Written by Candice and Carl – Part 2 of 3
The best investment that we made! How, having found our venue, French Wedding Company helped us plan our day.
“Laura helped us make the arrangements with the venue owners and with the translation of the contracts. It was at this point it dawned on us that although both of us could parle un petit peu de francais, we would definitely need some help with the rest of the organisation, as how would we cope with contract negotiations and finding suppliers in the French countryside from the UK? We always thought of a wedding planner as indulgent and reserved for celebrities and those with money. Having already worked with Laura made our decision easy and, in retrospect, I am not sure how we would have got everything done without her. Having her as our wedding planner was the best investment that we made.
From the point that we decided to use French Wedding Company as our wedding planners things became so much easier. Laura met with us in the UK before we went out for a 2nd visit to France to understand the unique and personal twists we wanted to add to our day, building up a wedding portfolio of things we liked from other weddings, magazines and our own ideas, guiding us through the practicalities and keeping us on track when our focus got side-tracked on minute details.
The second trip to France allowed us to re-visit the venue and work with Laura on the walk through of the day. By this point Laura had already helped us to find a celebrant to do the ceremony and sourced a caterer, florist and hairdresser for us to meet with during our visit. We met with all the suppliers and Candice had a run through of hair and make-up before the all-important big day. The food tasting afternoon with our amazing caterer Fabrice, left us no doubt as to who would cater our event and also fuller than one of his delicious crème patisserie profiteroles. My only regret was not to get a taxi there to sample more of the splendid wine that accompanied the food!
With four months to go Laura helped us finalise the details with our suppliers; the florist, the celebrant, waiting staff, the Music (PA and Speakers), decorations and catering and tableware. Planning a wedding from another country can make you feel a bit isolated and out of the loop, but it really helped to have a single contact who knew what you wanted and who knew how things work in France, working behind the scenes when things sometimes seemed to be going slower than we expected, or prompting us when we needed to make decisions and get things booked.
The online planning tool used by French Wedding Company helped us keep track of what we had to do, decisions to make and view options Laura and the team had sourced for us, and track spending against our budget. It really helped that everything was in one place.”
