Wedding Bell Blues

Sitting in the little park outside the Mairie last Saturday, sheltering from the fierce afternoon sun, while waiting for the arrival of the bride and groom, my wife and I both felt distinctly like fish out of water.

Normally, I love a good wedding. There’s nothing quite like them. But the prospect of a French wedding made us both feel uneasy. Queasy, even. Which does, of course, beg the question: what were we doing there at 4.10pm on a Saturday afternoon?

Debs concluded that she had been seduced into it. Her client and our former neighbour from days of yore, when we lived in a small village where your business was everybody’s business, had asked her to be her witness. It’s quite an honour at the best of times, but particularly flattering for a foreigner. It’s a kind of seal of approval, I suppose – which is why she said ‘yes’ without really thinking about the implications. And I said ‘yes’ to give her my support and because I love a good wedding.

'Can I get a witness?'

Then, in that little park, the implications dawned on us. It would be just like the old days, when we would feel like objects of curiosity from a different planet. We would spend the next several hours in the close company of people with whom we had nothing in common, indulging in small talk over an interminable meal that would probably leave us feeling as if we’d just eaten a half pound of butter. We’d get back at some unearthly hour, wake up late on Sunday morning and struggle all day with a sense of having frittered away a precious weekend. We decided that we would put away such churlish thoughts and do our best to enjoy the occasion.

By the time the bride arrived, we felt less apprehensive. Natalie looked lovely in a long crimson taffeta skirt with white bustière and hair styled by Franck, the bio coiffeur of Brive. To see someone you like radiating joy and delight is guaranteed to melt even the stoniest heart. But I had witnessed her first wedding – in the cathedral at Tulle – a dozen or so years before, and I knew that her ex-husband’s dysfunctional family were a vindictive, twisted bunch, so I kept a wary eye on the nearby road for potential drive-by shootings.

After milling around and exchanging chit-chat, the small, select bands of guests trooped into one of the Mairie’s ‘state’ rooms for the ceremony itself. His worship the mayor, with a republican sash draped diagonally across his jacket, conducted the brief ceremony – which consisted of reading through the relevant civic codes, including a new addendum that makes husband and wife responsible for each other’s debts. Natalie’s new man, an engaging chap almost 20 years her senior, dressed quirkily in light-grey silk-effect suit with complementary hat, earrings and surgical boot, feigned indignation. I tried to ensure that I wouldn’t be in the pictures that someone was taking, just in case a photo appeared in the local paper and someone vindictive… well, you know.

Then we shuffled out for confetti and photographs before driving off in convoy to the reception at a little hotel/restaurant in the heart of a picturesque village somewhere in the hills above Brive. These wedding convoys involve mass honking of horns. It’s rather appropriate, as we both believe that the French often only let themselves go when they’re behind the steering wheel of a dangerous four-wheeled machine.

When we arrived, a gaggle of British bikers were busy drinking beer and soaking up the balmy evening outside the hotel. We were in the back garden down below, underneath a spreading maple tree and high above the motorway that skirts Brive en route for Paris or Toulouse. A bevy of earnest waiters in penguin suits attended to our desires. Debs and I found ourselves sitting with a pleasant if somewhat staid recently retired couple, who both knew England. She had spent a year in a school in Datchett and they had good friends from Bletchley Park. I felt that it beat talking to the two ‘rugby men’, to whom I had been introduced earlier, who would probably spend the entire evening teasing me about English teams past and present.

There was a sense, of course, of biding time before the real focus of the whole affair: la grande bouffe. It was a long time coming. We were finally ushered in around 9.30. As witness, Debs got to sit on the top table beside Natalie. Mercifully I sat within hailing distance. Everyone had a menu in the form of a scroll, which the happy couple had procured via the internet. The new husband, sweetly, had done a translation for the pair of us – also via the internet, so it bore very little relation to what we were about to receive.

And that was a steady stream of rather fussy nouvelle cuisine creations (such as a white pudding of lobster meat… soused in cream). Everything that came our way was guaranteed to delight on first acquaintance until the realisation that the flavour was butter, cream and salt. A sorbet refresher half way through was drenched in calvados and no substitute for a nice fresh salad. It soon became obvious that any idea we might have had of escaping before midnight was ludicrous. 

The combination wedding cake/dessert finally arrived at 1.30 in the morning. Taking our cue from a young couple with baby, we felt able to take our leave after the surfeit of chocolate. That way we wouldn’t have to bear the indignity of trying to dance to one of Claude François’s ersatz disco confections. Moreover, we were able to sneak out without going round the entire room shaking hands or pecking cheeks in the time-honoured fashion.

We got to bed around 2.30 and spent all day Sunday trying to claw back lost time.  But it would be churlish to dwell on the negative aspects of our outing. It was a nice wedding and the couple’s evident happiness was a joy to behold. And what’s more, so far, I’ve neither witnessed nor read about any drive-by shootings.