Working as a Loire Valley wine specialist with a wedding planner

Eugénie Melinda Bardin is a young French woman sharing her life between Sweden, where she dedicates herself to her family life - she is married with a Swedish man and has a seven-year old son- and France, her homeland and the country where she develops her skills and talents as a wedding planner. She helps foreign and French couples make their dreams come true by organising the perfect wedding in one of the many private chateaux of the Loire Valley.

I met Eugénie in 2018, when she got in touch with me to ask me if I could organise a wine tasting during Andrew and Sophie's pre-wedding dinner. The wedding took place at beautiful Château de la Bourdaisière in Montlouis-sur-Loire, which offers huge and magnificent rock-hewn cellars, originally dug to extract the stone and build the chateau during the Renaissance. What an incredible and unique place!

Andrew and Sophie wanted their families and friends to spend a fun and educational moment during the dinner organised on the Friday before their wedding. I exchanged with them on Skype to get to know about their requirements, and decided to create a two-time event including a quizz about the Loire Valley wines and vineyards, and a blind tasting of five Loire Valley wines, about which the guests had to guess the grape variety and the AOC thanks to several clues given during the tasting. The event contributed to creating a friendly atmosphere, and everybody left happy and having learnt a lot.

In 2019 Eugénie decided to set up a group of experts and professionals, all working in different fields related to the organisation of weddings and special events - wedding planning, event and/or floral design, fashion, entertainment, music, photography, film making, gastronomy, wines, human resources, coordination and much more... The goal of this team is to create a ground for mutual growth for all the members of the group and a synergy beneficial to their clientele. All the members of "Castle Key Wedding & Events Authority Body" are proud of their region and are fine connoisseurs of the Loire Valley in general and the Touraine area in particular.

I am happy and proud to be part of the adventure, as a specialist of the wines produced in the Loire Valley! I invite you to read Eugénie's article about the workshop we held at Château de la Bourdaisière in April 2019 (link below), in which she recaps the goals and the assets of our team.

You are considering getting married in the Loire Valley? Contact Eugénie at Castle Key Destination Weddings, for a tailor-made and unforgettable event.