Saturday morning commenced the first day of our wedding adventure, as our two families join together to get the ball rolling on our fast-approaching big day!
We picked up my mother and her boyfriend The Pilot up at their hotel in Paris at 9:00 am sharp. With a quick stop at Bastille for to-go Starbucks (because a road trip out to the country isn't complete without to-go lattes and muffins), away we went on autoroute A6 heading out to Fontainebleau.
First on the agenda was to visit the lights, decoration and dish rental vendor. We're going simple without much fuss with the decor, so we figured this would be the easy part, plus I'm doing a lot of it myself. Picking up Gilles at his home, he climbed in the back seat with The Pilot and me while Seb drove us to the first installment of organizing the reception. Although we were all stuffed in the car like piggies, the excitement from all of the passengers aboard was undeniable.
Pulling up the gravel stone driveway of our first vendor, we were not expecting to see planters, a television, and chunks of pulled up patio scattered out on the front lawn. But that's nothing in compare to our next surprise. Gilles called the woman that he had been in communication with for the past week to let her know that we were outside. "On est là, Madame," he said. A moment or two passed before we heard, "That doesn't look like a Madame!" from my mother. The five of us looked out to our right to discover a middle-aged man with Sun-In blondish, yellow hair (think Jeremy Jordan 90210 soundtrack circa '93) approaching the car. "Well that's probably the husband," I reasoned, naturally assuming that Gilles had been talking to his wife who manages the appointments. That theory had been killed during introductions when "Jeremy" told Gilles that it was nice to finally meet him after their many phone calls, not at all addressing the fact that Gilles had been calling him Madame for the past week.
Only Gilles, I tell you.
Walking into the wood-paneled home, we passed through a long corridor that had wall stains and mold from leaks, and that were poorly concealed with tacked on posters of flowers and scenes of the New York City skyline. At the end of the hall, we were presented with the "showroom". The showroom had more strange posters, doodles on the wall of peace signs and arrows, neon light palm trees, champagne bowls that sang "La vie en rose", and a table setting that fashioned every color...except for white. This detail never came up in their phone calls because Gilles rightfully assumed they would have white dishes.
"David Tutera of My Fair Wedding would not approve." my mother said under her breath, looking at bride and groom cake topper with their faces chipped off.
While I can certainly see past presentation, the shambles of the showroom didn't bother me as much as the fact that they didn't have white dishes. If were looking to do a tropical themed wedding in colors of palm tree green and peacock blue, this would be the place to go, but since it's not, we needed to tell "Jeremy" that we were going to keep looking. I'm starting to notice that going simple is in fact not at all going to be simple.
Next on the agenda was meeting with the tent people. Since we are doing a backyard wedding, we have to be prepared in the event that France's beloved rain will pay us a visit. Driving even deeper into the country, we arrived at our second appointment with the expectation that it would go much better than the first.
Before opening the car door, a large and extremely fierce Doberman (at least I think that's what its breed was) slammed its paws onto the window and began barking at me, steaming up the window with his breath. The five of us sat in the car waiting for the dog to either lose interest in us, or for the tent owner to greet us. Neither of the two had happened.
"Gilles," my mom screeched, turning around in the front seat to face him, "Call them, but this time don't say Madame!"
The owner came out and led us into his garage to talk business, with the feisty dog hot on our trail. Once "inside", standing amidst stereo equipment and a lawn mowers turned on their backs, the owner told us what he had in stock in terms of tents, their different sizes and heating options.
"Can we see one?" Seb asked, wanting to walk inside one, see if they smelled strange and were in good condition. A fair request, if you ask me. Apparently not to the owner and his wife who then came charging out of a side door with a lit cigarette that she sucked through the large gap of her missing front tooth. She seemed straight out pissed with our request to see the product that we would be renting from them. "See one? We don't have one already constructed!" she barked at us before complaining about us and our demands to her husband.
"Here I'll show you," she said while reaching into the back pocket of her jeggings, pulling out a cracked and crusty first generation iPhone to show us photos. We all politely hovered around her iPhone, looking at the photos we had already seen online last week. Leave it to my mother to announce what we were all thinking: "We could have stayed home and done that, and not freeze our asses off in a hut!" Unimpressed by the fact that we were standing in a cinderblock garage with the snow wafting through the open door directly onto Gilles, The Pilot and my mother, she added, "David would not approve!"
Again with the David Tutera.
Like the earlier appointment, we left without reserving their services with the understanding that the hunt will continue. In the car on the way to a much needed lunch (read: wine!), I was concerned that Gilles and Seb didn't find any faults in these bizarre appointments, and that the rest of the planning would continue with the theme of going to backwood homes and being yelled at by toothless beasts. Fortunately I was wrong. Phew. "That was pure shit!" Gilles declared in the car, "We can do better than that." We most certainly can. I was just pleased that he said it, and I wasn't a closet Bridezilla who demands champagne on a cremant budget.Something tells me that we are going to be laughing about this day for years to come. Whoever said planning a wedding was easy? Oh wait, no one did...
Lunch was at a darling town called Moret-sur-Loing where Seb grew up. Seeing his village, and hearing stories about each little rue and small business in town made me love him just a little more. To see photos we took of this postcard of a village, click here!