Just us?!. Another thing we adore about this wedding? The way Jess and Octave combined their cultural backgrounds into the big day. It took over a year for Octave to convince me to go on our first date, but he eventually succeeded by proposing a weekend to visit a friend of his who was living in Barbados.
After business school, I wanted to return to Australia and Octave to Europe, so we compromised and moved to Singapore. Octave planned an elaborate proposal at the Rock Bar in Bali, flying my parents in from Melbourne to surprise me after the proposal. There were several reasons that we chose the venue. Second, it is in a quaint town far from the hustle and bustle of daily life, which meant we could turn our wedding celebration into a full weekend of activities. Finally, it is breathtakingly beautiful.
We were set on getting married under the gorgeous blue oak tree, which is synonymous with the property and the winery, the moment we laid our eyes on it. We wanted the wedding to be casual and fun, not stuffy. We also wanted to blend our two cultures, half Jewish and Australian, half French.
We also chose the Shabbat dinner as the time to announce that I was three months pregnant, which was definitely one of the highlights of the wedding. My husband and I met at Harvard Business School, so we each chose our business school roommates to co-minister the civil ceremony. The ceremony included a reading of Le Petit Prince in both French and English, very personalized vows that we had written together, and Octave smashing a glass , something he was eager to do to acknowledge that Judaism now played a role in his life too.
I really wanted something that was not typically bridal and that blended with the casual and fun theme. I found a perfect dress by Mary Katrantzou , which had a sweet heart shape and finished just below the knee. It was metallic, which felt a little bridal, and fit perfectly. I therefore decided to wear the Mary Katrantzou dress to the rehearsal dinner.
