A French Wedding..........

..SURPRISE......!!! ..no , its not ours ...!! ( I can feel a sense of shock/surprise/incredulity/outrage and general astoundingness subside as it ripples past St Malo....ah, a billow in the curtains and its arrived....heheh..!)
It was julie's sister's wedding , which took place a week after I arrived and its time to relate some non Paris , non food orientated stories.
I was told it was going to be a relaxed affair, and it being held beside a beach on a mobile home campsite certainly led me gently. Julie's parents and some of their friends rent mobile homes at this campsite every year and on arrival I knew why. It is about 1-2 hours south of Nantes on the edge of a beach with protected natural dunes covered with very beautiful grasses and wild flowers unknown to me.There is a central area with a bar /restaurant and multiple pool area inside and out.
Hey, there was even crazy putting which wooshed me right back to one of my first holidays en famille..!
( cala san vincente- if I remember well)..
The wedding commenced at the town hall in Nantes presided by the depute mayor I believe and it runs similar to our registry office ceremonies and then it was off to the coast.
It was a cracking weekend weather wise , hot n sunny so I appreciated the location.
Without following a step by step detail of the occasion let me say it was a very relaxed, informal and joyous affair, the meal began around 2pm with drinks + nibbles and carried on with 4 /5 slow and very sociable and relaxed courses lasting into the evening. There were also a few games organised throughout the day which I believe is generally customary and which iIenjoyed, it makes the occasion a less formal, serious business and keeps you focussed on the celebratory and joyous nature of the event , oh and so did the free bar ..:)
One of the games had a search and find elimination aspect where there was a group of "the chosen" with 12 rounds of finding requested items ( a shoelace, lipstick etc) and last person back is out. The other side of this is when you are out you are given a forfeit comprising doing something for the newly weds throughout their first married year ( there were 12 contestants relating to the 12 months so each person would do something for the couple on their designated month and generally related to a traditional theme for that month) .The game naturally and enjoyably immediately descends into chaos as all suddenly race for a needed item amongst the rest of us, restaurant and outside. Its here I must duly thank Julie for getting me out of that one as all requests were obviously in French and I would have had to run to Julie first for a translation ...
.. But not the second game... I didn't know there was another game until I heard my name through the loud haler ( yup , loud haler at the wedding ..well, it worked!!)
So this game re-enacted a story of a king + queen on a journey in a horse drawn carriage with the horses , King + Queen driver etc depicted by the people involved in the game on chairs in the middle of the hall. The newly weds were obviously the king +queen. Every time your name was mentioned in the story you had to run round your chair and sit down again. The central character seemed to be the driver of the coach (...ME!!!) which resulted in the central character doing most of the running round the chair , there still remains a feeling of intentional choosing for that game...!
and i managed to inveigle myself thankfully out of singing scots songs to the whole party.. possibly through a pretty good impression of calvinistic abstinence ( on the singing front , not the drinking i may add..!)
It was a lot of fun and the whole group certainly celebrate without candour; there was some impromptu Breton songs sung wholeheartedly during the meal ( that's where my singing invitation came in - a tad out numbered surely!!); impromptu banging on tables by all for the next course - well, it is France , there is joy, wine and there needs to be more food: and finally ending in up with a whole latter part of the evening in weird and wonderful dancing - no names , they all know who they are!!!!!!!.. oh and Brioche served warm near the end (??!!) of the evening ...nice.
and just when i thought that was it , I was introduced to a couple of scots folk holidaying there, who we found out came from Partick, Glasgow, just round the corner from my flat ..!!!!!
( thanks to Gaetan for that one ..)
That was the Saturday ....and after a relaxed start and dip in the pool on Sunday , we all met again and re-commenced the celebrations , admittedly not to the same degree but a leisurely lunch taking up the whole afternoon. It is one thing I am learning that is done here extremely well, the leisurely meal ...fantastic.
So, my first French wedding and it was wholeheartedly joyous , lovely , and all were very welcoming and warm to a Scots interloper with a natural ( scottish..?! ) fondness for free drink and not much French, tho it must be accepted that I started out sporadic in my french conversations and near the end I would have it for the record that I was far more voluble ..I insist it works ...!!( so just remember that bottle of wine with the dictionary next time you go to learn a language)...
Thanks to both families + friends for all of the above..!!!!
..a special thanks and all goodwill to the lovely couple -Sandrine + Jeff ( and capucine ..)..xx
...and a unique mention to the " gypsy quoi's " ....