Tell us a little about yourselves!
We met online in April of 2020. It was the early days of the pandemic and due to lock down we could not meet in person for 6 weeks. We fell in love through face times and text messages. When it came time to meet in person, Janey moved in with Daniel and his roommates for two weeks (for safety, there were no tests or vaccines yet).
Since the very beginning of our relationship, spending quality time together in person was never something we took for granted. When it came time to get married, we knew that something small and intimate was our vibe. We wanted it to feel more like a group trip than a wedding so we decided to get married in our favorite place, Biarritz France.
We are not French so we had to get legally married before leaving the US. A few months later, we did a symbolic ceremony and partied in France with our closest friends and immediate family.
Why did you decide to get married where you did?
Biarritz is such a special town. Daniel loves to surf. Janey loves natural wine, both of which it is known for. Through our visits, this unpretentious beach town has become our cherished place. We wanted to share it with our closest friends and family for the weekend and create new memories together doing the things we love. Having a group surf lesson the morning after our wedding is a new core memory for us! We got to bring our favorite people to all our favorite places like Club Sandwich, Jack the Cockerel, Gaztelur, and of course Cote de Basque.
How many guests did you have?
60 total. About 40 friends and 20 family members.
Tell us about your outfits.
For our wedding day, Daniel wore a custom lilac linen suit from Suit Supply. He started out in a pair of classic espadrilles but after cutting his foot while breaking the glass during the wedding ceremony, he ditched those in favor of being barefoot all weekend.
Janey wore a Markarian gown and Loeffler Randall shoes and a Susan Alexandra pearly bow necklace. For the afterparty she changed into an Odd Muse mini dress and sparkly platform Crocs.
What was the most important aspect for you, in terms of planning your wedding?
The two things we cared most about were the guest experience, and being authentically us.
Every step of the way we asked “does this feel like us?” And we ended up altering a lot of the traditional wedding moments to be something a little different that better suited our families and our vision.
For the guest experience, we were so grateful that people were traveling so far and wanted to make every moment as easy and special for our guests as possible, we wanted them to be relaxed and well fed and just have the best time!
Were there any elements that were important for you to incorporate?
Music.
Janey wrote a musical inspired by how we met and music has always been very important to our relationship. We wanted there to be a lot of live music. Janey’s writing partner Bela helped arrange an original mash up of songs that are significant to our relationship and then preformed it with one of the aforementioned original roommates as our first dance, having this original medley made our first dance so special.
We had seen The Okkband perform at La Guerite in Cannes and loved them. We were able to get them to come to Biarritz to play our wedding - that was a real highlight, they are a French Rivera roaming band and went around the table during dinner singing while our guests found tambourines on the tables to play along until dinner turned into a sing along dance party.
Any tips for couples getting married?
Be true to yourself, don’t worry about what anyone else is going to think. The most special parts of our wedding were the things we made up our own version of that felt more suited to us - and roll with the punches, nothing ever goes perfectly according to plan so better to plan for that!
Are there any vendors that you would like to tell us a little more about?
Working with our photographer Marta aka Surfragette Studio was so special, she made us feel so comfortable and was able to capture us organically without posing. We genuinely became friends- her and Daniel even went surfing together - and her photos really captured the happiness and the fun that we had that weekend. We loved having a real artist document our day and we loved working with Marta!
Soline aka The Yes Maker was wonderful to work with, she has excellent taste, we fully trusted her to carry out our vision and oversee design decisions. She handled everything flawlessly behind the scenes, we never had to worry about things running smoothly, it made the whole weekend so easy and stress free. If you want to get married in France it certainly helps to work with a French planner!
Our stationery was designed by a local Biarritz artist Laurianne Birre . We did custom stationery for welcome notes, a custom newspaper for our guests with info about the weekend, and hand drawn menu/place cards. Laurianne blew us away, her designs were so cute and spot on for our vision.
The venues! Gaztelur went above and beyond for us. The grounds are stunning, the food was fantastic, the flowers were the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever seen, there was so much care and consideration put into our event and taking care of our guests, Olivier Grane and his team made us feel right at home and we really could not have asked for a better wedding venue (everything is included so they handle the food, flowers, bar etc).
We all stayed at Hotel De La Plage and their sister hotel Edouard VII. I sound like a broken record saying the team there went above and beyond for us, but they really did. The staff at the hotels took such good care of us and our guests, they made the whole weekend so easy and special and comfortable. The hotel really felt like our home away from home. They have the same creative director (Olivier Granet-Sottis) as our wedding venue, which sort of tied everything together.
Our Sunday post surf meal was catered by Club Sandwich which is one of the coolest, most special restaurants in Biarritz, Elsa and her team crushed the assignment of post surf picnic with natural wine and sandwiches, see photos for details, it was awesome.
Our Sunday night goodbye party was at our go to spot Jack the Cockerel, again, the staff there went above and beyond to take care of us and show our guests a good time. We had an Open Mic where anyone who wanted could say a few words and then their DJ took over and we danced the night away. The food was amazing and the sunset views were spectacular, a perfect way to close out the weekend.
Photographer: Surfragette Studio @surfragette_ studio_love | Planning: The Yes Maker @theyesmaker assisted by Rhapsody Planner @rhapsodyplanner | Videographer: @florainecarlot | Flora: Gaztelur | Ceremony & Reception Location: Gaztelur @gaztelurarcangues | HMUA: Whitney Kril
@kril.whitney | Catering & Beverages: Gaztelur @gaztelurarcangues | Stationery: Laurianne Birre
@lonidia | Entertainment: Okkband @okbband | Wedding Dance Choreo: Alyssa Sarnoff @alyssa_sarnoff | Dress: Markarian @markarian_bride | Engagement Ring: Jade Trau @jadetrau | Wedding Rings: Catbird @catbirdnyc & Jade Trau @jadetrau | Shoes: Loeffler Randall @loefflerrandall | Necklace: Susan Alexandra @susanalexandra