All Weddings Should Be French Weddings

It's really true. I mean this in the sense that one should dance the night away, have a helicopter show up randomly during cocktail hour, nobody gets too drunk and the music is awesome. We (everyone who doesn't have a french wedding) are sooooo stupid not to have a dance like le rock. Gah. I can't get over it. I keep telling people I don't have the words in french to describe my feelings for french weddings. I don't think I do in english either.

Le rock is super fun, though very dizzying. It's good to have a french guy or two nearby to catch you when you're feeling faint. I'm not exactly a pro, but for my first time, I'm not too bad. Some of the dance moves are positively acrobatic. Look up RocknRoll Danse on youtube to get an idea for it. High schools and weddings everywhere should teach it, because it works for all ages (seriously, some 80-year-olds were getting down at 4 am) and it's super fun. To use the french term, "hypersexy."

Where do I begin with the french wedding? Is it the fact that everyone wears hats and there's a hat tree for when the dancing starts? Or that I was told by a Frenchman "If I don't end up with my tie around my head it's not a good wedding?"

I could go into depth about my drunk not-swiss-but-kind-of-french friend who followed me around speaking english. I tried to speak french to him but he had none of it. He told me he had an American accent so I told him I had an Australian accent. There is the same amount of truth in both those statements.

There was continuous humor in the fact that the majority of the songs were in english... And so I was one of maybe five people who understood just how inappropriate Kid Cudi is. Of course they all sing along though. "All the crazy s%^$ I did tonight...."

The biggest compliment of the evening came when I was chatting with an American also in attendance. He told me he had met another guy who said he'd thought I was french. I'd introduced myself in a very french way and continued to hold my own... Score one for the good guys! My host family laughed at me though, and said "We hope you realize you have an accent."

Of course I do. No need to remind me, I'm not getting too cocky. I get made fun of all day every day. ("I think French people like Americans a lot, but Americans like French people more..." -French friend. I'm having a hard time judging the truth of that. They are pretty into a lot of things State-ish here)

What else can I regale you with? The time when the bride and groom got tossed up and down by their friends, or that everyone got on the dance floor to "Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)". WOOOOOT ABBA!

Or one of the great aunts telling me that I was "La Belle Americaine" and then following that up with saying that "La Belle Americaine" means a really nice Cadillac or American-ish car. Likened to a car... And loving it.

Dinner with les ados was interesting, mostly because we only had wine, ham and potato chips. So we rolled the chips into ham and had some sophisticated exchange of swear words and opinions about religion. Everyone here smokes like a chimney at French weddings. I guess that's the only thing I'd change, because it makes one nearly asthmatic to be around it all the time. Wheeze, wheeze.

I made probably thirty friends during the evening, all of whom remembered my name. Unfortunately, I was very sleepy and forgot 25/30 such that the next morning when everyone was going "SALUT M----" I gave a very sheepish "Bonjour." Gotta work on that.

Truly, I will guard this experience in my memories for the rest of my life. French Weddings have set the new high for me, but luckily I've got a British one this weekend. Comparison in order?

As one of my Colombian friend's mom's told her "Profitez! Profitez! Profitez bien!"

I like to do the following with my adventures.

"Think of it as research for your memoirs."
-ChuckandCindy