Sofia Richie Grainge and Elliot Grainge: Inside Their Chanel Wedding at Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc

Sofia Richie Grainge and Elliot Grainge’s wedding was always going to be stylish.

But when the couple married at Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes in April 2023, the celebration became something much bigger than another celebrity wedding.

There was the French Riviera setting, the famous guest list, three custom Chanel bridal looks and a ceremony that somehow managed to feel extravagant without ever looking overloaded.

And then, almost overnight, everybody seemed to be talking about Sofia Richie’s wedding.

Sofia Richie and Elliot Grainge marry in the South of France

Sofia Richie and music executive Elliot Grainge exchanged vows at the legendary Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, France, on April 22, 2023.

The couple had become engaged a year earlier, after Elliot proposed during a trip to Hawaii.

For the wedding weekend, family and friends gathered on the French Riviera for several days of celebrations, with guests including Sofia’s father Lionel Richie, her sister Nicole Richie and Joel Madden, Cameron Diaz, Benji Madden and Paris Hilton.

It was glamorous, obviously.

But visually, the wedding never became loud.

That restraint is probably one of the reasons it has aged so well.

Three custom Chanel dresses

The fashion story of the weekend belonged almost entirely to Chanel.

Sofia worked with the house on three custom looks: one for the rehearsal dinner, one for the ceremony and another for the after-party.

For the ceremony itself, she chose an embroidered lace halter-neck gown with a long train.

The silhouette was slim and controlled rather than traditionally princess-like, with the lace doing most of the visual work.

Small personal details were hidden inside the dress, including an embroidered heart and blue embroidered initials representing Sofia and Elliot.

Her veil was equally delicate, decorated with tiny resin droplets designed to catch the light as she moved.

It is one of those wedding dresses that looks simple from a distance and increasingly complicated the longer you look at it.

Which is usually a very good sign.

The rehearsal dinner look

For the rehearsal dinner, Sofia and Chanel looked back to the house’s own archive.

Her hand-beaded gown was inspired by a look worn by Stella Tennant in Chanel’s Fall 1997 couture collection.

This might actually be my favourite thing about the entire wardrobe.

Instead of treating “timeless” as code for making everything anonymous and beige, the wedding clothes had very specific fashion references.

They were restrained, yes.

But they were not boring.

The after-party dress

Once the formal part of the evening was over, the bride changed again.

Her final Chanel look was a short corseted dress inspired by a Claudia Schiffer design from the early 1990s.

Which is exactly what a good after-party dress should do: keep the same fashion story going while finally allowing the bride to move.

Three events. Three dresses. Three completely different moods.

No random emergency sequins required.

The ceremony

Before the main ceremony, the couple held a private Ketubah signing with their families.

The outdoor wedding ceremony began later that afternoon beneath a clear marquee filled with white and cream flowers.

Sofia walked down the long allée with her father, Lionel Richie, while singer Stephen Sanchez performed a personalised version of Until I Found You.

Rabbi Thomas Solomon officiated the traditional Jewish ceremony.

The bride had converted to Judaism before the wedding, and the couple had also completed their legal marriage privately in the United States with their parents before travelling to France.

Black bridesmaid dresses and a Tom Ford groom

Elliot wore Tom Ford for the wedding itself, while Sofia’s seven bridesmaids wore black.

Rather than putting everyone into the same dress, each bridesmaid selected her own black gown.

That decision worked beautifully against the almost entirely ivory wedding palette.

It also gave the bridal party a little individuality without destroying the visual cohesion of the photographs.

A Lionel Richie first dance

There are some advantages to having Lionel Richie as the father of the bride.

One of them is apparently getting Lionel Richie to perform your first-dance song himself.

The newlyweds danced to Stuck on You, performed live by Sofia’s father, who also surprised the room with Hello.

Later, Good Charlotte performed at the nightclub-style after-party, bringing the wedding from Riviera elegance into something considerably louder.

Guests reportedly kept dancing until around 3 a.m.

Why this wedding became such a fashion moment

The phrase “quiet luxury” was attached to Sofia Richie almost immediately after the wedding.

And yes, I understand why.

There were no giant logos, no aggressively trendy styling and very little that seemed designed purely to create a viral photograph.

But I think reducing the wedding to “quiet luxury” misses what actually made it work.

The clothes were beautifully made. The setting was extraordinary. The colours were controlled. The beauty look was deliberately simple. And, most importantly, the entire thing appeared to belong to the same visual world.

That is different from simply spending a lot of money while wearing beige.

Sofia’s wedding wardrobe also had something many celebrity wedding wardrobes lack: a point of view.

The Chanel references, archival inspiration, clean beauty, black bridesmaids and Riviera setting all made sense together.

Nothing appeared to have wandered in from another Pinterest board.