Historic New Orleans wedding venue The Monastery

Stunning venue alert! Marissa Lambert Photography + the team at Distressed sent over this romantic wedding editorial set at the recently revived 1800s venue, The Monastery near the French Quarter in New Orleans. The grand, historic details and organic outdoor space made for the perfect combo to bring an elegant yet natural wedding to life. Shall we?

We love the casual inspirations that have spilled onto the wedding scene with wooden tables, family style seating, lounge areas, and organic florals, but we wanted to share how couples can have the best of both worlds with natural, inviting vibes while also having the richness and femininity of things like velvet, rich tones, and textures, so this design was all about marrying the two.

Smitten with the timeless details of this Alvina Valenta gown from I Do Bridal Couture.

The Monastery had all the things we were looking for—a perfect combination of magnificent architecture and rich detail but paired with natural wandering courtyards and imperfect centuries old cracked concrete walls. The idea of a lush velvet table runner against the backdrop of a natural wood industrial table inspired this design from the start, and the rest of the design continued down this path of rich and natural with lots of fine textures such as handmade cotton paper hand-dyed and lettered, linen, suede, velvet, petaled and beaded cake detail, and lavish overflowing florals.