but we’re not too worried (translation, frogboy’s not at all worried, and i’m pretty worried, so we’re taking the average). i did tell frogboy, on our mini-weekend-wedding-planning extravaganza, that should it come down to having to fire the priest, i’m much less panicked by the possibility of “inventing” our own ceremony.
just to clarify: i dig our priest. but we still don’t know just how laid-back he is. will he, for example, think it’d be cool to have a ceremony half in english, half in french? if so, does that mean he’s going to have to drag out his high-school english, or will we be able to have a co-MC translating the important stuff? also, are we gonna be locked in to only readings from the bible, or can we widen the sphere on that one too? i was hoping we’d get to sound him out for that stuff this weekend, but no dice.
so this weekend, we’ve managed to secure appointments with both our lovely (someone finally agreed to marry us) priest and the owner of the reception place. i’m hoping they’ve got more experience with this sort of thing than i do.
for the good father — i think the two most important questions are going to be difficult to pose subtly. first, just how, um, catholic do we need to make this wedding ceremony? second, um, how’s your english? he’s going to ask us (again) which church we want to use, so frogboy and i plan to re-visit the ones we liked last time. the two major contenders couldn’t possibly be different from each other.
the chapel in the woods is just that, complete with little footbridge to cross and then a 500 meter uphill climb on a dirt path. the chapel can seat maybe 30 people, but maybe another 20 standing in the back? it also has wooden benches in a kind of amphitheatre just outside, where the priest suggested we could hold the ceremony (note: that would be a big score on the catholics-only-marry-indoors bit, you know, if it doesn’t rain). it’s gorgeous, but there are a couple of logistical problems: the chapel has just that one room, so no facilities to change in, and no “facilities” either. also, the path could be muddy if there’s rain beforehand and we’d have to at the least warn people off high heels. it’s about 40km from the reception.
the cathedral on the hill is about 35km from the reception site, and is at the top of a medieval hilltop village. you can see just about forever, with castles and all in the distance. the thing is, it’s a cathedral, i.e., ENORMOUS. and we wanted a small wedding, er, i think we’re set for a smallish wedding, with no more than 80 people. i worry we’d just look silly inside. plus, i don’t really think it’s my style. but the idea of walking down those tiny streets with the whole wedding party afterwards, while people stop & stare is kind of tempting. also, for practical reasons, i think there’s facilities (and “facilities”) there.
apparently the choice of church isn’t too urgent, but it will kinda set the tone for lots of other decisions, so i’m hoping we can get that settled this weekend, as well as testing the good father’s english skills. he’s probably going to regret having agreed so quickly to do all this….
pauvre type….
civil ceremony — will be in our town, either one week or two weeks before the big shindig. negotications continue between me and frogboy as to how this will go down (will we have only our “temoins” — our witnesses, or will we also invite locals or family members). i vote witnesses only. although if it turns out later that there are locals we’d like to invite to the big shindig but can’t (for money or whatever reasons), perhaps i’ll change my mind.
religious ceremony — we found our priest, from the neighboring parish to where the big shindig will be. we still haven’t decided which of his churches (despite our recent camping extravaganza!), but we did pick a time, 2:30.
the big shindig — the 11th century hospice, despite the fact that the dining room holds 50 and we’re looking more at 60. there’s a backyard that’s quite pretty, so perhaps a tent?
food — still planning on asking seb to do it. frogboy even phoned him yesterday and left a howyadoin message.
drinks — frogboy’s mum went all out, and has bought us about 100 bottles of wine (champagne, a white alsace, 2 red burgundies, and a white dessert wine), despite the fact that we still haven’t chosen the menu and are adamant that we’re not doing a traditional french 874-hour meal. no biggie, we’ll find use for the wine!
timing — we’ll show up at the hospice on wednesday, and are hoping family & helpers & random americans (to give themselves time with the jetlag) will turn up on thursday. i’d like to have a rehearsal dinner thursday night, but, um, they don’t do rehearsals here. so, perhaps a “bridal party” dinner? the rest of the guests show up on friday, and there’s a big laid-back BBQ friday night. saturday — wedding, cocktail party, dinner. sunday — brunch?
invitations — we are SO close to sending out those save-the-date cards. SO close i tell you.
music? yeah, that’d be nice.
theme? yup, want one of those too.
Filed under: planning, reception | Tags: choosing a location, cocktail party, reception
the party. gotta have one. it’s, like, the best part. (specially if you’re getting married somewhere that smells like pee, right?)
we thought about trying to get married in bretagne, cause it’s beautiful and wild and near the ocean (and therefore more near to the US than, say, australia). but we got more realistic quickly, mostly budget-wise: it’s a whole day drive from here, and we just don’t have the time or the money to be making that trip repeatedly to plan stuff. so that got scratched.
we wanted to find somewhere in france that could sorta serve as neutral territory, i.e., not frogboy’s mum’s backyard (god save us), and was also kinda uncitified (we live in the big city, in these parts; there are about 130,000 people!). in my internet research for big rental properties, amidst the 874 ruins of abbeys and castles and the like in bretagne (sigh), there was one a little closer to home. in a little midieval village about 2 and a half hours from us, it’s a “gite” (a rental property) that, before it was a gite was a hospice. round about the 11th century. it looked cool, extremely tastefully renovated, and it had a dining room that could fit 50 people, as well as room to sleep around 20. so we went to check it out, and frogboy LOVED it.
