A Playful Swiss Mountain Wedding With Ribbon Name Cards and Candlelit Tables

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Jenna and Andrew got married in June on Lake Thun in Switzerland, in a day that moved through three settings in a row: an early Romanesque castle church at Schloss Spiez, a boat crossing to Interlaken, and a Belle Époque ballroom at the Victoria-Jungfrau. Daria Events & Weddings Agency planned, designed and coordinated the whole route, and the handovers between venues got the same attention as the venues themselves. A guest list of 120 went from a cocktail hour in the castle gardens to a live band on the water, then to a candlelit dinner and a dance floor under chandeliers. Blush, pink and garden green carried through every flower, ribbon and room along the way.

Location: Bernese Oberland, Switzerland
Style: Classic, Soft, Elegant
Time of planning: 1.5 year
Number of guests: 120
Setting: Church and Ballroom
Season: Summer

Jenna is from the United States, Andrew is British, and the two of them are based in London. Their planner describes him as the technical one, a finance person who works with numbers all day, and her as the visual one, an artsy and high spirited bride who is as gentle as a flower. They met on a dating app, swapped numbers first, and only met in person after eight months. The first year of the relationship fell in lockdown, and Jenna remembers it as surprisingly fun: Andrew had a motorcycle and took her on drives through the English countryside, which she says made her feel like she was in a movie. Turkey followed one month into the relationship, then skiing in the US and Switzerland, then Greece.

The proposal happened in Taormina, Sicily, over a long weekend that Andrew planned himself. He rented a villa and dressed the terrace with candles, flowers and champagne, while Jenna assumed they were heading out to dinner. She opened the door, saw the terrace, turned around and found him on one knee. Lake Thun was always the plan for the wedding: Jenna’s grandfather grew up in Hilterfingen and she has spent summers there since she was a baby, and the lake became just as meaningful to Andrew and his family once he met her. The day was photographed by Veronika Bendik and filmed by Liberty Wed.

Welcome Dinner

The celebrations opened with a welcome dinner at Hotel Schönbühl, which also served as the couple’s base for the wedding. The soundtrack came from The Echoes of Django, a Swiss gypsy jazz collective founded on the shores of Lake Geneva in 2018 around the repertoire of Django Reinhardt.

The welcome outfits work as a palette preview. Andrew’s olive grey suit and pink tie sit against dark green chairs and striped parasols, and that pairing of green and pink returns on the wedding day as sage satin bridesmaid dresses and blush florals. Jenna chose white lace with long bell sleeves and a high neckline, a cut that covers the shoulders and arms her strapless gown leaves bare later on. An orange aperitivo in each of their hands adds the only saturated warm note in a scheme built on soft colors.

Bride's Morning & Fashion

Jenna got ready in a satin cami and shorts set and a lace trimmed robe, in a room with amber floral wallpaper, a wooden vanity and a red armchair, with Lake Thun and the mountains outside the window. Beauty Concierge by Tina Tsyhankova handled hair and makeup, keeping the waves loose and pulled back from her face and the makeup soft glam. A marbled cream comb with wide teeth appears both in her half up hair and in the flat lay next to the rings, so the same finish runs from the morning table to her head.

Her custom gown by Phillipa Lepley has a drop waist corset, a strapless front, and an oversized satin bow at the back whose long tails run into the train. Phillipa Lepley also made the hand embroidered veil, worked with Alpine flowers and pearl detailing, which puts the landscape of the region onto the bride herself. It is long enough to trail across a cobblestone path behind the whole wedding party.

Almost all of her jewelry came through her family. Jenna put on her great aunt’s heirloom diamond necklace, her grandmother’s engagement ring on her right hand, and a simple pearl bracelet that a close family friend once gave her mother. The only new piece is a pair of drop pearl earrings, a gift from Andrew, so the pearls tie the veil, the bracelet and the earrings into one thread.

Her shoes were pointed toe block heels by Emmy London, designed in London and handmade in Portugal, a sensible call for a day with cobblestones, a lake boat and a parquet dance floor. Her fragrance was Jo Malone Beach Blossom.

Groom’s Fashion

Andrew’s wedding clothes came from Jermyn Street in London, the address long associated with shirtmakers and gentlemen’s outfitters, and they covered two looks: a custom black tuxedo and a custom ivory dinner jacket chosen to match the ivory of Jenna’s gown.

The groomsmen wore black tuxedos with black bow ties, which makes the ivory jacket the only marker the groom needs in a group shot. The accessories were paired with Jenna’s: she wore drop pearl earrings from him, and he wore monogrammed gold cufflinks that she gave him as a wedding gift, so one gift is pearl and the other is gold. His fragrance was Jo Malone Cypress & Grapevine, which puts the couple’s two bottles on the same shelf.

Ceremony

The ceremony took place in the early Romanesque castle church beside Schloss Spiez, a stone building whose history runs back roughly a thousand years and whose apse still carries faded painted decoration. Jenna said the chapel made her feel like a little girl whose dream wedding had come true, even better than she had imagined, and the planning team saw it as the opening scene of the day.

Guests arrived by boat: a BLS vessel collected everyone in Thun and Hilterfingen and carried them across the water to Spiez. Hilterfingen is the town where Jenna’s grandfather grew up, which put her family’s lake history on the guests’ route before the ceremony even began.

Inside, Fleurel Swiss kept the florals to the altar, where whimsical blush and white arrangements gather around the steps and leave the stone, the wooden chairs and the warm apse to handle the rest of the room. Artem Pervushin provided live acoustic music. Jenna and Andrew skipped a first look, so the walk down the aisle was the first time she saw him that day, and she remembers it clearly.

Reception

After a cocktail hour in the castle gardens, everyone went back on the boat, this time with a live band playing on board, and crossed to Interlaken. The boat answered the question of how to move 120 guests from one side of the lake to the other, and it turned the transfer into a party of its own before dinner had even started.

Dinner took place in the Belle Époque ballroom at the Victoria-Jungfrau, the Interlaken grand hotel that has been receiving guests since the 1800s. Mirrors, chandeliers, marble and painted ceilings were already part of the room, so the design work was mostly editing.

Gentle blush, pink and green florals brought the garden indoors, with trees growing out of mossy ground and flowers along the tables, and the volume stayed low on purpose so guests felt special rather than buried in flowers. Clusters of candles at the centre of each round table handle the rest of the lighting.

The details lean on ribbon and glass. Instead of name cards, every napkin was tied with a ribbon carrying a guest’s name, a souvenir to take home and a quiet echo of the oversized bow on the back of Jenna’s gown. The room’s own mirrors became the seating plan, with the chart and the table numbers placed across them in a classic style, so the stationery lives inside the architecture. The reveal of the ballroom was the only moment in an intense season that moved Jenna’s planner to tears, because of how happy Jenna was in that moment.

Live music for the day came from The Supershakers, and Spark Events handled DJ and tech. Jenna danced in the gown first and changed after dinner into a hand beaded mini dress by Netta BenShabu, a switch from matte satin to a surface that catches the chandeliers.

Advice from the couple:

• Try to keep a sense of humour throughout the planning process and don’t take it all too seriously. When you’re planning something so far in advance, it’s easy to get caught up in the stress, overthink every decision, and lose sight of why you’re doing it in the first place. Stress is inevitable, and there will always be things outside of your control, so learn to laugh at yourselves and trust that it will all come together.

• There were definitely moments when we questioned whether all the planning was worth it, but we can promise you it is. You’ll never forget having everyone you love together in one place, celebrating with you and creating memories that will last a lifetime!