Nina & Haley

Nina: I'm really lucky that I married my personal stylist. Haley really was the mastermind behind most of my look. I knew I didn't want to wear a wedding dress but I wasn't totally sold on a wedding suit yet and just hadn't found anything that I thought looked good on me. She found this gorgeous set crafted from vintage tablecloths by NY designer, Mia Vesper, and I just knew that was my fit! Super unique and cool, very wedding-y but not traditional. I loved it! And the shoes — those came pretty quickly after. I think Haley had been eyeing the Loeffler Margots for a while and looking for an excuse to add them to our closet. Lucky for her they complimented my suit perfectly.

Haley: My look came together at the very last minute — I was so stressed about what to wear. It was so easy for me to curate Nina's look, but for myself I really struggled. The first thing I got was this amazing veil/bow from Kamperett, and kind of built my outfit around that. I was looking for something that was obviously "wedding" but was also a bit funky. Oh and it had to be easy to pack in my suitcase. I found this gorgeous grecian-esk dress by Georgia Hardinge like two weeks before the wedding and then while we were in Paris two days before I found the perfect shoes! A total splurge but well worth it!

Haley: There's something about wearing all white that makes me want to go maximalist with shape, fabric, etc. The Margots have a little something extra that I was looking for in my wedding shoes. I mean who doesn't love a giant bow? As soon as I saw them I knew that one of us had to wear them for the wedding. I also had a huge bow on my veil and we just love a little matching wedding moment.

Shop Margot

Haley: Nina is Persian and we really love how we weaved some Iranian wedding traditions with some American traditions and even just made up new things to make a ceremony that really felt like us. I think as far as the whole experience, we really love how much it was a group effort among us, our family, and our friends. It was a four day event with everyone staying in the chateau, so everyone did a little something to help make everything special: our friends and family set up the space, made all the flower arrangements, took all the photos, put up the disco ball. I was a bit of a drill sergeant the morning of the wedding running around giving people tasks haha!

We were also so blessed to have a fantastic friend and chef, Maya Rucker, join us to handle the wedding meal and she truly wowed us. She cooked a lot of our meal on an open fire in the 17th century hearth of the kitchen and sourced all the ingredients from the local farmers markets. I think my favorite part was just seeing how everyone became inspired by the setting and using what we had to make something beautiful. It was really special.

"I guess our secret is that it's going to be the best party of your life no matter what!"

Nina: Wedding planning is really stressful honestly! We fortunately made a decision early-on to prioritize us and that we would listen to our instincts and not worry about what people might think. The biggest lesson we learned was to be calm, let the right thing come to you. We really didn't want to force anything and we found that it worked out way better to just let ideas come to us rather than stressing and making a decision before we were ready. This is going to sound crazy but we planned the entire ceremony the day before the wedding. Getting to be there surrounded by our friends and family in this incredible place inspired both our ceremony and vows, something we couldn't have done months in advance. We also didn't even think about flowers or arrangements until we got there and allowed ourselves to be inspired by the natural wildflowers and grasses all around. I guess our secret is that it's going to be the best party of your life no matter what! It's all going to work out (even the things that "don't") and you're going to have so much fun! So hopefully that gets you through the tougher moments.

Nina: The whole day felt really special! It's hard to pick one moment. I think my favorite, most surprising part was when one of my friends gathered everyone to do a traditional Iranian knife dance before we had dessert. Basically, before cutting the cake guests dance around with the cake knife (in our case, it was a spoon because we had tiramisu) and they pretend to give the couple the knife to cut the cake but then at the last minute they take it away and pass it to the next dancer. So many of our friends and family danced and it was really funny and special.

Haley: Why have one wedding when you can have two! We wanted to keep the party going and celebrate with all of our friends and family back home in New Orleans. My parents hosted a big backyard bash for everyone who couldn't make it to France. Even though we had already been married a few months before, we still wanted to have that special energy you have at a wedding so we had more vows, more toasts, more dancing, more cute shoes, more cake, and lots more tears.