Vows were exchanged, tears of joy had been shed and the precession of limos from the church to the barn was ready to commence. Our limo having all of my cousins minus Angelo, my brother, Simon and my mom. As we were pulling out of the church parking lot, cousin Vinny popped the complimentary bottle of Veuve Cliquot while cousin Marco blasted "Party Rock Anthem" leading him to bite his lip, gyrate in his seat while Anthony screamed the lyrics in Simon's ear. "This is why I don't live in The U.S." Simon screamed over the blasting music with a grimace, "Shitty songs like this. How is this even a song?" Unfortunately, France gets all American pop, so not only do I know this song, I love it. I admit, I threw in a champagne facilitated shuffle or two. Needless to say, we were ready for farm party time...
After an hour car ride of cousin madness, we arrived, thankfully with Simon unscathed and in one piece. My cousins are definitely an 'experience'. The location was perfect. The rain had stopped, the farm animals were in their carnal bliss frolicking in their pens, there was a rainbow over the horse's stable and servers were waiting on the driveway holding trays of champagne to greet the guests with.
We walked into a stone and almost cavernous room that was lit with gold and amber candles on unfinished oak tables and started the night off with the best part of any wedding; cocktail hour. Test tubes of farm-grown carrots, sesame encrusted zucchini, crab cakes sprinkled with caviar, truffle risotto balls on sticks and baby cherry tomatoes on slabs of wood were passed. I had to hold back because my spanx were sucking me in preventing me from over consumption. Maybe I picked up the lap band version because eating was becoming less of an option. Simon and I started talking to cousin Angelo's good friend David who is from Paris and shares my frustration with obtaining a visa in a foreign country. He is trying to stay in The States and I'm trying to stay in France. Why can't passports just be interchangeable? Yes, I know, that would cause a myriad of problems like terrorism, espionage and fraud. Simon particularly enjoyed David's American girlfriend who was speaking to us in English. With a French accent. "Why did she say she was from New Jersey with a French accent?" Simon asked me as we were stalking the cocktail hour passer who had the crab cakes. "She has an international lover. She has to do that." I said mock defending her while perusing the guests. After our pleasant conversation with David and his self-aquired French girlfriend, we managed to get trapped in every awkward conversation possible with people who in high school thought that Simon was a stoner and I was an art freak. They were right and not much has changed. Neither of us are married, he lives in Indonesia, I live in France and to them, we might as well have been from Mars. Finding topics in common was more challenging than keeping my mom away from the bar. What's the proper etiquette of ending a dull conversation that both parties are clearly not interested in? We exhausted saying that we were going to get another drink, our glasses were always full thanks to the pertinent staff and we couldn't say that we were getting something to eat because the passers knew us at this point and would come right to us with fresh trays from the kitchen.
Dinner was announced and we were escorted to the dining room that was on the other side of the farm. Since it started to lightly drizzle, they were taking guests up to the reception hall in groups where we were each issued a personal umbrella holder. I felt like Mariah Carey. Once inside, the dining room was just lovely. Simple and elegant. There was one large French window that looked out on to rolling hills and apple trees, the walls were gray and slate stacked stone and the room was softly lit by a rustic wooden chandelier and glowing candles. Each table had simple summer flower arrangements in colors of peach, soft pink and ivory and our seats were assigned by menus that had our names monogrammed on the cover. The menu boasted heirloom organic tomato salad, lobster chowder and filet mignon and prime rib. Each entree came with a different glass of wine that complimented the dish. To no surprise, I was sat with my cousins who were becoming the theme of the night. I swear, one of them always has to be speaking, the only time that 'cousin silence' exists is when my grandfather is speaking. Suddenly we heard the sound of crystal clinking, it was my grandfather, clinking his glass which meant he wanted to speak. Temporary cousin silence took place. He got up to the podium to say his speech that started with "I'm not racist but...". Racist, a word every bride wants to hear at her wedding. My grandfather was working it into when his daughter, the groom's mother wanted to marry the groom's father and him not being Italian but being German, my grandfather had his reservations. Although the angle was a bit bizarre, it worked and he delivered a humorous and heartfelt speech. It was an improvement from his reading at my great aunt's funeral where he lost what he had written down and chose to just read the program instead. The program was designed by my cousin Marco who does graphic design and who for some reason included Sade quotes, leaving my grandfather to quote "Lover's Rock" in church. Sade probably would have been more appropriate for this; a wedding, not a funeral for an 89 year old woman.
