In our capacity as wedding caterers, we hear about all kinds of ideas for weddings, ideas which originate from different parts of the World. Some of these ideas sound a bit unusual, and others sound very unusual. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the French have some of the strangest wedding traditions of all.
One of these traditions is the formation of a kind of procession from the ceremony to the reception, with all the guests (again, perhaps unsurprisingly for the French) making as much noise as possible. We have heard of a vaguely similar procession at a wedding in England, but (perhaps unsurprisngly) it was a much more reserved and restrained affair.
Before we go any further, we must point out that we do actually like France and the French (in general). They’ve produced some of the best artists ever, the French Alps are wonderful and we make French-style food for a living and as a way of life. As far as we are concerned, the crêpe is the finest contribution to civilisation the French have ever made and we are proud to serve them so succesfully at weddings. This alone is enough to warrant us overlooking the fact that there has never been a decent band originating from France.
Anyway, back to the French-style wedding procession from church to reception. It took place somewhere in Surrey (a county almost as strange as France in many ways) and as it was only a short walk from the church to the venue, the guests walked in a kind of procession, but each was carrying a helium-filled balloon. It must have looked a peculiar sight with a hundred people wearing suits and evening dresses walking in a line up a high street, each carrying a balloon.
The day was apparently very well orchestrated and as the procession reached the venue, the guests, whilst holding their balloons, formed a guard of honour for the bride and groom and once inside, there was a synchronised balloon release with the balloons all floating up to the high ceiling at the same time. We’ve seen the photographs and it looked amazing, with a hundred white balloons captured in the roof space of a high ceilinged room.
We must stress, this was not a wedding where our mobile crepe van had been hired for catering. We do serve crepes at lots of weddings and parties in Surrey, but on this occasion, we were told about the happenings by the venue owners.
It’s a wedding we would have loved to be a part of, and perhaps if the bride and groom had intended to go for the full French wedding experience, they should have hired a mobile creperie. It’s always a roaring success and goes to prove that not everything French at a wedding has to be odd.
