As featured in Brides · Wedding Flowers at the Shangri-La Paris

An Intimate Floral Design for a Paris Wedding

The Shangri-La Paris already says everything before you even begin. A former Bonaparte palace in the 16th arrondissement, gilded rooms, the Eiffel Tower visible from the terrace. When a couple chooses to marry there with thirty guests, the brief writes itself: do not compete with the room. Work with it.

Jessica and Chris came to Paris for exactly that. She pursued her PhD in chemical engineering after years as an NFL cheerleader. He works in the front office for the Minnesota Vikings. Both travellers, both precise about what they wanted: something opulent without being excessive, romantic without being soft.

The ceremony was in the lounge. That room has so much gilded detail and architectural weight that adding too much florality would have been the wrong decision. We designed a single asymmetrical arch: garden roses in blush and peach, deep red dahlias, white climbing flowers, Queen Anne's lace, and foliage that spilled over the gold frame of the room rather than sitting against it. The asymmetry was deliberate. A symmetrical arch in a formal room would have felt like furniture. The irregularity gave it presence.

The bridal bouquet followed the same thinking: loose, garden-style, blush and peach with touches of deep red. Garden roses, scabiosa, ranunculus, and lisianthus. Something that felt gathered rather than arranged.

All thirty guests sat at one long oval table for dinner. The floral runner went the full length, low enough to see across, generous enough to feel right in that room. The same palette throughout, with green foliage anchoring it and deep red dahlias as punctuation. Against the blue and gold paisley linen and the chandelier light, it was exactly what a Paris wedding dinner should feel like.

The fireplace in the reception room had its own composition: roses, foliage and trailing greenery built into the gilded mantelpiece rather than placed on top of it.

Working at the Shangri-La as a luxury wedding florist in Paris asks for a particular kind of restraint. The room earns attention on its own. The flowers are there to make the space feel alive, inhabited, personal rather than decorated. That distinction matters to me, and it is what I was thinking about throughout this wedding.