for high-end caterers in some of NYC’s most exclusive venues, and then left a high-stress life in marketing to be a nanny in Paris for 6 months – but then I met a boy and never went home again.

I’m a perfectionist, bordering on OCD, interiors-obsessed, a sucker for details, occasionally distracted by shiny things and a tiny bit Extra. I pride myself on being able to DIY almost anything, and I sometimes communicate entirely in movie quotes

Ajna

{happylist}

Sweet Husband, baby kitties, our little village, lazy morning sleep, My Susters, Brooklyn Bridge, peonies, the ocean, fireflies, mini-goats, two-toed sloths, Southern BBQ, rootbeer floats. dill pickles, baseball, Sunday brunch, pink, autumn, Italy, ancient places, tight harmonies, Mexican food, Margaritas, meditation, road trips, Haribo, singing with my brother, tree sounds, gold glitter, avocados, the occasional well-placed disco ball, summer fêtes, musicals, Harry Potter, cherry pie, dark chocolate, evening walks, modern folk and old school hip hop. And weddings (duh.)

Ps. Animals = better than people. Iced Coffee Always

TRUTH:

There is no better way to describe our life together than the very clichéd:

MARRIAGE: AN ENDLESS SLEEPOVER WITH YOUR FAVORITE WEIRDO.

Technical director

I’m usually the maker of all of the things,
and I field a lot of requests from “The boss” for décor pieces that need to look perfectly imperfect, luxe without costing a fortune, be weightless (and/or invisible) and magically float on air – but of course also strong enough to support 500kg of weight once I’ve hung it with 10,000 candles and 300kg of flowers or some such thing. I probably spend more time up a ladder than I really care to, and know a bit more about weddings than I ever wanted to.

But on balance, it’s pretty satisfying to be part of someone’s “Happiest Day” week in and week out, and the roughly 6-months of summer sunshine that come with living in the Dordogne are not so bad either.

Ollie

{top 5}

Recording artists: Bowie, Stevie, Zeppelin, James Taylor, Van Morrison

Favorite Foods: Wife’s chili, pizza, falafel, bacon + eggs, Haribo

Travel Destinations: Bali, India, Japan, The Alps, Sevilla.

Day off activities:road bike,mountain bike,fixing bikes,old bikes …bikes?

{about our creative partners}

We relentlessly seek out the best of the best: photographers, ﬂorists, caterers, musicians, hair & make-up artists, celebrants and venues – because we know we’re only as good as our extended team.

Franchement, it can be a bit diﬃcult when rural French business standards don’t always match up to city-dwellers expectations! So when we ﬁnd a fantastic local supplier or venue we do whatever we can to nurture that relationship. (This doesn’t, however, extend to commissions as we feel this pollutes the process!) But we do promote them loudly and proudly by name wherever and whenever we can.

We also don’t rely on an exclusive network – we’re always happy to work with new and talented service providers, to ensure each client is getting the very best ﬁt for their unique needs and dreams – which means our suppliers never get complacent or assume they‘ll be handed bookings.

They stay at the top of their game and genuinely want to be the best ﬁt for each couple we connect them with.

Beyond being fabulously talented and hard-working, we only work with people we genuinely like and want to spend time with. And we know when you meet them you’ll agree that they’re loads of fun
(turning a catering tasting into a lovely meal with friends, and a ﬂorist meeting into a laughter-ﬁlled coffee date.) They’re just one more way we know you’ll thoroughly enjoy planning your wedding with us.

{about you}

Our couples tend to be

Creative, unique, fun, easy-going, stylish, and cooler than we will ever be. They love to travel, love good food and wine and embrace cultural differences. They’re focused on family and friends, and the comfort and happiness of their guests.

They’re often working to a budget, but understand that hand-made quality takes time and isn’t cheap. They value what we do and our time. They treat us like collaborators rather than employees.

There’s no speciﬁc style that binds them together – some are a bit boho, some classic, some quirky,

But if our couples share one thing it’s that they all have the Big, Big Love.

colorful-wedding-ceremony-dordogne-france

dordogne-wedding-bride-and-groom-confetti

“Your heart pilots you to a far better life than you could
have ever dreamed of. That’s how the heart works.”

SONIA CHOQUETTE

{pssssst. The above quote is a pretty perfect summary of why we do what we do – and how we ended up with an obscure, hard-to-pronounce name for our company.}

Want to know more?

“Mon Coeur” is a French term of endearment, reserved for only those very dearest to your heart. And as we’ve mentioned: all of our couples tend to have The Big, Big Love.

We can see it when they look at each other, hear it when they talk about each other, and feel it from the moment we first meet for a consultation. And quite simply, when you’ve found that “Big Love” it’s fairly accurate to describe that person – your favorite human – as your whole heart.

But the literal meaning of “Yes, my heart” is also the driving force in the way we try to live, how we ended up in rural nowhere France, and why we do what we do.

We believe that saying “yes” to any little thing your Heart desires is the path to true happiness. Even if it makes no sense or isn’t particularly evident how important it is at the time – you never know where a seemingly inconsequential nudge from your heart may lead you. It’s not necessarily about being extravagant (though it may occasionally lead you to a frivolity or two…) but rather about listening to that small voice that doesn’t always make sense but will never lead you astray because it so authentically You.

So it follows that the best, most joyful and most memorable weddings come straight from the heart – both yours, and ours!

They grow organically and then are carefully crafted from the little quirks that make you both exactly who you are and the details of your own, unique love story. Even if it’s not what everyone else is doing, even if your Mother-in-law doesn’t quite understand, even if you’re not sure where your love of sea otters, iced coffee or Harry Potter fits in to the classic and understated wedding you’ve always dreamed of – the key to your perfect wedding day is listening to your heart and reflecting that back to your guests.

So simply put: Following our hearts has led us to helping you follow yours. So whatever crazy thing your heart desires, we will do whatever we can to make sure it comes true on your wedding day.

Are you in?

{ or better yet, book a weekend to come hang out with us, drink a bit of wine, eat some fabulous food
and visit some gorgeous places!}