An Intimate Wedding Under the Fairy Lights at a Château in the Loire Valley
One Saturday night in Sydney, Jasmine Garnsworthy, the creator of two content-driven brands called the Buff and Fairwell, walked into a bar for a blind date with a British man. “While looking for my date, I locked eyes with a man fitting the description,” Jasmine remembers. “I struck up a conversation, but quickly realized that I was having a drink with the wrong guy—he was clearly Australian and had the wrong accent!” She excused herself and eventually located the mystery Brit, only to find the two of them had zero chemistry. “I kept thinking about the first guy and clearly Steve [Gafen] was thinking about me too because he tracked me down via a string of mutual acquaintances.” They’ve been together ever since.
The two had been dating for six years when Steve—who is a project manager within the property industry—proposed. “The engagement ring arrived on a Thursday, and wanting to keep the proposal a surprise, the ring box lived inside my tennis shoe at the back of our wardrobe for a couple of days,” Steve remembers. He wanted to propose near the water and thought he’d landed on the perfect spot near their home in New York City—a tiny park on the East River overlooking the Manhattan skyline—only to realize it was a bit too tourist-filled for the occasion. “Wanting something a little more private, I switched to a location a few minutes further up the river,” Steve says. “My only challenge was getting Jasmine to this spot on a Sunday morning without raising suspicions.”
Luckily, an old high school friend of Steve’s was staying at their place over the weekend for a mutual friend’s wedding. “I decided he’d be the perfect decoy,” Steve jokes. “I let him in on the secret. My plan was to tell Jasmine that he was taking us out for brunch to thank us for letting him stay and that he would meet us at the restaurant. I sent him armed with a bottle of Champagne to La Nonna—the closest restaurant to the proposal spot and where I’d briefed the maître d’.”
So on Sunday, Jasmine and Steve woke up and walked into the restaurant and gave their friend’s name for the reservation. The maître d’, looking at her screen, said that their friend had actually booked at their sister restaurant La Nonna Aqua (a fictitious eatery) only two minutes away, right by the water. They were running late at that point, so Jasmine hurried ahead. “She walked past the proposal spot, and I had to catch up to her as she reminded me that we were running late,” Steve says. “The next minute or two were a blur, but as Jasmine turned around I dropped to my knee to ask her to marry me. I was shaking, and so happy. I knew this moment was coming but nothing prepared me for it.” Understandably, Jasmine was even more surprised. They kissed, and shortly after, their friend arrived with a bottle of Champagne.
The couple initially had their sights set on a big New Year’s Eve wedding back in Australia—but just as soon as things started to fall into place, something felt off. “We were trying to make our wedding as convenient as possible for our family, but in the process felt like we were compromising the celebration we really wanted,” Jasmine says. “We simply wanted to throw the most elaborate and fun dinner party possible for an intimate group of friends.”
One afternoon in March, Jasmine suggested that they pull the plug on Australia and organize a romantic dinner with their closest family and friends somewhere in France at the end of the summer. They booked a château online, hired Rachael Affleck Mayo, a wedding planner specializing in French weddings, and notified their guests—all within a couple of days.
With the venue now set, Jasmine was much more decisive about her wedding day looks: “I wanted to wear a classic, elegant wedding gown for the ceremony and cocktail hour and then change into something more comfortable and sexy for the evening.” She chose a long-sleeve Costarellos gown for the ceremony with a cathedral-length veil and paired this with a simple pair of satin ivory Badgley Mischka high-heeled sandals. Accessories were baroque pearl drop earrings made by a bridesmaid behind the jewelry brand Kincs, a mother-of-pearl hair clip by Jennifer Behr, and a beaded bag from Shrimps.
