Mediterranean Idyll Meets Modern Elegance

This editorial began with a question rather than a mood board: how much of the Mediterranean can you bring to a Quebec wedding without the result feeling like a costume? The answer, it turned out, is most of it — provided you borrow the materials instead of the scenery.

Le Café de l'Horloge as a Mediterranean stand-in

Le Café de l'Horloge in Rigaud is a restored historic post office about an hour west of Montréal, sitting beside the water with a stained-glass window, a fireplace, high ceilings and a garden. Those bones — plaster, marble tile, wood floors, tall light — read as southern European without any intervention at all.

Planning and styling came from Une Touche de Magie, working with natural colours and textures: olive foliage, lace, silk and organza ribbon.

Olive, blue and organza

Olive branches did the work flowers usually do, in the bouquet and on the cake, which kept the palette dry and green rather than sweet. Against that, a soft powder blue ran through the taper candles, the silk ribbon on the invitation suite by Charlotte et Cie, and a hand-painted toile motif that appeared on both the cake and the macarons from Sweet Savour.

Florals were by Fleuriste Astilbe, the dress by Robelie MTL, the suit by Blandin Delloye, jewellery by Pilar Agueci, tableware by Looks Like White, furniture by Joe's Prop House and favours by Mon Olivier.

Borrowing a palette that is not local

The lesson worth taking from this shoot is that a regional aesthetic travels through texture, not through props. Olive, linen, organza and unglazed ceramic will read as Mediterranean anywhere. A painted backdrop of a coastline will not.

The editorial was featured on Amber & Muse.

If you are planning a wedding near Montréal and want a design that borrows from somewhere warmer, I would love to hear about it.