Weekend in Dunkerque and Reception Site Found!

Sorry it's been so long since I last posted. We have been really busy!! Today I will post about the wedding we went to last weekend in Dunkerque. It was so much fun, but we were so tired afterwards. We went to Dunkerque on Friday and had dinner with the groom's family. He comes from a very large family so it was really great, there were over 20 people there for the dinner at his parent's house. We had raclette. I love raclette. Each person gets a little baby frying pan that you put cheese, mushrooms, quail eggs (yes, little quail eggs) in and then you put it in a thing that looks like an adult Easy Bake Oven. The cheese melts, the eggs cook or what ever you put in there gets hot! Then you scoop out the gooey cheese or whatever onto a boiled potato or ham or something. Oh...so good! Here is a pic of what small ones look like:


Then we decided, in all of our well intentioned state of minds, to go to a bar and have a sort of bachelorette/bachelor party for both the bride and groom. Interesting fact: in French the term is "enterrement de vie de garcon/fille" which directly translates into "Burial of life of boy/girl". Nice eh? Well, I tell you, the next day I WISH they could have buried me. We had to be at breakfast at 8:30, we were only 10 minutes late. Actually here is what the day looked like;

8:30am - Breakfast with family
9:15am - Walk to the Marie (city hall) for ceremony)
9:30am - Marriage Ceremony
11:00am - We have walked back to the home of the groom's parents and prepare and have lunch
3:00pm - Vin d'honour (drinks and hors d'oeuvres)
7:00pm - Dinner
8:45ish - We eat dinner
no clue what happened to this time
12:00am - The couple presents the typical French desert for weddings, the Piece Monte or Croquembouche for desert. See picture here:
It was such a great weekend, but it was very busy. All totally worth it though, his friends M and A are great people and they are very happy. I can't wait for our big day! Plus we can sleep another day I guess. Maybe this weekend??

On Sunday when we woke up we had to drive to Belgium to look at a place for our reception. We ended up loving it...you can check out the website of the place here, though I don't have pictures yet. We are going to have the vin d'honneur in a beautiful chateau then walk to a larger club house type thing next to it for the dinner. I'm so excited. They have shuttles to take people to and from Lille and everything. It's a one stop shop. They even do the photography at the wedding all the way until the end of the reception!! It's about 20-25 minutes from Lille but we had to book out of town because within the city limits you have to stop at 11pm because of noise. Unless you are a club of course. But all of the hotels that were available said they would have to stop at 11 and we didn't want that.

So since then I have been going to class and all kinds of things. I called last night to catch up with my Dad and it turns out he was walking around the pool and he fell and broke his arm...hope you feel better soon Dad!! I love you!!
Oh - and check this out Dad (and Sandy and Mom); at the wedding I tried out my new French skills with the folks and Cyriaque was amazed! I didn't think I had made that much progress but he said he could not believe how much French I could speak. It really made me feel good how he kept telling people that I could speak that much French after only two weeks of classes and how proud he was of me. You would think I was a child who just learned how to ride a bike. I think I was even proud! Awe...he's such a nice man. I should marry that one...