The Sky's the Limit at This Belgium Wedding

Two pilots move to Qatar for their careers, met, and fell in love, so including a few aviation inspired details in their wedding day was essential for Love & Tralala! From a bespoke airplane invitations suite to a shower of paper planes at dinner, from an aerobatic demo at the reception to a post-wedding brunch on the airfield where the bride first got her wings, every detail captured by Lauren Fair Photography of this romantic wedding will make your hearts soar.

From the bride, Roxane... Pierre and I met in Qatar in 2012 as we both moved there to work as airline pilots. I moved to Qatar determined to be single after lots of failed relationships, and I decided I would only date if I found the right person. When I met Pierre, I understood the saying, "When you know, you know." Pierre proposed on a hot air balloon flight in Auvergne, France. I fell in love with Lauren Fair Photography's work on Style Me Pretty even before we got engaged, and I knew that they would photograph our wedding! They were the first vendor I contacted. It's safe to say it was one of the best decision we made. On top of being extremely talented, they are amazing people, and we felt like they were family. We knew we would get married in Belgium, where I'm from, and we decided to go to the South to be surrounded by the forest. We started by visiting venues, and we booked the first one we visited, La Ferme du Chateau – a beautifully renovated farm. Most of our guests were traveling from far to be at our wedding, so we made a weekend out of it, starting with an "Arabic-themed" welcome party on Friday night (as we met in Qatar!), with hookas and costumes. The post-wedding brunch was held at the airfield where I fell in love with aviation, and a lot of guests went on glider discovery flights! I immediately started looking for my dress, and I admit that the search gave me many sleepless nights! I tried around 30 dresses, and I liked them all. I didn't get the "I found the one" feeling that I was expecting. I then discovered preownedweddingdresses.com, and I bought my two dresses second-hand. It's an amazing opportunity to buy designer dresses (and maybe to be able to buy two!). Our vision was a timeless look with some aviation touches. Our guestbook was a wooden propeller that guests signed, and it is now on the wall in our living room. The table numbers were spray-painted airplane models with calligraphed airline names and the name tags were laser-cut wooden propellers. I really enjoyed designing our invitations with Muriel Cornet. We wanted to do something special, and we did a P51 Mustang airplane that was laser-cut and could be assembled by the guests. The P51 Mustang was also on our save the dates, from the surprise flight I got Pierre for his birthday. Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE flowers, so I knew that was going to be an important part of the wedding. We heard of our florist, Elodie, from an article that my grandpa cut in the newspaper (thanks, Grandpa!). She is also a wedding planner, and she coordinated our wedding. She is such a gem, and she is now one of my friends! I teared up a little when I saw our beautiful reception space and my bouquet. She really went above my expectations and handled everything on the day of the wedding. My girls and I got ready in a beautiful greenhouse while drinking mimosas and laughing. I bought silk ribbons for our bouquets, and Pierre surprised me by asking my friends to use a word to describe me, and he then embroidered the words on the ribbons. It made me so emotional! My gift to Pierre was an embroidered handkerchief with all our favorite movies and books. One of my favorite part of the planning was preparing the ceremony. We loved our meetings with our priest and choosing the texts and songs. The gospel choir we hired created such a nice atmosphere in our beautiful church. We wrote our own vows, and we were both super emotional reading them. My grandparents celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary this year, and they are our "couple goals." We couldn't think of a better symbol than my grandmother bringing us the wedding bands! My wedding band belonged to my other grandmother who was so important in my life and who passed away. After the ceremony, we went to a beautiful location that Lauren and Tim had found for our photos. We really enjoyed that moment where we really soaked everything in. Driving through the forest in our convertible Mercedes was surreal! During our cocktail hour, one of my mom's friends surprised us with an aerobatic demo over our venue. It was magical. The dinner was filled with speeches, tears, laughter, and paper planes, thrown by our guest as the dinner was coming to an end. We then moved to the renovated barn for dessert and dancing. Our live band set the dance floor on fire, and the night continued until 0630 – we actually had to push guests away as our brunch was starting at noon! We planned every little detail, thought about everything, but what we could never have planned is the amount of LOVE we received on our wedding. I can honestly say we never cried that much in our lives (and we're both easy criers!). The speeches, the surprises, the little attentions, and most of all, having all the people you love united in one place celebrating your love, this is really why you get married. We will never be able to thank our families and friends enough for what they did for us. We gave ourselves approximately 2 years to organize, and I would highly recommend it. Planning a wedding takes time, and it also makes everyone super excited for the wedding! I generally know what I want, but during the planning I started to doubt everything. I actually told my sister that the only thing I didn't doubt was marrying Pierre (and she used that in her speech!). It's normal to have doubts, just try to remember why you made those decisions. Everything turned out even better than we expected. I had read before that your vendors make your wedding, and this is so true. Surround yourself with vendors that inspire you and understand your vision, and then let them do their magic! Everyone will tell you this, it goes fast, enjoy every moment, from the planning to the wedding, and get a videographer to be able to relive your wedding anytime!

Photography: Lauren Fair Photography | Cinematography: La Corde au Couer | Event Planning: Elodie Wilmès, From Love & Tralala | Floral Design: Elodie Wilmès, From Love & Tralala | Wedding Dress: JLM Couture | Stationery: Minted | Reception Venue: La Ferme du Chateau | Shoes: Bella Belle | Shoes: Keds | Catering: Paulus | Hair + Makeup: Monica Jane Beauty Boudoir | Groom's Attire: Boggi Milan | Bridesmaid Dress: Adrianna Papell | Bridesmaid Dress: David's Bridal | Bridesmaid Dress: ASOS | Bridesmaid Dress: BHLDN | Bridesmaid Dress: Pronovias | Desserts: Cokoa | Music: Angel Band | Rentals: Ma Belle Vaissell | Ribbons: Frou Frou Chic | Second Wedding Dress: Watters | Signage: Laura Hooper Calligraphy | Veil: Pronovias