France 2005 – Part I - The Wedding

So as you should know by now, I’m back from my holiday. It wasn’t really a proper holiday – the first half was mainly spent in preparation for my friend’s wedding in and around a place called La Chatre-sur-le-Loir, South of Le Mans. After that I had a few days in La Rochelle, and I spent a couple of days in Nogent-le-Rotrou visiting a friend.

The Wedding

For us Brits, the wedding was a different sort of affair. The actual ceremony was a civil event held in the town hall of La Chatre-sur-le-Loir at 4.00 PM. I’ve never been to a British wedding in a registry office so I can’t really draw any comparisons with this one. However, for an allegedly romantic nation the civil bit was quite funny. They went on at lengths about the various legal aspects of marriage (and divorce) and so on, but it was a touching and emotional ceremony none the less.

After that everyone drove to a gîte in Chahaignes for the reception. Even the drive was quite different to the British norm with everyone hooting their horns, and with a car at the rear with a broom attached intended to sweep everyone up.

When we arrived at the gîte it was time to start on the wine. Several hours later we started on the first course of the meal, which lasted for about four or five hours (finishing after 1.00 AM I think…)! The French approach to wedding breakfasts is quite nice: you have several courses which are interspersed by various forms of entertainment and speeches. It’s all quite informal, and basically if you want to do something like sing a song, make a speech or perform a little act then you can go ahead and do it.

Although I’d been warned about this, I didn’t think it would take quite so long! By the time it was my turn to make the best man’s speech everyone was a little bit tiddly. The (rather short) French speech seemed to go down OK, but most of the English bit was lost. Not the end of the world I guess, but it would have been nice to have said everything I had planned on saying (and to have had it heard…)

After that there was some waltzing (my effort with the bridesmaid wouldn’t have won any prizes) and then it was on with the drinking. I’m told that it’s usual to go to bed at about 5.00 AM at most French weddings, so I was rather pleased with my effort to remain standing until 6.00 AM. (Having said that, there was at least one other thing I would rather have been doing at that time of night.)

It wasn’t over there though. Oh no! At least half of the guests stayed for an extra day of celebrations. The groom’s family knocked of a smashing cooked breakfast the following morning, and we then all started on the beer again. There was then an England versus France football game (sorry, we got our butts whipped), and then more drinking and eating.

Well that’s about it on the wedding front I think. As you can tell it was a long couple of days and everyone had a great time. I was glad when it was all over though – I really wanted a good night’s sleep!

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