Inside an intimate three-day destination wedding in Paris, with a private cabaret at Maxim’s, a Ritz Paris garden wedding and just 35 guests.
MAXIM’S RESTAURANT & RITZ, PARIS
Three days · 35 guests · Toronto and New York
Welcome dinner · Ceremony · Black-tie dinner · Sunday brunch
Photography: Audrey Paris Photo · Florals: Floraison Paris · Catering: Ritz Paris
There is a particular challenge in planning an exceptionally intimate wedding in some of Paris’s grandest settings. With just thirty-five guests, every space has to feel deliberate. A room cannot simply be filled with more tables, and entertainment cannot rely on the energy of two hundred people. Intimacy has to be designed.
Over nine months, we planned this three-day destination wedding for a couple travelling from Toronto and New York around exactly that idea. Rather than making the celebration smaller, we made each part of it more immersive, more personal and more specific to the people in the room.
The experience began before the first event. Welcome gifts were delivered to guests at the Ritz Paris with the weekend itinerary, a bottle of Roederer Blanc de Blancs and madeleines from Le Comptoir du Ritz. From the beginning, the intention was that guests should feel taken care of without ever feeling managed.
A Private Cabaret at Maxim’s
The first evening was the complete opposite of a conventional welcome dinner.
Private transfers collected every guest from the Ritz for a full buyout of Maxim’s de Paris. The bride wanted something dark, glamorous and theatrical, inspired by a place she and her husband both loved: the Crazy Horse.
Rather than adding a few performances between courses, we rebuilt the evening around the language of a Parisian cabaret.
The Crazy Horse master of ceremonies led the night, joined by dancers, singers, contortionists and magicians. Performers appeared throughout the rooms rather than remaining on a stage. Red velvet, candlelight and deep crimson florals intensified Maxim’s already extraordinary interiors, while performers dressed as living lamps became part of the seating-plan experience.
With only thirty-five people, there was nowhere for the performance to disappear into a crowd. Guests were inside it.
At the end of the night, the same private transfers returned everyone to the Ritz — one small logistical decision that allowed the evening to remain completely seamless from beginning to end.
The Ritz, in an Entirely Different Language
The following day could not have looked more different.
For the wedding at Ritz Paris, the Grand Jardin was fully privatised and transformed in pale pink, blush and white. The ceremony design was romantic and abundant, with a large floral arch, live strings and piano, and one of the hotel’s most secluded gardens reserved entirely for thirty-five guests.
The couple did not want a wedding built around traditional milestones simply because weddings are expected to have them. There was no scheduled first dance, no dress change and no attempt to fill the timeline with rituals that did not feel like them.
Instead, after the ceremony, we took the couple into Paris with a private vehicle and photographer for portraits around the city — allowing the destination itself to become part of the wedding rather than simply the place where it happened.
Dinner took place in the Salon Louis XV, whose white-and-gold interiors are considerably more ornate than the garden. Rather than forcing the pale ceremony palette into a room that already had a strong personality, we adjusted it. Soft pink remained, but deeper fuchsia was introduced to echo the colours within the salon’s carpet and give the tables enough presence to belong in the room.
That kind of decision is small on paper, but important in practice. In a historic Paris hotel, good design is rarely about imposing one palette everywhere. It is about allowing each room to change the design slightly while keeping the wedding recognisably the same.
When the First Dance Wasn’t Planned
Music became one of those moments.
We brought The Flyboys from Saint-Tropez to perform live for an hour and a half during dinner. There was no scheduled first dance and no formal announcement telling guests that one was about to happen.
Then, during one of the songs, the couple simply began to dance.
That became their first dance.
It was spontaneous, unforced and far more representative of them than anything we could have staged in advance.
The same principle ran through the whole weekend: the production was extremely detailed so that the experience itself never needed to feel rigid.
One Last Paris Morning
The celebration continued the following day with a fully private brunch.
By then, the formality of Maxim’s and the Ritz had disappeared completely. Among the dishes were miniature hot dogs — one of the bride’s favourite brunch foods and something we had specifically arranged for her.
It was a tiny detail compared with the scale of the floral installations, the private venues or the entertainment. But those are often the details couples and guests remember most clearly, because they could belong to nobody else’s wedding.
That is also what an intimate guest list made possible throughout these three days. Thirty-five people could travel together through Paris. Maxim’s could become a private cabaret rather than simply a restaurant. The Ritz garden could feel almost residential. Entertainment could happen among the guests rather than in front of them. And personal preferences — even a mini hot dog at brunch — could become part of the design of the weekend.
An intimate wedding in Paris is not necessarily a simpler production. When the guest list becomes smaller, everything becomes more visible. Every room, transition, performance and detail has to earn its place — and done well, thirty-five guests can fill Paris far more completely than three hundred.