Dinner was served and unlike typical wedding fare, it was excellent. In fact so good that my brother Andrew kept taking food off of my cousin's plates when they turned around to talk to someone. "Who ate my food?" Vinny said looking at a square stain on his plate where a slice of filet mignon once resided, "There was something there, look, I can see the juice!" he said while holding up his dish show to everyone. "I don't know, man." my brother said while chewing the meat that was in question, "You should ask the server for another piece." Simon and I stayed quiet and guarded our plates from my vulturous brother.
After dinner, we saw the jazz band packing up which only meant one thing. DJ time. "Non Parlo Americano" started blasting from the speakers, the dance floor was flooded and the senior citizens evacuated. A petit gay man in a white suit targeted Simon and was grinding and shimmying up against him. "Every time I turn around, this guy is here and in my face!" Simon said while imitating him with his hands waving in the air. The disco queen gave up and was skipping around the dance floor pointing to guests and critiquing everyone's moves. "Terrible!" he pointed to the maid of honor. "Useless!" he pointed to someone's aunt. "Doable!" he said to an attractive guy sitting down. Clearly he was critiquing something else. "What makes this guy such an authority on dancing?" Simon asked in disgust to his judging. "His idea of dancing is harassment, No one can escape him!"
The music softened and Josephine and Angelo got up to light a candle together on a table facing a corner wall and recited extended vows to each other. The photographer had asked them to face the guests and pose, after a few snaps, he had to change his battery leaving Josephine and Angelo to stand there and pose while he fumbled with his equipment. No one knew if the vows were over, so we all awkwardly watched them standing there. Soon a faint smell of birthday candle smoke filled the air as if one of the candles had blown out or...the veil was on fire. And it was. The veil was so long that it got nestled in the candelabra while they were posing and waiting for the photographer to change out his battery. The best man heaved over to Josephine, ripped the veil off her head piece and rolled it in a ball in an effort to snuff the flames which only multiplied them. Three groomsmen came over and started stamping the veil my grandmother hand made 25 years ago. Angelo grabbed his bride who was aghast over the fact that she almost went up in flames on her wedding day and there was mass hysteria in the reception hall as we all witnessed what could have been a tragedy. The veil now looks like a cat who has half a tail. It's a veil stub and instead of 10 feet of vintage Spanish lace, it has 2 feet. Exhale. Danielle, Jospehine's bitchy cousin looked at me with a smirk, happy that I would never get to wear it. She should have been more focused on her cousin getting burnt to a crisp than me not wearing the veil. Just saying.
Luckily, no one got hurt but the madness of the burnt veil left the bride and groom not wanting to do a cake ceremony and had it cut up and passed around along with other delicious deserts and pastel colored French macaroons. The night was coming to an end and it dawned on us that no one had planned for a limo ride back. Cousin Anthony only booked it one way, so we all piled on to the bus provided for the guests and headed back to the church. Nestled in, the bus was buzzing with drunk party-goers, more specifically, drunk cousins. "I hear a cousin in each corner of the bus." Simon observed, "If Anthony isn't talking, than I hear Vinny. If not Vinny, than I hear Marco in another corner. It's like cousin surround sound." Like I said, my cousins are an experience. The favor was vintage bottles of my cousin Angelo's homemade Limoncello that my other cousins had no problem opening up for the bus ride while Simon and I slept.
The wedding was above and beyond exceptional, the perfect location, setting, menu and of course, company. One of the best I have ever been to minus the burnt family heirloom fiasco. This kicked off wedding season where I have to do this three more times in the next 3 months. Sadly, Simon won't be my date and plan to go the others stag. I'm counting down days before going back to Paris, as summer is coming to an end. I couldn't think of a more perfect way to end it than a summer wedding on a farm.
