A Belle-Epoque Wedding Garden Party At Chateau St. Joseph in L' Occitanie

The bride’s wedding dress was a perfectly preserved original 1879 silk gown (coincidentally the very year the chateau was built) with a tightly corseted bodice, as was customary at that time. The groom's suit was tailor-made for our shoot by Maison Geraci, and consisted of a double breasted six-button seersucker jacket - perfect for a warm summer afternoon in South France! 
 
The fashion in the shoot is very accurate, from dresses to the tiniest of accessory: jaw dropping dramatic gowns of every imaginable fabric & trim, embellished with original accessories from the Arts and Crafts movement: lace-up boots, wide-brimmed hats bedecked in feathers, brooches, lavalieres, elaborate choker-style necklaces, parasols, and even original chatelaines - an ingenious device that suspended from a lady's waist and had dangling chains holding any accessories a lady might need closest at hand.
 
You can imagine women traveling to St. Joseph with tens of trunks for a weekend, as they had to change their clothes innumerable times a day! Designers from the top fashion houses in Paris were defining a mood of grace, beauty and femininity, and the entire 19th century witnessed an ongoing metamorphosis of fashion that enveloped the female figure in ever-changing silhouettes.

Chateau St. Joseph was the heart and soul of the shoot - a historic residence built at the very peak of the Belle Époque in 1879. Originally created as a vacation country house away from bustling Paris, this has been the setting for festivities for almost two centuries now! The bucolic chateau, with its lush gardens and private forest has been the discreet witness of a thousand whispered secrets, delicious loves, and sumptuous parties for the aristocracy looking to escape the burgeoning cities.