Fellow Parisians Eric Mouly and Margot Avenati met in June 2007 at the wedding of Margot’s cousin. “My aunt noticed Eric had been staring at me the whole night,” Margot, now 29, remembers. “So I looked at him out of curiosity but immediately felt something electric.” The couple had been together five years when Eric, a financial analyst, was transferred to New York, and Margot quit her job to join him. Two years later, Eric, 37, proposed at a floating restaurant off the coast of Mauritius. “It might seem a bit old school,” Eric admits, “but I had secretly gone back to Paris beforehand to ask her father’s permission.” The couple wed in May atop the Peninsula, an iconic spot that appealed to their 20 closest friends and family members, most of whom were visiting the city for the first time. “New York is pretty exotic for French people,” says Eric. A midtown limo tour followed the ceremony with stops at Times Square, the New York Public Library, and the Roosevelt Island Tramway. Dinner at Keens Steakhouse — Maryland crab cakes, aged prime T-bone, creamed spinach, and Key-lime pie — lasted until 1 a.m. Recalls Margot, “Our guests went crazy over all the American food.”
The Details:
Flowers: Renny & Reed
Dress: Sarah Seven
Veil: Erica Koesler
Suit: Hugo Boss
Band: Les Goodson Jazz Band
Photographs by: Corey Torpie
*This article appears in the Summer 2015 issue of New York Weddings.
The Peninsula New York and Keens Steakhouse, May 10, 2014
“When we first talked about getting married, Margot had mentioned this dress she had seen in a magazine. Four years later, she found it in a store in Tribeca. It was a sign.”
