Paris wedding

Paris wedding: the civil ceremony

Another Paris wedding, I hear you ask? And again in Montmartre? Absolutely. But this time it’s a little different, as it started with a civil ceremony at the 18th arrondissement town hall, and was then followed by a photoshoot on the streets on Montmartre, where the bride and groom live. But once all that was done, we actually left Montmartre and headed towards the other side of Paris, to a new hotel with a rooftop view of the Eiffel tower. If you’re gonna host a Paris wedding, might as well enjoy its landmarks.

But first, let’s head back to the start of the day and thecivil ceremony at the 18th arrondissement registry office. I’ll only include a few pictures of the Montmartre registry hall as this particular one is where I spent most of my Paris weddings, so you’re bound to have seen this room quite a few times. Why do I go there a lot? Because I live in Montmartre of course! Am I repeating myself too much? MONTMARTRE IS THE BEST PLACE ALRIGHT? THE REST OF PARIS DOESN’T EXIST; Ok calm down Elodie.

I get there a little early and quickly find the best man/bridesmaid/family of the soon-to-be newlyweds. Julien arrives shortly after. Ilham takes a little more time to get there, which makes Julien a little nervous. But all worthwile as when she finally gets to him, she is just stunning! She’s wearing an outfit from one of my absolute favourite designers, Victoire Vermeulen and god does she wear it well!

Some if Ilham’s family could not make it to the wedding due to border restrictions and covid, so the guests have brought along an instagrammer-type tripod and are streaming the ceremony. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen that object since covid started and how many people it’s allowed to witness weddings from far away.

After the ceremony, the bride and groom and I walk up the streets of Montmartre for their couple session. We stop on the nicest street of Montmartre such as Villa Léandre and my absolute favourite street, rue de l’Abreuvoir. But as I also live around the corner, we make a stop on my famous street, rue Maurice Utrillo, and I quickly run up to my flat to catch a different angle of this very photographed staircase.

There’s a good side of picking a local photographer for a Paris wedding: we know the cutest streets, and also the quietest, and sometimes we have access to places others wouldn’t!

An exceptional rooftop for an exceptional Paris wedding

We then move on to the outdoors ceremony on a Parisian rooftop. But where can you find such a unique place in Paris? That’s where Ilham and Julien caught a lucky straw, after being cancelled by the place they had first booked. As it turns out, the hotel they had booked wasn’t planning on reopening in time for the wedding, as there were very few tourists in Paris due to covid restrictions. Yet, at the same time, the Canopy by Hilton Paris Trocadero had just opened its doors for the first time.

The hotel, in an amazing location steps away from the Eiffel tower, boasted a rooftp with a perfect view onto the Paris landmark. What more would a bride and groom need? So off they went on with exchanging vows on that very rooftop in front of their guests and the Iron Lady (the Eiffel tower, not Margaret Thatcher). As photographers, we love to capture those emotional moments so we’re quite often hoping someone will shed a tear at some point. Call us sadistic or opportunistic, we still want it.

So the ceremony goes on with friends and family telling the newlyweds of their love and support. It is soon time for me to live as I’ve overdone my stay, but as I’m just about to bid the bride and groom farewell, some of their friends run up to me to ask me to stay a little more, as they have prepared a surprise flashmob. A perfect way to end the short day’s storytelling! Paris weddings can sometimes be a little shorter than weddings further away in Normandy, Bretagne or Provence as people then usually make a celebratiory weekend out of it. However the amount of amazing locations one can find in our capital city means that even with just a few hours to shoot, you can end up with as many nice shots in unique locations as a longer wedding!

That’s probably why I love Paris weddings so much. I love how diverse yet fast-lived they can be. Also shooting in Paris has a bit of an adventurous photographer feel to it what with all the dangers we have to put up with: dog poo on the floor, pigeon poo in our hair. We are the real badass stuff.