IriIris and Jaime brought their Spanish and Dutch roots together in Valencia for a wedding that moved away from convention. Gastronomy, wines from the groom’s grandfather’s private collection and memories shared with their guests became the thread running through the entire celebration.
More and more couples are choosing to create weddings rooted in something far more personal than aesthetics or trends: their own story. Iris and Jaime’s wedding, celebrated at Masía del Carmen by Gourmet Catering & Eventos, is a perfect example of this approach — fewer predetermined rules and more meaningful choices.
Iris and Jaime’s story began in 2018, when they were both at university. They knew quite early on that they wanted to be together, although marriage held a different place in each of their lives. Jaime is Dutch and, in the Netherlands, getting married is not necessarily surrounded by the same rituals or cultural significance as it is in Spain. For Iris, however, it was closely connected to an important family and emotional tradition.
Over time, these two perspectives gradually came together. Seven years later, during a trip to New York in 2025, Jaime asked the question that, in a way, they had already been answering for years.
Perhaps that is why their wedding could never belong entirely to just one place.
A wedding without an imposed concept
When Iris and Jaime began imagining their wedding, they were very clear about what they did not want: a rigid or overly formal celebration shaped by conventions that did not represent them.
They wanted something simple, relaxed and slightly whimsical. A wedding where their guests could dress however they wished, feel comfortable and, above all, enjoy themselves.
The idea was not to turn their different backgrounds into a theme, but rather to allow both cultures to emerge naturally and to make every decision feel authentically theirs.
Surrounded by nature and located just a few minutes from Valencia, Masía del Carmen by Gourmet Catering & Eventos became the setting for this intimate world where Spain and the Netherlands could come together naturally. Their two cultures appeared throughout the gastronomy, wines, stationery and countless subtle details.
Iris personally took charge of planning the wedding and worked directly with each supplier. Throughout the process, the teams at Masía del Carmen and Gourmet Catering & Eventos accompanied the couple in shaping the experience, from organising the different moments of the celebration to one of the aspects that mattered most to them: the food.
Atelier de la Flor created the floral design, while Gente de Bien transformed the final part of the celebration with a production that the couple remember as being “almost like a festival”.
But the real thread running through the wedding was somewhere else: in their own story.
A love story told around the table
For Iris and Jaime, eating and drinking well has never been simply about gastronomy. Food and wine are among the pleasures they share, so naturally they had to play an essential role in their wedding.
Created together with Gourmet Catering & Eventos, the menu explored different flavours of Spanish cuisine through a selection of dishes that reflected their tastes as a couple. Some of their favourite drinks were served during the cocktail reception, while the wines concealed one of the most emotional details of the day: some of the bottles came from Jaime’s grandfather’s private collection.
Suddenly, a bottle was no longer simply a bottle.
Those wines brought a family story to the table that had begun long before their own. Serving them at the wedding was a way of honouring that legacy while opening it up and sharing it with the people celebrating alongside them.
The same idea appeared in the place cards. Each card was held by the cork from a bottle that Iris and Jaime had previously shared with the guest sitting in that particular seat.
The couple had kept the corks over the years, gradually creating their own sentimental archive. Each one held the memory of a dinner, a conversation, a journey or an evening with friends, returning years later to become part of their wedding table.
A small, everyday object had become a tangible memory of a relationship.
The table names also moved away from conventional wedding themes. Instead, they referred to places Iris and Jaime had visited together and ideas representing the things that make them happy as a couple.
Their wedding became an intimate map of their relationship, composed of small references that could only ever belong to them.
When your best friends tell your story
If one moment captured the spirit of the celebration, it was the ceremony.
Iris and Jaime chose two of their closest friends to officiate. Who better to tell their story than the people who had watched their relationship grow from close by?
The decision resulted in a deeply personal ceremony and extended the meaning of the wedding far beyond the couple themselves. The story they wanted to celebrate was not made up solely of the years they had spent together, but also of all the people who had been part of their journey.
The friends officiating the ceremony, wines from a family collection, corks saved after countless dinners and shared destinations transformed into table names all reflected the same idea: nothing was there simply because it looked beautiful.
A wedding party with a festival spirit
After the ceremony and dinner, the celebration shifted gear. If gastronomy was one of the couple’s great shared pleasures, celebrating was another.
For the final chapter of their wedding, they turned to Gente de Bien, whose production transformed Masía del Carmen into a space with the atmosphere of a festival. It was the natural ending to a celebration that had never wanted to take itself too seriously.
“Fun, emotional and pure happiness.” That is how Iris and Jaime describe it — three ideas that perhaps capture the day better than any wedding trend ever could.
What made their wedding feel truly contemporary was not following a particular aesthetic, but choosing only the things that genuinely meant something to them.
Spanish tradition could coexist with Jaime’s Dutch perspective. A family wine collection could become part of the wedding menu. A cork could become a place card. And two friends could take the place of a conventional wedding officiant.
Personalisation was no longer simply about aesthetics. It came directly from the couple’s own biography.
Rather than following one particular trend, their wedding reflects a wider change taking place in contemporary celebrations: personalisation is no longer just about choosing flowers, colours or decorative details, but about creating an experience that could only ever belong to that particular couple.
At Masía del Carmen by Gourmet Catering & Eventos, Iris and Jaime did not simply design a beautiful wedding. Detail by detail, and supported throughout the process, they created a celebration that could only have been theirs.
Because perhaps the contemporary wedding is not the one that follows trends most closely, but the one where every decision has a reason for being there.
Photography: @marshoots
Video: @hars.studio.weddings
Dress: @luciademigueldesign
Shoes: @flordeasoka
Hair & Make-up: @lachicadelosrizos
Venue & Catering: @masiadelcarmen · @gourmetcateringyeventos
Floral Design: @atelierdelaflor
Bridal Bouquet: @sallyhambleton
Sound & Production: @somosgentedebien
Groom’s Suit: @bassetandvanbommel