Vaucluse Dreamer

This year has been so full of twists and turns that it sometimes feels as if we have been meeting ourselves coming backwards, just trying to keep on top of it all.

That said, we’d rather be busy than have nothing to do, so we really can’t complain, but once again we’re staring autumn in the face, and have hardly had time to draw our breath. We’ve spent the last 3 weeks in Devon, with a full schedule of summer events with my small jewellery business, which may have been a bit mad, but has been good fun too.

In many ways, it has felt like a bit of a break, as the days have slipped by quickly and I’ve (almost) managed to step away a little from the piles of paperwork that have frustrated my waking hours in the weeks since we finished our bike ride.

Don’t get me wrong, and this may sound very bizarre, but there is perhaps a small part of me that rather enjoys negotiating the intricacies of french administration, and I do take great pride in putting together a dossier of paperwork for whatever is required, doing my best to dot every ‘i’, cross every ‘t’ and provide a detailed index too . But the last few weeks before we travelled back to the UK, saw my stress levels rise a little, as this time a wedding is at stake.

If you’ve been following us for a while now, you will probably remember that the year started with an engagement, when our eldest son proposed to his girlfriend. We were delighted for them, very excited that she will be joining our little family.

Normally, as the parents of the groom, all we would really have to think about would be finding something to wear (which for me is enough of a stress on its own). But in this case, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

As a mother of two boys, I never imagined that I would find myself helping to plan every detail of a wedding, but as the ceremony is being held at our local Mairie, with a reception nearby, we have spent the last few months on a steep learning curve, which has been exhausting at times, but fun too.

Happily, it’s not a huge event (I don’t think I would have known where to start with that) and will just be an intimate, hopefully relaxed day with friends and family, to celebrate with them. In fact I think we may be almost ahead of the game, after reading an article today, as we are effectively planning a micro-wedding, which I think is ‘on-trend’ at the moment…. a real first for me, as I’m normally so far behind the trend, a new one has started before I catch up!

But before I could even clear enough space in my brain to sit down with our son and his fiancée to think about what will happen on the day, what it will look like and what we need to get in place, I had to make sure that we had all the paperwork done for the marriage to actually happen.

With us and our eldest son being resident in France, there were no particular hurdles to jump regarding the ceremony being held at the Mairie, but there was a huge list of papers to find, complete and have translated, from both England and Turkey, which is where my headaches started

As ever, the staff at the Mairie couldn’t have done any more to help us find out what was required, although then translating the requirements into Turkish, to make sure we had the right documents proved a little more taxing.

Once we had everything, we had to establish which ones were already accepted as being multi-lingual, before finding accredited translators, making sure that we had everything translated, signed and stamped before putting the dossier together, in plenty of time for it to be submitted 3 months ahead of the wedding date.

Once it was back at the Mairie, I kept expecting the phone to ring, waiting to be told of documents that were incorrect,  or missing, but no call came. I then started worrying that if there was anything wrong, they may come back to me too late for me to rectify the problem, so I plucked up courage and pottered up to the office.

With all my nerve ends jangling, I tentatively asked if everything was OK, and when she said that something was missing, my heart sank. She went on to explain that it was the ‘fiche’ for the Mairie with details of witnesses, rather than anything in the main file. She then went on to praise me on the dossier, actually describing it as ‘nickel’, which is about as positive a comment as you can get. I felt like I’d won a medal and left, walking on air, with a broad grin on my face.

The paperwork being accepted, the date and time was put in the Mayor’s diary and we finally had a wedding, we now just needed to think about what that would look like.

As it’s only a small event, we got agreement from the owner of the house that our friends are staying in, to host the small reception on the pretty, covered terrace there, which is a beautiful setting, with views across Apt towards Mont Ventoux and along the Luberon valley too. So that has made life a little bit easier, as we haven’t had to look at other venues, which seem to be booked many months, and in some cases, years ahead

With the paperwork done, a French to Turkish translator found to ensure everyone understands what is happening during the ceremony itself, and the visa applications in hand, we finally felt that we could start to turn the ideas that they had about what they wanted the wedding to look like, into reality and look at how we could do it on a realistic budget too. It’s over 34 years since we last organised a wedding (our’s) and we quickly realised that you can throw an awful lot of money at a wedding, but we really don’t have that option. Happily we are ingenious and have a great group of friends, who have rallied round and helped us plan, what we hope will be a wonderful, celebratory day.

