We went to Europe to celebrate the wedding ceremony of my son Aaron and his fiance Michelle in Paris. Destination weddings have become quite popular these days so let me take some time to explain a little about how having a wedding in Paris worked. I didn’t have much to do in terms of planning the wedding. However, I heard about it so I can provide some insight.
First of all a couple cannot get legally married in Paris unless they have lived there for 30 days. Since Aaron and Michelle could not do that, they were legally married at home by a judge a few weeks before their wedding ceremony. They had one couple friend accompany them as witnesses. They wanted the Paris event to be the day they remember and celebrate.
Aaron and Michelle chose to have a wedding in Paris because they wanted it to be basically family. Michelle is Vietnamese, and she has a large social network of Vietnamese friends. They all wanted to be a part of her wedding. Having the wedding in Paris was a way to avoid all of that drama as well as the expense, and they could plan it more quickly. The unfortunate part was that neither Aaron’s sister nor Michelle’s brother were able to come for the wedding.
Their planning started with the photographer whom they found online. She suggested a hotel they could use as well as someone to do flowers and makeup. They also hired a videographer they found online. The funny thing is the videographer was Vietnamese, and the other professionals were all Brazilians. Aaron is half Brazilian.
The hotel room they reserved had a balcony with a clear view of the Eiffel Tower. There was plenty of room on it for a small audience as well as a table for refreshments. The hotel helped set everything up as well as had personnel for planning and serving on the day of the ceremony. They all did a beautiful job.
The day of the wedding dawned with clear blue skies, a perfect day for a wedding. Since the wedding wasn’t until the afternoon, Silvette and I decided to visit Notre Dame in the morning. We walked over to see the progress on the reconstruction. Of course a lot of reconstruction is happening there to rebuild what had burned in the fire a number of years ago. Apparently they are hoping to finish by the end of this year, 2023. It seemed to me there is still a lot to do, however. The front is pretty much in tact. It’s the sides they are working on.
After we checked that out, we walked by another major building, the Hotel de Ville. A large statue of the Olympic logo stood in front of the building as the Olympics are returning to Paris in 2024.
By then it was time for Silvette to get her hair and makeup done for the wedding. After she finished, we returned to our hotel for a respite until we left for the wedding. Of course one of the challenges of a destination wedding is taking all the clothes one needs for a wedding. Packing a suit coat and dress shoes takes up quite a bit of room in a suitcase for a one time use. Somehow we managed to get everything into our suitcases.
Aaron and Michelle were having pictures taken when we arrived. One of the things Michelle wanted was to have great photos. They even rented a classic car for a few hours to have photos taken with it. Their wedding photographer took the photos below. If you would like to see more of her photos of Aaron and Michelle, check it out here (There are a lot). In the end, the couple was very happy with their photos. Their photographer was Alexia.Privitera.
I was the officiant at the wedding. There were 14 guests, almost all were family members. One of the special aspects of this event was that it reunited some family members. Silvette’s niece lives in Paris. She and her daughter came, and my son had not seen her for years. Michelle’s father’s sister and family live in The Netherlands, and they came. They had not seen each other for a very long time as well. It was great to have these connections at the wedding.
After the ceremony my niece and her friend had helped to secure a dinner cruise on the Seine for the wedding reception. Then they threw in something a little extra. Somehow they had a connection with a young woman who had competed on “The Voice” in Europe making it all the way to the finals. They had managed to get her to come and sing for the family for about a half hour before the cruise started. That was really special.
We were looking forward to the cruise. The food was excellent as we might expect. However, I was a bit disappointed as I had hoped to get some great night photos of Paris. The problem was we were all seated at two large tables eating. The room was enclosed so shooting through the glass didn’t work well. If I wanted a photo I had to get up and go outside to take the photo. That was somewhat disruptive so I didn’t do that very often and felt I missed a number of good opportunities.
The photos I did take tended to come out poorly as the combination of a moving boat and a night sky doesn’t work well to create sharp photos. Of course I was not there to take photos, and I had to remind myself of that throughout the evening. We passed near the Eiffel Tower as it was doing its twinkling light show so I did get a photo of that. (You can see a video of the show Silvette took at the end of last week’s post.)
After the cruise was over, we were able to walk back to our hotel from the boat. We were very tired. It had been a long but good day. In talking with the happy couple the next day, they were very pleased with their day. It was exactly what they had imagined it to be. We were thrilled to know that and so happy to be a part of the experience.
With the wedding over we had one more day in Paris before traveling on. Join me next week to read about what we were able to see during our final full day in Paris.
Credit: Photos of the guests at the reception concert taken by Silvette Lee
A wedding in Paris is a fabulous idea!
Indeed, it was a wonderful event. Everyone who was there seemed to enjoy it.