The one in which I almost miss my own wedding

Well here, I am, five days into married life. I haven't had much time to write since my family was here and they wanted to take advantage of their last few days in Paris.

But last weekend ended up being an absolutely lovely weekend and the weather - omg, the weather - who would've thunk it?! A rainy wedding wouldn't have stressed me out (after all, mariage pluvieux, mariage heureux right?), but I was hoping it would be nice for our picture session, so I jokingly told C I was going to do some positive visualization, ie that I was going to picture us walking out of the Mairie under a bright blue sky. It became kind of a joke between us - because really, what were the chances of it being uber nice on October 1st? But I still kept doing it - every day, for just a few seconds, I would imagine our wedding day being bright and sunny, with not a cloud in the sky. It's not that I really believe in that kind of stuff, but I always figure that throwing positives out to the universe can't hurt. And what do you know - we had a clear day with a high of almost 30°C!

Despite everything going on, I think I managed to stay relatively calm bride, minus two small Bridezilla incidents. The first being when we were on our way to the Mairie, but got held up because we couldn't get the gigantic mercedes out of the garage. I was sitting there, as we inched forward and reversed, inched forward and reversed, watching the clock tick by.

10:51am
10:53am
10:57am

Did I mention I was supposed to be getting married at 11am?

Um yeah.

We finally got the car out, and we raced over to the city hall. My mind was racing as well - like "How could I be late for my own wedding??". And then we get there, only to find the parking lot in front of the city hall was full! (As a side note, most Vinci parking lots will let you park for free on your wedding day and on your birthday). My poor brother - who has never been to Paris before, let alone driven in the city - was left to fend for himself and find a parking spot while I jumped out of the car and ran over. Luckily they were running behind and he found a spot easily enough, so I was able to breath for a few minutes and say hello to everyone before we were ushered inside.

The ceremony itself was short and sweet - though the Adjoint Maire did make a few too many references to having multiple children for my liking. Have children! Have many children! And have them in the 15th! It was one of the things he'd asked us last week, and now I'm curious to whether or not he would have married us had we said no. He also leaned in to give me a bisous afterward, and it lasted just a little bit too long....Those of you in the countryside will know what I'm talking about. Like when you show up at the village bar and you have to make the rounds to say hello to everyone, and all the greasy old men at the bar insist on leaning in for a kiss that is accidentally-on-purpose way too close to your mouth.

And then it was over and we had a piece of paper saying we were married. It's actually kind of funny when you think about it - that this tiny piece of paper can carry such weight and be a legally binding document. Like one second you're not married, and then *bam* you are.

How about that?



In the next episode: A hungry bride is a cranky bride....