Nouha & Nino

An international wedding for a hundred and twenty guests: the fourth of July, getting ready at two addresses in Tbilisi, and the park of Chateau Mukhrani for the whole evening.

The celebration was conceived as a garden one: a ceremony under old trees, oriental carpets instead of a built aisle, dinner under the open sky. The palace was cast as the backdrop of this story.

And one condition for the finale: after the bohemian day, a proper party. The change of mood was written into the programme in advance, together with the change of stage.

The day began at two Tbilisi addresses at once. Hers: silk robes, morning champagne, three dresses waiting by the window. His: a blue suit in a salon of green wallpaper, and groomsmen impossible to keep serious. Each half of the wedding had its own stage; the schedule brought them together only at Mukhrani, an hour later.

No arch was built in the park. The aisle was laid from overlapping oriental carpets straight across the grass; the altar was two old trees with pampas grass and terracotta amphorae at their feet. A hundred and twenty guests sat under the canopy, and the vows were spoken in the gate of the trees. Carpets on grass turned the park into a living room.

The palace was deliberately kept as a backdrop that day. Mukhrani's brick facades, arches and courtyard were given to the couple for an evening walk, with no guests and no programme, while the wedding itself never went indoors until midnight: the whole evening ran under the open sky.

The banquet was laid on the open lawn, facing the glasshouse. The blue hour came down, the orangery lit up and became the backdrop of the dinner: glass, light and glass again. No tent, no ceiling; a warm July evening needs neither.

For the party the day finally moved indoors and changed its mood entirely: the chandelier hall was flooded with red, beams cut through stage smoke, and the bohemian day ended as a club night. That contrast was the design.