We're not in Brittany anymore, Toto

Now that I've recovered from practically robbing the cradle, I can talk more about the wedding. The actual marriage ceremony took place in the mairie of the 5ème in Paris, and only took about 10 minutes - though then again, we were fashionably late, so maybe it really lasted longer, lol. Seriously, only I would be late to a wedding, cuz I'm that classy.

Afterwards, Yuri and I kind of hung around awkwardly while a couple of photographers walked around photographing pretty much everyone but us. And then we made our way to the Cercle Nationale des Armées (read: really fancy army building) for the vin d'honneur. We almost got rejected from the bus ride over there, until the groom's mother finally deemed us worthy of boarding (ie. all the guests were on and there was enough room for us).

I wasn't really sure what a vin d'honneur was, but it pretty much involved everyone standing around in a fancy reception hall eating hors-d'oeuvres and drinking champagne. Again, Yuri and I were rebuffed by the groom's mother. We were starting to feel really out of place and unwelcome. But then a short while later, she came up and was suddenly all friendly. Either it was the champagne she'd been drinking, or it's a requirement that all French MIL's have to be bipolar.

It was so strange though to be surrounded by people with so much old money. It's not something I've ever been exposed to, coming from small-town Minnesota and all. Apparently the groom's father is/was really high up in the army, so there were a lot of current & ex-military men there, along with some of the "grandes familles" of Paris. But it was interesting to see what an importance everyone's family name held, and how they all judged each other by it.

Around 2pm, Yuri and I snuck out in order to go visit Paris a little and make a trip to the Japanese quartier. I happened to change into a different dress before going back(mostly because I felt like my boobs were hanging out and everyone else was so covered up) - and we showed up to the dinner to discover that everyone else had changed too, only into even dressier clothes. So I did things totally backwards - I should've worn the second dress to the wedding and the booby dress to the dinner/dance. But oh well, bourgeoise I am definitely not.

The meal was really tasty, though it was kind of weird that all of the dishes were fish-based. What was funny was the guy next to me was like "What? There's no meat!" Cuz in France, fish does not count as meat. Go figure. The meal was good though, and then they brought out the traditional flaming pièce montée (pretty much a big pile of cream puffs), along with a bunch of other desserts that I didn't have room for. Quel dommage. And then I danced the night away, drinking champagne until almost 5am when I found myself zooming across Paris in taxi, slightly buzzed, coming home just in time to watch the sun start to rise over the city.

Talk about surreal.