
This week we're thrilled to be chatting to Kimberley Petyt, of
Parisian Events, a first class American wedding consultancy in Paris.
How did you come to be a wedding planner in France?
Eight years ago I married a French man and after planning my own wedding in France, long-distance from San Francisco, I decided to start a wedding planning agency. I already had years of event planning experience in the USA, and I had also learnt so much about the differences between French weddings and American weddings through my own experiences, so it was almost a natural progression.
What are the major challenges of planning a wedding in Paris?
The biggest challenge for any couple is the long list of legal requirements. The main requirement is that one of the couple needs to have been a legal resident in the district in which they plan to marry for 30 – 40 consecutive days prior to their requested wedding date. And that means really living there, and being able to provide proof of residency (such as a utility bill) and not just bunking down in a hotel and being a tourist for a month!
If a couple wants a full wedding, with the civil ceremony followed by a church blessing, do you sort all the paperwork out?
I provide clients with a global road map of the documents that are needed for a civil ceremony, and the overall timing for submitting the documents. I'll also give them direction as to where they can find additional assistance, but I always recommend that a client contact their local embassy as well as the city hall in which they wish to marry directly for more information.
I provide the same type of assistance to those clients who are marrying in a religious ceremony. A lot of people in the U.S. don't realize that in order to have a wedding in a church in France, you first HAVE to have had a French civil ceremony.
Because there are SO many restrictions here in France, the majority of our clients who come from out of the country do choose to marry legally in their home country and have a symbolic ceremony or a religious blessing here in Paris.