Holly and Xavier choose city of love for intimate destination wedding

Choosing where to marry can be a difficult task when your loved ones are planted all over the world.

“We always knew that our wedding would be interesting to plan, just purely from a logistical standpoint because I am Canadian, Xavier is from New Zealand and we live in England,” says Holly of her intimate destination wedding to Xavier. The pair settled on Paris for a “main wedding”, followed by a relaxed barbecue on Lake Huron in Canada. “Celebrating in Paris meant our London friends could come easily and our close friends and family who could make the journey to Europe would also get to see somewhere other than London.”

As you can’t legally marry in France unless you are a resident, the couple went to Camden Town Hall on the Friday morning to make it legal. “We met all our friends afterwards for bubbly to celebrate, before getting the Eurostar train to Paris,” says Holly.

Then on the following July day in 2015, the duo celebrated in the city of love with their 25 guests. “My brother conducted a beautiful and meaningful civil ceremony for us where we embraced a few French traditions, such as the ribbon cutting and the champagne sabre toasting,” explains Holly. That was followed by a walk to the Eiffel Tower, a river cruise a dinner at their formal venue. “At midnight everyone grabbed a bottle of wine and we walked back to the Eiffel Tower to watch the twinkling light display at 1:00am,” smiles the bride.

Photos courtesy of Eva Photography.

“As we were on such a limited budget, we were really unsure about getting a photographer … we are so happy we did,” says the bride.

“Once I had the dress, it influenced the rest of the look,” says the bride of her Dune shoes.

“The venue in Paris was a house just about 10 minutes walk from the Eiffel Tower that we found online,” describes Holly.