Marriage

Fairytale Romantic & Intimate Château Barayre Wedding

February 2, 2024

Ready for the dreamiest of summer days? You’re in luck as Sammy and Leigh are sharing with us their fairytale Chateau Barayre wedding in France. Yay!

Their day was stunning. They had a romantic and intimate destination wedding that spanned three days of celebrations.

From their on-trend outfit choices to the blousy blooms and barn venue, you’re going to adore their day. I just love the dusty blue table linen teamed with romantic candles, the tables looked effortlessly beautiful.

Grace Pham Photography was on hand to capture all the romance, sparklers, emotion and strolls in the countryside. Thanks so much, Grace for sharing with us these sensational images of a truly wonderful day.

Chateau Barayre Wedding

The Proposal

Leigh proposed to me in Miami beach, our special place. He had planned to do it on the beach at sunrise, however he didn’t realise it was labour day weekend, so the beach was full of people, not as private as he had hoped.

We still watched the sunset in each other’s arms, went for breakfast at our favourite diner, went back to the apartment we were living at the time. Where all of a sudden he got all nervous, said some romantic things, next thing he was on one knee asking me to marry him. After what to him felt like forever, through my tears I said yes, of course!

We then celebrated with drinks at the Faena Hotel and had an Italian al fresco dinner on Espanola Way in Miami.

The Vision

We always knew we were going to have a destination wedding as we share a love for travelling, so much so, we have now travelled 46 countries together.

A beautiful French chateau seemed like the perfect place to bring our loved ones together, as we are from a small island called Guernsey and it was accessible for our guests.

We wanted it to be intimate and for everyone to be together for three days of events and celebrations.

Budget

Our budget was £20,000 for 40 guests over 3 days, due to inflation and extras we wanted, it ended up being around the £30,000 mark. But it truly was perfect so we wouldn’t change it for anything!

The Venue

Our beautiful wedding took place at Chateau Barayre, Laussou, France. It was dreamy, with so much charm, it looked like a castle and I felt like a princess.

The barn was a must, during our search and the one at Chateau Barayre ticked all of our boxes! This is the perfect location for a romantic, intimate wedding, in a relaxed atmosphere.

The days surrounding the wedding we did a welcome picnic and a pizza/pool party with garden games. It was the perfect place to enjoy with our guests. Rachna and Jaap were brilliant hosts even offering a free wine tasting and tour for all our guests.

The Ceremony & Music

Our ceremony was conducted by our incredible wedding planner, Sarah Thomas. Having her marry us was lovely as she became a friend during the planning process with the several meetings leading up to our wedding, so it was nice to have someone so familiar.

My sister, maid of honour did the reading, ‘Union’ by Robert Fulgham.
Whilst guests seated and the groom and groomsmen arrived we had ‘Wildest Dreams, Duomo version’ Taylor Swift playing.
When the bridesmaids and flower girl entered we had ‘When You Know’ Shawn Colvin playing.
I entered to ‘It’s Always Been You’ Caleb Hearn.
Our aisle exit song was ‘I’m On Top Of The World’ Imagine Dragons.

Your Outfits

My wedding dress was from Made With Love Bridal, I chose Huxley Fitted with the Short Holly Veil. It’s an Australian company that make the most stunning gowns.

I had followed them on Instagram for years and it was my dream to have a wedding dress from there. I just hoped they would suit me! I tried on 12 dresses in total across two different shops and I felt allllll the feels in mine, it was a clear winner!

Leigh and the groomsmen’s suits were tan colour from ASOS, lightweight, affordable, summer suits! (We were on a budget and felt this wasn’t a necessary expense).

Bridesmaid dresses were from ‘Pretty Lavish’. Two of them were the Esmee Crepe Maxi in Olive and 2 of them were the Amelia Crepe Maxi in Olive, I just absolutely love the colour and think they suited the venue perfectly

Your Photographer & Filmmaker

Grace Pham was our wedding photographer, she was WONDERFUL! Grace made us feel so at ease and captured our day so beautifully with her candid, natural and romantic shots! We are absolutely obsessed and can’t stop staring at every single one of them.

Katy Fendall was also recommended to me by our wedding planner Sarah and we absolutely loved her style so she was the perfect fit for us! We recently received our video and it was truly stunning, was so emotional reliving our day and it was captured so perfectly by Katy. We have watched our video over 50 times already and it gets me every time.

The Styling & Decor

Our decorations and flowers were done by the woman of many talents, Sarah Thomas! We shared our vision with her and showed Pinterest inspiration and it was truly magical seeing her bring it to life and beyond what we could’ve hoped for.

I did some signs and our table plan myself to save on costs! It was so fun crafting something to contribute!

The Honeymoon

We spent two days after our French chateau wedding in the beautiful area of Dordogne and stayed at the stunning @les_lodges_de_calviac luxury treehouse accommodation to unwind after our celebrations.

However my husband is whisking me away to the Maldives in March, we can’t wait to soak it all up in paradise!