A Sunset Wedding at Hôtel Belles Rives: Painting Melanie & Robby on the French Riviera
The terrace at Hôtel Belles Rives faces directly west across the Bay of Juan-les-Pins. In late May, the sun lingers over the water until nearly nine, gilding the pines, the stone balustrades, and the guests' shoulders in that warm, almost copper light the South of France keeps for itself. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote part of Tender Is the Night in this very villa, and you can still sense it: the unhurried elegance, the feeling of a story being lived rather than performed.
It was here, on a May evening in 2026, that Melanie and Robby were married.
An American couple, a French setting
Melanie and Robby found me through Instagram. They are Americans, like so many couples now choosing the French Riviera for a destination wedding that feels at once intimate and cinematic. They wanted something handmade to take home from their day, something more lived-in than a photograph and more personal than a film. Live painting was the answer they kept returning to.
What struck me when we first spoke was the precision of their vision. They didn't want a generic souvenir. They wanted a watercolour on paper, simple and elegant, in a format that would slip easily into their luggage and onto the wall of their first home as a married couple.
We settled on A5 watercolour paper with a white background, painted live for four hours during their cocktail and dinner, in front of their 44 guests.
Four hours, forty-four guests, one Riviera sunset
I arrived at Belles Rives in the late afternoon and set up at the edge of the terrace, just where the guests would gather after the ceremony. The light was already beginning to slow down. I work from the scene in front of me: the silhouettes, the postures, the choreography of a wedding as it unfolds. Faces are never the point of my painting. What matters is the gesture, the way a hand rests on a shoulder, the line of a dress against the railing, the precise angle at which a guest leans in to laugh.
By the time the ceremony had ended and the first glasses of Champagne were poured, I was already painting. The colours of that evening were unusual. The sea took on the deep ink blue the Mediterranean keeps for dusk. The sky moved from gold to peach to lavender within the space of an hour, and Melanie's dress caught all of it. The composition almost wrote itself.
What I remember most is the warmth of the guests. There is a particular generosity to American wedding crowds who travel well: open, curious, easy to be around. They came over throughout the evening, watched the painting take shape, asked thoughtful questions. Several recognised themselves in the composition before I had even finished. The team at CC Weddings & Events ran the evening with the kind of unobtrusive precision that lets an artist work without ever feeling rushed.
The painting was finished just as the last of the sunset gave way to the lanterns.
Why Hôtel Belles Rives is one of the Riviera's most painterly venues
A live painting at a wedding is, in part, a portrait of the place itself. And Belles Rives is one of the most painterly settings on the French Riviera, for reasons that go beyond its postcard view.
The light. The hotel sits on the southern tip of Cap d'Antibes, opening west onto the Bay of Juan-les-Pins. This means the entire cocktail and dinner unfold during the golden hour, with the sun setting directly into the composition. For a painter working in watercolour, where colour is everything, this is a rare gift.
The architecture. The Belle Époque villa, its mosaic floors, its wrought-iron balustrades and its pine-shaded terraces give every scene a frame. You are never painting against a generic backdrop. You are painting with the place. As a trained architect before becoming a full time artist, I notice these things first.
The team. The staff at Belles Rives understands the rhythm of a wedding the way only a hotel that has been hosting them for a century can. Nothing is forced, nothing is approximate. They allowed me to work where I needed to work and protected the painting as it dried.
The spirit. There is a softness, a douceur, to a wedding at Belles Rives that I have not found in many other venues. Fitzgerald felt it. Melanie and Robby felt it. It finds its way onto the paper.
Live wedding painting across the Riviera's most iconic venues
While each wedding I paint is unique to its couple, I have come to know the great venues of the French Riviera the way one knows a familiar landscape. Each has its own character, its own light, its own scale of composition.
Belles Rives offers intimacy and golden light. Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc at Antibes offers the white-on-blue grandeur of its swimming pool deck against the sea. Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat brings the pink-stone formality of its gardens and the panoramic view over the two bays. Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat, A Four Seasons Hotel offers terraced cypress walks and the most generous Mediterranean light. La Réserve de Beaulieu, Cap Estel in Èze-bord-de-Mer, Château Saint-Martin & Spa in Vence, and Château de la Chèvre d'Or in the village of Èze each compose differently again.
For destination weddings on the French Riviera, in Monaco, or along the Italian Riviera, the choice of venue is also a choice of palette, light, and rhythm. A live painter works with the venue, never against it.
Credits
Couple: Melanie & Robby, May 2026
Venue: Hôtel Belles Rives, Juan-les-Pins
Wedding planning: CC Weddings & Events
Live painting: Tanya Hayek, four hours, A5 watercolour on paper
Couples and wedding planners are welcome to write to me through the Live Painting page of this site. I respond personally to every enquiry, in English or French, within a few days.
