How We Work
"I know what a space can do to a day. And I know what a day can do to a life."
What Lemon & Hazel does
The hard part of marrying in France is rarely the dress or the flowers. It is planning a wedding in a country you do not live in, often in a language you do not speak, under rules nobody has explained to you. That is the part we take off your hands. Lemon & Hazel plans and coordinates the whole of your wedding in France, and protects what you actually want while we do it.
We resolve the four difficulties that meet almost every couple marrying here from abroad, the legal confusion, the language barrier, the opacity of French pricing, and the impossibility of choosing a venue from photographs, early enough that none of them becomes a crisis.
Lemon & Hazel is an atelier, not a single planner: a small team. The team carries the planning, the budget, the contracts, the coordination. My own part is specific, and the part that cannot be handed on: I choose the venues and read them, I shape the ceremony, and I meet the people who will host and supply your day, in person. The eye is mine; the orchestration belongs to the team.
How the year goes
- I.
The first conversation
We begin by listening, not proposing. We want to know how you live, what you will not compromise on, and what you already dislike. We take only a handful of weddings a year, so this first conversation is also an honest measure of fit.
- II.
The foundations
Before any beautiful work begins, we settle the four things that quietly govern a French wedding. The legal pathway: France recognises only the civil ceremony at the town hall, so most international couples marry legally at home and hold a symbolic ceremony here. The real budget: we translate what a French quote actually means. The shape of the guest list. And the region and the season.
- III.
Reading the venue
Before the mood board, not after. This is my part.
The room decides more than the flowers ever will. I do not look at a venue the way you look at a photograph; I stand inside it, and read what it asks of you and what it can hold. The venues I would put my name beside live in The Collection, a short list rather than a catalogue.
- IV.
The design
I set the direction from what the room and the two of you can carry, and I shape the ceremony itself. From there the team develops the wider design and produces it with the suppliers. Part of the work is protecting your originality, because Pinterest leads almost everyone toward the same wedding.
- V.
The makers, the weekend, and the morning after
I meet the venue owners and the key suppliers in person; the team handles the contracts and the coordination, across French, English, Romanian and Russian, so you are never left dependent on an interpreter. We build the weekend, Friday to Sunday, and run the day itself, so that nothing reaches you. By the slow brunch on Sunday, the only thing we are really measuring is whether it felt like yours.
How the work is shaped
One accompaniment
We take a small number of couples each year, and accompany each one completely, from the first conversation to the final morning. Coordination on the day is included, not added.
Who this is for
This serves you best when you know what you want and want someone who will hold the line for it. If you want someone to make every decision in your place, or the lowest price above all else, we will gladly point you toward a team built for that. This one is built for this.
Beneath all of it sits a single conviction: that the day should remain yours.
Une maison à la fois