My wedding in Monaco!

MsDiane · June 24, 2013

I am new to posting on this board (although I have been poking around for a while!) but had to post after my recent experience...

Love happens when you least expect it! It's exactly what happened to us. So we decided to celebrate our wedding in a very innovative way. We decided to elope in France, on the French Riviera, in Monaco to be precise! It was a bit of a challenge as we had to find the right person to organize everything but, more so, someone that could create a ceremony meaningful to the two of us. We must of had a "good star" because we found the perfect guy for the job in Pierre-Henri at Love Gracefully. Not only did he come up with ideas for our request (we wanted something really special), solutions for all the problems, but he also officiated the ceremony in a very touching, creative, and emotional way. It was even better that what we could have expected!

First, he had the best photographer on the entire French Riviera for us. He picked us up at our hotel in Monaco (The Metropole) and took us to Monaco's heliport. From there we had a great flight over the coastline, overlooking Monaco and the surrounding French Coast, before we landed at the beautiful terrace overlooking Monaco (Vista Palace). That's where we had the ceremony, with an astonishing view over Monaco, the Mediterranean Sea, where we could see all the way up to Italy. The ceremony started with a great guitarist, Florian, who came down all the way from Paris just to play for us. The ceremony had been prepared by Pierre-Henri. After initially contacting him, he sent us a questionnaire to fill out. He managed to take our answers and out of them, like a magician, create a ceremony that was unique to us. It was about us, who we are, our tastes, our hopes, our dreams... Pierre-Henri was also the celebrant, and was very moving delivering the words, and made us both cry, but laugh too!

At the end of the ceremony Florian was playing for us and it gave us the opportunity to dance, having just been married, overlooking the Mediterranean sea. The Vista Palace people served us great champagne and food.

At sunset we took the helicopter back down, for more breathtaking views of Monaco. We ended this wonderful experience with a series of photos at the Metropole to memorize this special moment for the rest of our lives.

Pierre-Henri just forwarded me a video we did after the service and thinking back to how perfect that day was, I thought I would share it with anyone of you who are thinking about getting married outside of the country.

I wanted to share the video (http://vimeo.com/49104852) and a few pictures. If anyone has any questions about my experience in Monaco, with Gracefully, or arranging a wedding in another country, please feel free to ask me.