Wedding at Couvent Notre-Dame des Prés: Nancy & Lucas
Two houses, two mornings
Nancy and Lucas got ready at their own parents' homes, a few kilometres apart. Fewer and fewer couples do this, most preferring the convenience of a suite at the venue. That's a shame: things happen in those houses that no reception venue produces. A mother recognising a piece of furniture from her own childhood behind her daughter in a wedding dress. A brother with no idea what to do with his hands.
On Lucas's side, everything happened under the covered terrace: cufflinks nobody can fasten alone, a bow tie adjusted by someone else, and a glass of champagne with the groomsmen in their light blue suits before leaving. He wore a black double-breasted tuxedo and a multicoloured boutonnière.
On Nancy's side, four bridesmaids in pale yellow satin, sunglasses on from the morning, and a white lace robe left on the sofa.
These houses are a photographic puzzle. Coloured walls that throw a cast onto skin, badly placed windows, rooms where you back into a wall and still can't frame wide. You work with what's there. The dress hangs where the light falls, not where it looks pretty.
Town hall: the first dress
Nancy planned two outfits. For the civil ceremony, a draped strapless dress, lace mitts, a pearl choker, hair pulled back. Not a rough draft before the "real" dress: it's an outfit in its own right, and I find that choice more interesting than one dress worn from morning to midnight.
Before joining the guests, we took twenty minutes in an alley of plane trees lined with statues. That's often the only moment in the day when a couple is genuinely alone.
The room was modern and heavily glazed, with hard light cutting across it. The civil ceremony goes fast, as always: a few minutes of reading, two signatures, applause. Nancy signed the register leaning over the table, bouquet still in her left hand, and that's the frame I keep from it. Outside, the guests were already waiting in fuchsia, coral and red. This wedding was never afraid of colour.
The church ceremony
Second outfit, a complete change of register: the Pronovias lace gown, full skirt, detachable long sleeves, high lace collar, and a matching mantilla veil. The bouquet mixed white phalaenopsis orchids, yellow roses, red roses, eucalyptus and trailing amaranth.
The church: checkerboard floor, pale woodwork, a young priest in a yellow stole. I shoot churches without flash, on principle, even if it means pushing the ISO higher than I'd allow myself anywhere else. Raphael Chetrit's violin carried the entrance.
On the way out, rose petals thrown from cut-out boxes with a butterfly pattern, handed to the guests outside the porch. The forecourt kept the traces for a while.
Couvent Notre-Dame des Prés, first the rain, then the arches
It was raining when we arrived at Couvent Notre-Dame des Prés. Umbrellas came out of car boots and the couple session was replanned on the spot.
I'm not going to claim the rain "made the day more beautiful", that's the line you feed couples to reassure them. It removed some images and made others possible. An overcast sky means soft, continuous light: nobody squints, nobody sweats through a suit, and the flowers hold their colour better than under a July midday sun.
The cloister arches did the rest. Pale stone, high ceilings, raking light from the openings that needs nothing added to it. We also used a break in the weather for a few frames in front of the sage-green shutters, with the white convertible.
The floral design by L'Éternelle Rêveuse worked on two registers. At the entrance, an arch in a gradient of colour around a stone vault: blue delphinium, coral roses, mimosa and yellow roses, purple allium, red roses. On the round tables, low arrangements of peach roses and red anemones between tapered candles. Low, which is the detail nobody mentions and which changes everything: guests can see each other across the table.
Cocktail hour and dinner in the cloister
Joe played saxophone among the guests during the cocktail hour, then the band Kaaz took over live with Danny Ochoa on percussion. Three musical formats in one evening can easily turn into a patchwork. Here the handovers held and the floor never emptied between sets.
Coral, mint, yellow and pink napkins on cross-back chairs, printed menus resting on upturned glasses, and a newlyweds' quiz sheet on every table. Dinner by Aumer Traiteur lasted exactly as long as it should, which is rarer than it sounds.
The party
The couple came in under a corridor of coloured napkins waved overhead, festoon lights strung beneath the vaults. There was a speech held in both hands, A4 sheets and a microphone, ending in an embrace. There was a mother-son dance. There was Nancy lifted on a chair in the middle of the cloister, the walls turned violet. And a champagne tower filled under sparkler fountains, poured from two bottles at once.
The Sourire Cojette photobooth caught anyone who needed a break, Wedding Bestie shot the vertical content while VHL Film handled the film. Four cameras in one room and you trip over each other easily. It didn't happen, and that's the kind of team I want to work with again.
Getting married at Couvent Notre-Dame des Prés
The convent is a former monastery built around a cloister: a square courtyard, pale stone arcaded galleries, vaults, and gardens all around. From the air the plan is obvious. A square of round-tiled roofs set among the fields, and in the middle, the courtyard where the ten dinner tables are laid.
That layout changes how a day is organised. Dinner fits in the courtyard, under the festoon lights, with the arcades as a backdrop. If the sky turns, everything moves under the galleries without anyone having to run with a tablecloth under one arm. Which is exactly what happened here.
Photographically, the pale stone does part of the work for me. It bounces the sky's light into the galleries, giving soft directional light for a good part of the day, no reflector needed. The arches frame by themselves: put the couple under a vault and the composition already exists. The vaulted hall where the party ended works differently, on artificial light, and that's where the DJ's lighting really counts.
One reservation. That stone looks much the same from one wall to the next. Across a thousand-image gallery, the backgrounds start going in circles if you never step outside. The gardens, the olive trees, the pool below and the sage-green shutters are there for that, and I always keep twenty minutes at the end of the day to go out.
Something else to plan for: the courtyard and the paths are stone and gravel. Warn the guests coming in stiletto heels.
I had already shot the Jardin des Murmures inspiration session here, in a far quieter register than this wedding. The spaces, access and my rates are detailed on the wedding photographer at Couvent Notre-Dame des Prés page.
Crédits
As a wedding photographer in Provence, I always go back to Couvent Notre-Dame des Prés happily: the arches save a rainy day, and no open-air venue can promise that. If you're planning a wedding in the Luberon or elsewhere in Provence, write to me.
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Frequently asked questions
What do you do if it rains on the wedding day?
Choose a venue that stands up without the sky. At Couvent Notre-Dame des Prés, the covered galleries and the cloister let you move the cocktail hour, the group photos and the couple session without cancelling anything. For the images, an overcast sky gives soft, even light that is easier to work with than full July sun.
Can you wear two dresses for a civil and a religious ceremony on the same day?
Yes, and Nancy did: a draped dress for the town hall, the Pronovias lace gown for the church. You simply need to build a change into the timeline, twenty to thirty minutes with a bridesmaid helping.
How much time should you leave between the town hall and the church?
At least an hour if both are close by, more with an outfit change or a drive. It's also the most comfortable window for couple portraits, before the guests reach the reception venue.
Where is Couvent Notre-Dame des Prés?
The convent sits in Provence, about an hour from Aix-en-Provence. It's a former monastery with walled gardens, a cloister and covered galleries. Capacity, access and availability are detailed on the Couvent Notre-Dame des Prés page.
