Clara & Noah
City hall & dinner · Paris · 2024
A grey November morning at the mairie, lunch that ran into dinner, and a walk across the city — a wedding that used Paris itself as the venue.
Place
Mairie du 3e and a bistro, Paris
When
November
Scale
12 guests
How the day was made
Clara and Noah live twenty minutes from the town hall where they married. They wanted the day to feel like their city on its best behaviour, not like an event imported into it.
The ceremony was at 10:40 in the mairie of the 3rd, twelve guests in coats. Afterwards everyone walked — no cars, no schedule — through the Marais to a bistro we had taken over for the day, stopping for photographs wherever the light was good.
The bistro was dressed lightly: marble tables kept bare, silver cups of roses, coupes and candles from mid-afternoon. Lunch was served at one and never formally ended; plates were cleared, coffee arrived, more wine was opened, and by seven it had become dinner.
At eleven the twelve of them walked to the river. The photographs from that last half hour are the ones hanging in their apartment.
Clara and Noah leaving the Paris city hall
The couple on a Paris bridge at night
The bistro table set with candles and roses
Three decisions
01
The city as venue
Mairie, streets, bistro, bridge. No transport, no venue hire beyond one restaurant.
02
Lunch that became dinner
A single continuous service from 13:00 to late, designed with the chef as one long menu in two acts.
03
Twelve people
Small enough that everyone spoke, so speeches were never announced — they just happened.
- Format
- Civil ceremony and all-day bistro celebration, 12 guests
- Venue
- Mairie du 3e, private buyout of a neighbourhood bistro
- Route
- On foot through the Marais, unscheduled photo stops
- Dining
- Continuous service, lunch into dinner, one wine list
- Florals
- Roses in silver cups, nothing above eye level
- Attire
- Short tailored dress and veil, chocolate wool suit
- Planning
- Four months, design and full-day coordination
- Design & planningÉLAN Studio
- PhotographyMarin Delacroix
- FilmPetite Bobine
- VenueBistrot Saint-Gilles, full buyout
- FloralsLes Roses Grises
- Bridal dressMidi tailored dress with cathedral veil
- RingsAtelier Fournier, brushed gold
- CakeParis-Brest tower, Maison Léveillé
“We got married in our own neighbourhood and then just kept eating with our favourite people. It was perfect.”
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