Saturday July 4th Pont Au Mousson

Nathan and Loraine’s Wedding Day!

We had breakfast at the abbey. Jon dug in to the croissant and neutella. I had some baguette with brie and jam. And an amazing pear. And some pretty tastey yogurt. And a café au lait (they have hot milk out along with the coffee). We went upstairs to get ready for the wedding. I knew it would be hot again, so I put my hair up in braids. I as happy to have my very light and easy to pack Maggie London dress I got at Nordstrom’s Rack in Seattle. It was intended for the wedding in Mexico, but worked in France just as well. I wasn’t jealous of Jon, having to wear long pants, long sleeves and a tie. We headed down to the lobby a few minutes before 10:30am to rally with people to go to the train station to head to Nancy for the 2:30pm wedding at city hall.

We saw some of our American friends there: Bjorn and Kirsten, Scott Klees (an old college friend), and some of Nathan’s family. Due to some late arrivals and other snafus, we ended up waiting in the lobby for an hour and a half before heading to the train station. We waited another 30-45 minutes at the train station for all the people to arrive. We took a pleasant 20 minute train ride to Nancy.

In Nancy, Nathan was leading the crowd to the square where the city hall where the ceremony was to be held. To stand out in the crowd, Nathan grabbed someone’s bouquet and held it up above the crowd. We walked 10 minutes or so to this amazing plaza with grand historic buildings and shiny gold metalwork. We had a little over an hour before the ceremony, so we sat at a side walk café and got a snack. We ran in to Mike and Annabelle, looking fabulous. We headed to the city hall at about 2:15, and many of the wedding guests were assembled in the square. Loraine looked fabulous in a dramatic deep red dress with gloves and a wrap and sparkling red hair clips. Nathan was wearing a light grey suit worn by Loraine’s biological father. He didn’t have to get it altered. It fit him perfectly straight away.

The sun was incredibly bright in the square, reflecting off all the white stone and gold in the plaza. We waited outside city hall another half hour or so and then were shuffled in a grand but steamy room for the ceremony. A city official in a red white and blue sash stood at a table in front of Nathan, Loraine and their wedding party seated in royal blue chairs. At the last second, they got volunteers from the families to translate the service in to English and German. It was standing room only for the ceremony, which mainly was reciting French law regarding marriage. Then they had a major smooch, exchanged rings, and signed papers.

We had a little time in Nancy before we had to head back, so we walked to a nearby park. It was gorgeous. There was a man playing a grand piano at the park entrance. We stopped and got Jon a crepe with neutella and bananas and a big bottle of evian for me. We strolled through the manicured lawns, the rose garden, and the small zoo. We saw an old chimp who at first seemed interested to see me when I said hello to him. He came over towards me… and then spit something into his hand and threw it at me. Luckily he didn’t reach me. I moved on.

We walked back to the train station and after a little figuring out, we realized our train was already at the station. We hopped on and more and more people from the wedding boarded the train. We ended up sitting with Nathan’s parents and some of his cousins from Wisconsin. Jon and them had a long conversation about the exact location of their houses in Madison, Appleton, and Middleton.

We hopped a ride with Loraine’s Dad back to the Abbey from the train station. We were already super stinky sweaty in our wedding clothes and the reception didn’t start for another hour. Jon took a shower and I just got naked and took a nap. We put back on our stinky clothes and headed back down for the reception. We went out into a shady garden between the Abbey and the river. There was champagne with the local fruit, the Mirabelle, a small plum. There was a ton of different hors douvers that were too mysterious for me and my allergies, but they looked amazing. I was tired, but wanted to party. So I alternated between drinking coke and champagne.

I got to catch up with some old friends I didn’t know were going to be at the wedding. Leital Molad and Sarah Rimenschnyder. Wonderful women I was very happy to see. After about 2.5 hours of cocktails and horsdouvers, we were invited inside for the seated reception. The reception hall was gorgeious. The chapel in the abbey had awesome lights, decoration, and candles. The menu was printed on this hilarious picture of Nathan and Loraine. The first course was some pate eggroll thig I was allergic to. I told the waiter I couldn’t eat fish and she said there was a vegetarian version. She brought me an eggroll with Lobster. I’m really happy I cut into it without eating it or that would have cut my night pretty short. The second course they brought me an actual vegtarian option, but I wasn’t that into it, so it was around 11pm that I got served some actual food I could eat. Lamb with vegetables. It was delicious.

The courses were spread out with toasts and dancing. It was a very long meal. I was commited to staying until dessert, which didn’t happen until about 2am. But before then there was the bridesmaid’s toast, which was full of gag gifts for Loraine. Luckly they gave our table a pre-printed English translation. The best man’s toast was him singing “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof acappella with a German accent. There was the first dance. Loraine and her father, a great dancer, did a salsa dance. There was several traditional german waltz’s. There was lots of terrible French dance music that most of the crowd seemed to love. Mike brought fireworks and we went outside at around 1am to celebrate the 4^th of July with some good ol America songs. There was a crazy traditional basque dance where everyone sat on the floor in a chain and performed. There was a slide show of the crazy bachelor’s trek 60 km through the German forest with hobbit feet, medallions, battles, and elfish songs.

I got to bed about 3:30 am and I was truly pooped.