Chloe Malle and Graham Albert s Wedding in France
Photo: Happy Menocal1/32Happy Menocal designed our invitations with the most whimsical and lovely crest that included an illustration of Le Coual, my family’s house in Southwestern France where the wedding took place, as well as a rooster (we have a large chicken coop) and lavender. We also included a schedule of the weekend’s events. We only had about 40 guests and almost all of them came from the States except for my French family so it was a big trip and my mom [Candice Bergen] and I felt like if they were coming that far we needed to have a full lineup of events for them!
Photo: Merry Brownfield2/32This is a side view of Le Coual, the sixteenth-century stone manor house in Le Lot that my father bought almost 50 years ago. I grew up spending every summer there so it made a lot of sense to me to get married there. When I first got engaged, I was overwhelmed by the idea of planning a wedding, but as soon as I started thinking about getting married at Le Coual everything felt so natural and easy to imagine—even though it’s basically about as convenient as getting married in Djibouti, which my mother liked to remind me.
Photo: Merry Brownfield3/32The house is in Le Lot region which centers around Lot river, seen here from the neighboring Château Cénevières where we had lunch on Friday. It is a farming region so most of the land is taken over by corn, sunflower, and tobacco fields.
Photo: Merry Brownfield4/32We used the local straw market baskets as gift bags for everyone and filled them with Soludos espadrilles, local nut cookies, and chocolates, a power adapter (obviously Graham’s practical idea), a towel for river day, and an umbrella as my mother was very concerned about rain. We also included a map of the area illustrated by Happy Menocal. I basically set up a sweatshop with my four nieces the day before everyone arrived, and we assembled all the baskets. They drew on all the shoe boxes and wrote Bienvenue with everyone’s name and I watercolored postcard tags for everyone with a personal note.
Photo: Merry Brownfield5/32I always stock up on cheap espadrilles at the local supermarkets when I’m in France, but I love all the quirky motifs and embroidery on the Soludos ones so much that I decided to get those for everyone. I spent way too long choosing a specific pair for each person based on their style and personality and getting everyone’s sizes but it turned out to be a huge hit and was totally worth it. Here is a sampling!