Eyad and Manon met in a French restaurant in Dubai, where they both live. She was having lunch with a friend and a friend of a friend joined them at the last minute. That friend was Evad and from there on out they became inseparable. For their destination wedding at CHATEAU DE ROBERNIER, the bride's family came from France and his from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Palestine and Jordan. Their guests came from even further afield; from Canada to Palestine and many countries in between. Captured by Provence wedding photographer JEREMIE HKB the couple worked with LE MARIÉE EN PROVENCE to plan their day.
The beautiful bride tells us more of their story, "I'm French and was born in the UK. I grew up in London until I was seven years old, then moved to Divonne, a charming town near Switzerland. I moved to Dubai in 2016 after my studies as I wanted to get work experience abroad. Eyad is Palestinian, born and raised in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He moved to the UAE in 2008 to study and has been living there even since.
The proposal was very emotional and intimate. In December 2022, we traveled to France for the holidays but shortly after Christmas I got Covid and we had to quarantine. We were lucky to find a cosy apartment in the Alps. Since we were just the two of us, on New Years eve we decided to record ourselves, sitting in the lovely balcony, under the snow, saying our wishes for the year ahead. At this moment Eyad went down on his knee and said his wish was to marry me and he proposed with a beautiful ring. It was so romantic and intimate. It was also an amazing way to start the year.
I'm Catholic and he is Muslim, but I wanted to do a traditional ceremony to honour his traditions too so we did a first ceremony called a Katb ktab. It's a ceremony during which a sheikh came to our house and we signed our wedding contract. We did an intimate ceremony in Dubai with our family followed by a lovely dinner.
For our French ceremony we selected the south of France because it's one of the most beautiful regions and because it's a holiday destination. Since we wanted to get married in France we thought the south was ideal because our friends and family in the Middle East could easily travel there and make a holiday out of it. Eyad is Palestinian and in his culture weddings are very important and he wanted to have a unique location.
On my side I always dreamed of getting married in a castle, since I was a little girl. It's a cliché but I was lucky because my dream came true since I had a princess wedding! We both loved CHATEAU DE ROBERNIER and thought it would be amazing to get married in such an incredible location. The castle has so much history and charm. I discovered it for the first time when I was helping my friend to look for a location for her own wedding. I remember seeing a picture of the Castle and I thought this was a majestic place!"
"We decided to work with a wedding planner because we both live in Dubai and it would have been very difficult to organise a wedding from abroad. We also wanted to work with a one because I didn't know any vendors in the South of France and knew I needed someone to guide us.
We decided to work with Laura after the first call we had with her! I remember looking at her portfolio and I loved the kinds of weddings that she organises! She scheduled a call and my husband and I didn't have a clear idea of the wedding we wanted. Thanks to Lauras questions and guidance we were able to visualise how we wanted our big day to be. This was our first call with a wedding planner and we didn't even need to look for other planners as we had a very good feeling with Laura, she is very kind and very professional and detailed. Also since Eyad doesn't speak French Laura was the perfect planner since she speaks English fluently! We were very pleased to work with her as out wedding turned out to be even better than expected!
We wanted to incorporate Palestinian traditions and we did a traditional entrance at the dinner. It's called a Zaffe where we played Palestinian song and everyone danced. Traditionally, in the middle east, we should have the drummers but in our case we selected a song a both loved called “Wein'a Ramallah” which was very upbeat and everyone danced before the dinner.During the dinner we selected a mix of old traditional Arabic and French songs which really represents us.
I selected my dress because I loved the fabric, the colour and the details. I always wanted an a-line dress and for me it was also very important to be comfortable and to be able to dance with the dress. I had to make sure I could find a dress with a long gown that was light. I also wanted a corset inside to ensure the dress would fit me nicely. I fell in love with the dress from the moment I tried it on! I could easily imagine myself wearing this princess dress in the castle. I was dress shopping with my bridesmaid and we all cried when I wore the dress. I knew immediately I had to say yes to this dress."
"I loved everything about our fairytale wedding! I can objectively say it was the nicest wedding I have ever been to! Everything was perfect from start to finish! We feel very blessed. We loved the castle, the decor was gorgeous, the food was incredible! I loved how the ceremony turned out, the caterer of the wedding was amazing! We really enjoyed the food and all our guests too!
The decor was beautiful! Perrine, the stylist, was able to bring my Pinterest board to live and it was magical. My favorite moment was the ceremony. It was so beautiful, filled with love and emotion. I can clearly remember walking down the aisle with my dad and realizing how we were surrounded with all our loved ones in a stunning location with amazing weather. Saying our vows to each other was very intense and emotional.
We were also very lucky to have an amazing photographer, JEREMIE , who had previously worked at Chateau Robernier. He is a very talented photographer and was able to capture all the important moments and emotions. We cherish our wedding pictures.
Kevin, from Atelier Vinyl, was amazing because he managed to include all the songs we wanted perfectly! All our guests from the Middle East were pleasantly surprised to see how a French DJ was at playing Arabic music!
Overall, our wedding really represented us both because it was a blend of our cultures, it was very emotional and full of love and happy times!"
A big thank you to Provence wedding photographer JEREMIE HKB for sharing this beautiful wedding with us. A wedding photographer with a Fine Art style, Jeremie is based in the South of France. He mostly works in Provence and on the French Riviera. With a refined, romantic and timeless style, he offers a high level of service for your special day. Inspired by colors and light, he is also very sensitive to the work of aesthetics in a global way. You can see more of his portfolio here .
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