pulchritude: Making do avec trois fois rien

Simple and sweet

Through his work, Ju reserved us a reception hall a few blocks away from the mairie. On the pro side, less stress for his mom (we originally thought about having the reception at her house, in her yard) and no worries about bothering neighbors with music; on the con side, we had only 17 guests coming! So much space for such a small group! Even at 1 week before the wedding, we were debating canceling the caterer and recalibrating for something even more intimate, inviting the witnesses to a restaurant...but as you can see, we chose for the small party in a big room.

We got the keys to the room on Friday around noontime. That morning, we had run to Valence to get our dishes, etc, that we had rented for the occasion. Our small apartment is already filled to overflowing, so no space to store more plates and champagne glasses, and we wanted as "green" an affair as possible, so extremely limited disposables. We also picked up our decoration flowers (white roses, yellow freesia) and cheese (!!). After a few trips between the apartment and the hall, we settled into solving the puzzle of how to set up tables and chairs. With our limited time and budget, we didn't have partitions or anything to break up the space. I hadn't even seen the room until Friday, so the images I had had in my head instantly flew out the window when I saw that we were dealing with rectangular tables rather than square ones, etc. We played around with several configurations, opting finally for a long buffet and a long table for the guests, with 2 small stand-up tables. I worked on arranging flowers while Ju stocked the bar and set up the music. The two best things about the hall were the kitchen/bar area, with sink, huge fridge, oven, and copious storage space, as well as the big windows. As it turned out, though, the weather was stunning Friday and Sunday, and on Saturday it was rainy in the morning and overcast all afternoon. You can't win 'em all, I guess.

Once we were satisfied with our work, having done our best to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and having received the approval of Ju's mom and sister, we headed home, exhausted. We decided that pizza and red wine was the most appropriate meal for out last night as unmarried kids (aka the easiest thing to eat with the least amount of effort required) and were up into the wee hours of the morning working on the playlist.

I guess that's the image of how anti-bride I am: stuffing my face with salty, delicious pizza and staying up late - under-eye bags, be damned! - on the night before the wedding.