Lauren and Lionel

Lauren and Lionel's story starts over 18 years ago, in a small practice room at St. Catharines Collegiate when Lauren, only 9 years old at the time, was performing in her first solo flute competition. Lionel, 12 years old at the time and being in the more experienced class, was warming up before Lauren's class started. Although Lionel did not notice Lauren at this time, Lauren did notice Lionel and found him to be very cute. She was also inspired to keep on practicing the flute and ultimately taking up the saxophone. “If Lionel was this cute”, reasoned Lauren, “all sax players might be!”

In the summer of 2006, while Lauren and Lionel were both at a birthday party for their mutual music teacher, Lionel noticed Lauren and asked for her e-mail address. They began to chat over MSN Messenger. Yes you read that correctly. A few weeks later they went on their first date and were inseparable after that.

As life would have it, Lauren went to Queens for her undergraduate degree, and Lionel went to Ottawa for law school and they parted ways for a period of time, but always stayed in touch. Lionel pursued his dream of becoming a lawyer and went on to work in downtown Toronto. Lauren graduated from Queens, moved to Toronto and after working for a few years, enrolled in her Master’s program at U of T. Lauren started to interview for jobs in downtown Toronto, and by chance, Lauren and Lionel met again outside of the TD Tower on King Street West in Toronto, three years after going their separate ways for school. Although the meeting was a coincidence, this meeting was the start of their renewed friendship and love for one another.

2 years later, Lionel proposed marriage to Lauren at the same spot they ran into each other: in front of the TD Tower. Lionel popped the question and said: "this is the spot where you came back into my life. And this is the spot where I hope you'll agree to spend the rest of your life with me." Lauren said “yes”.

Lionel and I share a deep passion and love for travel. We have been working hard to expand our minds and push our boundaries to see more of the world and experience more cultures. With that love for travel we knew we wanted to do a destination wedding not only to expand our travel footprint but also the travel footprint of our friends and family. Most of our guests had never visited France with some having never been to Europe. It was wonderful to share our joy of new experiences, food and customs with our friends and family. We decided on France given the relatively easy jumping off point for other people to venture out into Europe. As well, we have a strong love for French food and wine. Once we had decided on France I did some research and stumbled upon Beth from Marry Me in France. She was so wonderful and made me feel so comfortable about having a wedding overseas it was a no brainer to work with her. We wanted a place that would sleep our families and wedding party with a small town nearby for other guests. Chateau le Mas de Montet checked all of those boxes and when we saw pictures of the place we just fell in love. It really spoke to the feel that we wanted from a French, destination wedding. The gardens and the building looked like something out of a fairytale that we knew not only we would love but that also our guests would love and want to travel so far for!