Yes, I know our french wedding was over year ago and that makes me the world’s biggest procrastinator. In my defense, I did not want to write about the wedding until I got pictures and I just got them. Okay, I got those a month ago. I’m a terrible liar. Here goes…

Basically, it was a blast and here are the highlights…

• The ceremony in the church that holds decades of history almost didn’t happen. True story – the priest almost didn’t marry us. So, this wasn’t fun, but we can laugh about it now. Back in December 2011, when Fabien & I were both in France for Christmas, we went to see the Priest about our upcoming wedding. He knew that we would be apart for 6 months and explained that to be married in the catholic church, you typically need to undergo marriage counseling. We agreed and proceeded to ignore this requirement. Yes, we are horrible catholics. In my defense, these instructions were given before I spoke french. Plus, we were married already. So, a week before our wedding, we received an email from the Priest explaining that he was “furious” and “disappointed” that we were not taking our marriage and the catholic religion seriously and that he would like to see us the day before our wedding, when we arrive in France to discuss whether he will even preform our ceremony. And so, when we arrived in France, the day before our wedding, jet-lagged beyond belief, we put our tails between our legs and ran over to the church where he greeted us with a huge smile and explained how he was so excited for our wedding. Hmmm, okay.
• “It’s like rain on your (2nd) wedding day…” The day of our first wedding was so beautiful that we couldn’t be greedy, but the weatherman was predicting a 90% chance of rain, thunderstorms and high winds at exactly the time of our ceremony. It was horrible, look at weather in the pics below:

As you can see, the weather was horrible.

And it only got worse throughout the day.

Eventually, the rain, thunderstorm and high winds did come, but it was at 4am and, at that point, everyone (i.e., me) had too much champagne to care.

• I was the Russian bride. Yes, my french has dramatically improved, but I’m still a little shakey. So, you can imagine my surprise when I was asked to preform my vows, in french. This after we already agreed with the Priest, that he would read the vows and I would simply give a solid, “oui”. And so I said “oui”, everyone laughed and Fabien handed me a sheet with the vows. I gave it the old college try and did fine, but it sure did give everyone a nice giggle. Also, my friend, Janet, who so graciously agreed to be my witness had no idea (nor did I) that she would have to come to the pew in the church to also give testimony that I agreed to the marriage. At the signing, she and I laughed how she’s not so sure signing a contract, in a language you don’t understand, is a very good practice. She’s a laywer and a good sport.

Me: “I have no idea what’s going on.” Janet: “Don’t worry, this won’t hold up in court anyway.”

• Dinner half time shows. This certainly was unexpected. Between courses, Fabien’s friends and family put together little skits and shows. They were really great. There was a song about us, a sumo dance to “Living in America” and a great video slideshow which included a very, shall I say, revealing photo of my husband while on spring break in Spain during college. As Janet said, “That would not have gotten the same reaction in the US.” I laughed and agreed.

• The all night and into the next day party. I came equipt with a couple 5 hour energy’s, but as it turns out, I didn’t need it. I just drank enough champagne for 5 hours, which gave me energy until about 4am. What I wasn’t equipt for was the all day festivities on Sunday where we ate and played games. I thought Sunday would allow for a proper hangover day where we would watch the french version of Real Housewives and eat fast food, but this is what a french hangover looks like:

• We literally blew in an out of town. We left on the 4th of July, arrived on the 5th, raced around town with last minute preparations, wedding on the 7th, on the 8th was the after wedding party (which was a total surprise to me) and then we left for Greece on the 9th. Yeah, by the time we got to Athens, we just needed to sleep for a day.

Ultimately, it was, again, the happiest day of my life. It was so great to have all of these friends and family travel from all over the world, who we’ve met on various adventures. To have them all in one spot will probably never happen again and I am forever grateful to them for traveling and continuing to make our story so fun. 2nd, my in-laws were so amazing to put the whole show together. I really did very little. But more than the beautiful wedding they to put together, I thank them most for bringing their amazing son into the world.

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