Outside France

Crew Collectif & Café in downtown Montréal (Canada), Cotonou (Benin), Abidjan, Bangkok: we also organise your celebrations abroad, with the same care as in Mantes-la-Jolie.

What actually changes abroad

An event abroad is not a French event transposed. What changes first is not the setting but the framework: country-specific administrative formalities, the rules governing a civil or religious ceremony, equipment imports subject to duty, insurance to be taken out locally, and sometimes an obligation to work through a licensed operator on the ground.

Then comes the question of suppliers. At a distance, you cannot judge a caterer by their website. We work through documented shortlisting, direct conversation, a tasting or trial during a scouting trip, and reference checks with actual clients. It is slower, and it is the only method that guards against a nasty surprise several thousand kilometres away.

The calendar runs in months

An international project needs more lead time than a French one: twelve to eighteen months is comfortable, under nine becomes tight. It is not the design that takes the time but everything around it: securing permissions, shipping equipment unavailable locally, coordinating guest travel, and safety margins it would be unwise to compress.

The budget is structured differently too. Team travel, accommodation for accompanying suppliers and equipment freight are line items in their own right, to be costed in the first estimate rather than discovered along the way.

Two languages, one point of contact

We work in French and in English, which covers most situations and keeps a single point of contact from beginning to end. Where the local language requires it, we bring a partner or an interpreter into the project, but coordination and responsibility stay on our side, with no handing over of the file.

We have already run one celebration outside France; it is shown further down this page. For any international project we prefer to talk early: feasibility turns on the destination, the season and the time available, and it is better said plainly at the start than later.