After the biggest victory of your life, whynothave a wedding?
Five months after he won theIndianapolis 500, Simon Pagenaud wed Hailey McDermott on Friday in an outdoor ceremony in Napa, California, PEOPLE can exclusively reveal.
“I dreamt about winning Indy. I didn’t know when it was going to happen or if it was going to happen — I certainly never imagined it would happen the same year I was getting married,” Pagenaud, 35, told PEOPLE days before the nuptials, before some five dozen close family and friends at the Auberge du Soleil resort.
“I’ve accomplished all my dreams,” he says.
“What I tell Simon is, ‘This is the easiest decision I’ve ever made, so I don’t feel that stress and anxiety of, Oh I’m getting married,’ ” says McDermott, 29, who has been with Pagenaud for seven years after theymet through mutualconnectionsin Indianapolis. “It’s just more like we’re finally creating our version of our family together.”
From left: Hailey McDermott and Simon Pagenaud at their Oct. 25 wedding in California.Amanda Crean Photographers
From left: Simon Pagenaud and Hailey McDermott at their Oct. 25 wedding in California.Amanda Crean Photographers
The bride and groom had been planning the wedding for months before Pagenaud’s Indy 500 victory. He proposed right after New Year’s Day in Paris — McDermott’s favorite city — with a clever ruse: She arrived thinking they were going to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
McDermott, afraid of heights (and having long said she didn’t want such an obvious kind of proposal), hadn’t even considered Pagenaud would ask her to marry him there.
“I’d always told him to never do it at the Eiffel Tower because it was so cliché, and then he did and now I could never imagine a better place for it,” she says.
“We just really wanted it to be about us and our love and joining our families together and just celebrating with the people who are nearest and dearest to our heart,” McDermott says.
The couple’s Jack Russell Terrier,Norman, served as ring-bearer — in a tux to match Pagenaud’s.
Simon Pagenaud and Hailey McDermott’s Oct. 25 wedding in California.Amanda Crean Photographers
Hailey McDermott at her Oct. 25 wedding to racing champion Simon Pagenaud.Amanda Crean Photographers
Amanda Crean Photographers
Afterward, the wedding party moved indoors for the dinner and reception, with the doors kept open to an outdoor lounge and bar. The whole thing glowed from twinkling lights and candles.
For their first dance as husband and wife, Pagenaud and McDermott chose Edith Piaf’s “La Vie en Rose.”
“I’m going to be very proud to call Hailey my wife when I introduce her,” Pagenaud said ahead of the big day. “I can’t wait to see her walk down the aisle, that’s certainly a moment for me — seeing her in her wedding is very special,” he said. “I can tell how much she’s going to be smiling already.”
After their years together, and the natural ups and downs of a relationship that long, “the commitment is the most exciting,” says McDermott.
“Even if we went to a town hall or him and I just went to Vegas, it means the same,” she says.
Says Pagenaud, who can recall the exact moment in Las Vegas last year he knew he would marry McDermott: “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her love.”
source: people.com