i dig it too; i’m just perhaps less imaginative than him. at that point, i still couldn’t imagine myself in a wedding dress (i’m getting closer on that one), let alone in a wedding dress surrounded by 50 people.
we knocked on the door, and the owner was home. he gave us the grand tour. turns out he’s got a bed & breakfast also in the village, even more classy than the old hospice. that’s where we’ll put the old folks. we sat down and chatted a bit with the owner, told him we’d be looking for something like a wednesday through monday deal, with the B&B for the weekend as well, and we were off!
keep in mind, at that point we (a) had no date set, (b) had no church picked out, and (c) basically had no clue. 6 months later, we’ve got (a), and we’re really quite close on (b). (c) i won’t talk about.
Filed under: general moaning, planning | Tags: accomodations, guest list, wedding website
way back when, frogboy and i made lists. his is longer than mine. first, he’s got 7 brothers and sisters, who’ve all got assorted associated parties (kids, partners, etc.). second, it’s a whole lot easier, i think, to invite your ex-coworkers to drive 2 hours to see you get married than it is to invite my ex-coworkers to plan 6 months ahead of time to fly across the atlantic and then go gallivanting around a country where they don’t speak your language. so, initial count: frogboy 45, futurefroggie 22.
i still have problems with this. i’m not sure why. part of it i guess is that i’m afraid that i will be completely eclipsed along the way. i mean, whatever we don’t want to be typically french will take extra effort — ceremony? in french, unless we figure out how to do it also in english; food? french, unless we figure out how to do it differently…. see what i’m saying? and i guess i feel like having my guests be outnumbered 2 to 1 may only help the frenchification of it all.
i LOVE living here, that’s not the problem. but there are things that i don’t like about french culture and there are things i don’t like about some traditional french wedding activities (much as there are some things i don’t like about the US — normal, i think).
anyway, the american guests will take a little more work, at least in the planning stages. we’re nearly done creating our save-the-date cards, which will have the address of our wedding website. (as soon as we send them out, i’ll put a link up here.) i spent a lot of time putting little descriptions and photos of all the different accomodation possibilities, so i hope that helps. i’m going to gather flight information and put that up there too (i hope — but no two guests are coming from the same place in the US!).
see, we’re getting married in france, cause that’s where we live and all. this simple fact makes things a WHOLE lot more complicated (at least from my perspective, and i’m the one writing this, ok? if frogboy wants to put his word in, he’s gonna have to get his own blog, and then it’d be in french anyway, and you might not speak french, and so you’d believe me anyway, and i’m really getting off the point here) in a few ways.
1. in france you MUST have a civil ceremony before any other ceremony. this is done at city hall by the mayor or one of his assistants. it typically lasts 10 to 15 minutes. our city hall’s entrance smells like pee, since it’s on the main square, where the students and other distasteful sort like to congregate after the bars close. at least i’m assuming that’s why it smells like pee. i haven’t yet seen the inside of the hall where the weddings are here, but from what i gather, it’s a pretty dry little ceremony, with lots of talk of contracts and the like. people who aren’t happy with just this can have a religious ceremony, but it has to be after the civil one.
you could, i suppose, try to organize a non-religious type of second ceremony, but: who would be the celebrant? yeah, i think in paris people are getting into this kinda deal, but it hasn’t hit us country folk yet. i couldn’t even find a protestant church that wasn’t (a) mormon, (b) jehovah’s witnesses, or (c) evangelical. that is no slam on those three, i’m just trying to say that i found no (what i’d call) mainstream protestants. none. and i searched, lemme tell you.
so, catholic it is!
Filed under: general moaning, planning | Tags: france, frogboy, girlie girls, wedding date
ok, i may be exaggerating just a bit. but seriously? i am not a girlie girl. i have never been a girlie girl.
exhibit A: for several years, my favorite possession was my black ems fleece, with zippy pockets. i called it my purse. it was not ideal for my cousin’s Tampa wedding, but it went with me anyway. where else was i gonna keep my keys, a pen, pack of gum, and the like?
exhibit B: the first time i ever wore makeup (other than that FABULOUS bonnie bell tootsie roll flavored lip gloss that i threw out only when i packed up my stuff to go to college) was after my graduation from law school, i think. i had the nice lady at the clinique counter at nordstrom’s hook me up. the only variations to what she showed me, to this day, were due to clinique discontinuing one of its products.
i could give you more. but i think you get the picture. martha stewart and i do not do lunch.* anyway, the story?
i live in france. have done so for the past three years. i came kind of on a whim, really liked it, decided to do what i could to stay. shortly thereafter, i met a wonderful frogboy, and it was clear that i had chosen wisely! we moved in together, got PACSed**, and in the beginning of this year, he asked me to marry him. we had some unrelated to the wedding horribleness shortly thereafter, that put all the wedding stuff on hold, but we’re back on track.
“on track” — we chose a date — may 31st, to be exact. and even told some people.
* i would probably really dig it, but she would be HORRIFIED.
** google it.
