From a Ghost Tour to a Parade — All the Details from Christina Hendricks' Glam New Orleans Wedding (Exclusive)

Christina Hendricks had a wedding to remember!

The Buccaneers star, 48, married camera operator George Bianchini on Saturday, April 20, in New Orleans in a weekend-long celebration filled with lots of festive, NOLA-style touches. The 75-person guest list included Mad Men creator Matt Weiner and actor Bryan Batt, fashion designer Christian Siriano and actresses Retta and Mae Whitman.

The event kicked off with a welcome party on Friday, April 19, hosted at a mini mansion on the Soniat House hotel property, which was recently redecorated by renowned interior designer Martyn Lawrence Bullard. Guests enjoyed cocktails and hors d'oeuvres before stepping out into the historic streets of the French Quarter for a ghost tour.

"We thought that would be a really fun way for people to get to know each other a little bit, and since many of our guests had not been to New Orleans, it's a way to be like, 'Okay, you've arrived, let's show you around the French Quarter. Let's introduce you to the city that you're in and to each other,' " Hendricks tells PEOPLE. "So we just thought what an ice breaker and a fun way to walk around in the evening together."

The actress, who says she was determined to be "overdressed and fabulous" all weekend long, wore a custom Christian Siriano gown for the welcome party, accessorized with antique jewelry, for the occasion. "That's how I've always wanted to traipse the streets of New Orleans at night — in a serious gown with a drink in hand, just walking around," she explains.

The following day, Hendricks and Bianchini — who got engaged in February 2023 after proposing to each other — exchanged handwritten vows at a ceremony held at Napoleon House, a century-old restaurant that remains a New Orleans landmark. The actress' close friend Shirley Manson, lead singer of the '90s music group Garbage, officiated.

The bride wore a custom Katya Katya bridal gown which she says made her cry the first time she tried it on "because it was so beautiful." She paired it with a Claire Pettibone custom version of her Boho Juliet veil with pale grey silk ribbons and lace flowers.

The couple's reception featured a multi-course sit-down dinner in lieu of a buffet. "People really love to do a buffet in New Orleans for weddings. We're just not really buffet people. I want to sit there and be lazy and have someone bringing [the food]," she tells PEOPLE. "So we did a sit-down dinner. We coursed it out and offered good, Southern New Orleans food."

The menu included shrimp and grits, steak and muffaletta sandwiches — a New Orleans staple — rounded out with a dessert of Bananas Foster, flambéed tableside for each guest.

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The weekend celebration concluded with a brunch on Sunday, April 21, featuring NOLA-inspired "snack-y" foods. "The kind of things that your mom would've made for you — the traditional dips and deviled eggs and farm Southern things with crawfish in them and all that," Hendricks says.

Hendricks says she and Bianchini — whom she first met on the set of her series Good Girls, which ran from 2018 to 2021 — wanted their wedding to be a big celebration of their love and a fun and memorable experience for their guests.

"We wanted [our friends and family] to feel sexy and welcomed and love and laugh, and have delicious food and indulge and enjoy incredible music. And we wanted to say, 'And hey, if you stick around, it'll continue to be like this. Come to our house. We'll do more of this,' " she explains.

"This is our best party, but we're going to have a lot more,' " she adds.

For more from Christina Hendricks, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, available on newsstands Friday.