We started with an engagement photo-shoot in the lavender fields below Simiane La Rotonde, with Fifi , who of course, will also play a starring role as the wedding car, decorated with flowers and bunting for the day. She added a bright characterful touch to the beautiful photos that were taken by our friend Chris Mallon ,

From there, the happy couple drove Fifi through the valley, to the lovely Domaine La Tuilière for an apero, where we all re-grouped to sip chilled rosé and watch the evening settle over the valley. All in all, a rather romantic way to pass an afternoon, with some stunning photos as a result ….

That done, we were able to really start on the plans for the day itself and as Beyza has previously run a business in Turkey, organising and managing celebration events, she quickly pulled together a basic plan. She also designed and hand-painted the invitations and a few other mementoes for guests, a beautiful, colourful and romantic design, which will appear on other pieces at the wedding itself.

Happily, she settled on a simple but elegant theme, which gave us great scope for exciting days out at local Vide Grenier events and Brocante markets, to squirrel out the vintage bits that will add the style she wants.

Just as I hoped, this has proved to be the fun part, and we have had lots of early morning trips to little events in local towns and villages, wandering through the stalls and snuffling through boxes, in search of what we need, resting our feet and examining our finds over coffee and croissants

We’ve had some great finds too, filling our baskets with piles of old napkins & snowy-white tablecloths.. and finding enough delicate, lace-edged handkerchiefs to be filled with lavender and tied with a rose to act as place settings for the wedding table….

Buying old glass jars for tiny candles and larger ones that can be filled with fairy lights to sit amongst olive branches and flowers on the terrace walls….

We have found beautiful pressed glass sundae dishes, decorated with flowers that will be filled with rose-scented Turkish Delight…

And an eclectic selection of delicate vintage wine glasses, which will add character to the table, amongst the more modern glasses that we are hiring from a local company….

We even managed to buy 28 simple champagne coupes, for the bargain price of 8 euros, which will be perfect too …

When I say that we are doing it on a budget, it’s the little wins like this that really make me smile!

It would be fair to say that after some trips, Fifi has been weighed down with purchases, with old wicker baskets that will be filled with flowers for the day, being used to carry the purchases away (with sometimes several trips being needed to collect all our precious buys)

So on the styling front, we are getting there, with the hallway filling with boxes of finds to remind us of what we have and what we still need to get. It also smells rather wonderful too, as before I headed off to Devon, I cut the lavender from the front border to dry, and add to olive leaves and the rose petals that I’ve been drying for the last few months, that will be used as a natural confetti.

Initially, we thought we would do the catering ourselves, but then reality set in and the thought of trying to prepare food and cook, on top of decorating the house and managing the logistics of shuttling guests to and from different places, really was a bit much, so we went in search of a caterer. Nothing grand, but something simple, easy and relaxed, only to find that we were about 2 years too late in getting organised. It appears that most were already booked for at least the next 2 summers, if not further ahead. Clearly weddings should take longer to plan than 6 months!

Undaunted a good friend stepped in and contacted her old friend, who had catered for their wedding and even spoke a smattering of Turkish. So after a meeting over an old, scrubbed kitchen table, which was an entertaining conversation involving French, Turkish and a little English too, we had found ourselves the perfect person to prepare a little buffet meal, using fresh ingredients sourced from the local farms around our villages.

It felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders, as I no longer needed to stress about the meal itself, just a few nibbles for the Apero and a dessert, which was easily resolved with a visit to a local patisserie (which will supply little individual tartelettes and sweet delights) and a stop at the rather wonderful ice cream shop Une Glace en Luberon which will supply us individual icef desserts too (the tasting has been rather fun).

We have spoken to a florist, who will make the bouquet, and have arranged to go to the incredible flower stall at Apt market, the week before the wedding to finalise the flowers that we will use to decorate the Mairie and the house, collecting them a couple of days before the happy day.

So after the mad few weeks in Devon, we’re back home, moving our son into his new flat ( which is really very lovely) and waiting for his fiancée to arrive back tomorrow, when we can really start to finish getting everything ready, ahead of the big day.

The last few weeks may have felt busy, but I have a feeling that the next 3 will feel even more chaotic. But I have a dress, I have shoes and I have an unerring belief that everything will come together and it will be a great day. Although once it’s all over, you will probably find me collapsed in a darkened room with a bottle of wine!

Either that or on the bike pedalling away the stress of the last few months…

I know which I’d prefer!