Vacation Herald

A chateau Wedding is about more than just the “Big Day”. Many couples find the time leading up to the wedding to be
equally memorable. France the land of over 30,000 thousand castles is a spectacular country to choose to hold your
wedding ceremony. You may choose to visit local public chateaux and their glorious gardens, wineries and chocolatiers, tour villages, shop in local farmer’s markets. Your closest friends and family will be thrilled for an excuse to plan their vacations around your festivities.

There is growing type of wedding, namely that of the chateau wedding. Certain European countries have a strong history of offering chateau weddings and for those dreaming of the ultimate “fairytale” wedding in a historic
castle this is the ultimate wedding experience. This is where your personal dreams and wishes are given wings – fulfilled by the personal yet discreet attentions of those who strive to make your destination wedding dreams come true.

The bells will chime to summon the princess to join her prince – some will meet under the hand painted ceiling of the Castle’s intimate chapel, others will choose the village church and yet more will whisper their “I do’s” under the graceful oak trees in the sumptuous gardens – but wherever you choice to meet for this wedding day the surroundings will weave a spell upon all that behold them for the rest of their lives.

A french château will enchant you with its fairytale atmosphere and dreamy environment, providing guests with a magical wedding experience. There is nothing quite like a wedding chateau to give you beautiful surroundings both inside and outside. The advantages of using a chateau wedding is that you will be able to house a large number of guests in a fabulous location. The photography can be stunning. Thinking sweeping Louis XV staircases, stained glass windows, sumptuous fabrics and passementerie, fantastic food, fine champagne, antique crystal chandeliers, architectural backdrops to die for and oak forests and wild flowers. You will cherish your castle wedding photos for ever.

One reason to have a destination wedding in France is the food & wine. Picture decadent fine food accompanied by wine from the castles wine cellar full of lavish French wines from the Loire Valley.

Choosing your wedding location can have a great impact on your entire wedding organizing strategy.

Traditionally theweddings were held at the parents’ brides home town but today there is such a huge choice of of possible wedding destinations that it is very hard to decide.

And there is also this trend is becoming more popular each day, to have your wedding abroad on holiday away from home. Tom Cruise, Madonna and Eva Longoria all did it and Wayne Rooney and Colleen McLoughlin are about to in June 2008.

As long as you and your fiance see things the same way, it is not really important where the wedding takes place. What is important is that you two are going to be married.

Here are some advantages and disadvantages to help you with your decision:

Home wedding Advantages:

In your home town you can pick a nice ceremony site:
- you are familiar with the locations
- you can invite as many guests as you wish (if your budget allows that)
- before the wedding you can make appointments with your usual beauty specialist, hairdresser, make-up artist etc
- you don’t have to make special trips to book a photographer or wedding florist
- you can make you wedding as formal as you wish.

Home wedding Disadvantages:

- They cost a lot of money
- there will be other costs regarding transportation and accommodation for out of town guests, your honeymoon, a
room at the hotel for the wedding night

Away (holiday) wedding Advantages:

- everything will be entirely new and exciting and romantic, not the usual thing like a 16th century chapel - which creats an intimacy seldom found at domestic weddings.
- Bonding happens as your family and friends explore the countryside on the days leading up to the wedding…
- you may also spend your honeymoon there
- your guests may find the idea quite exciting
- you can have a very good deal with the hotel and have the reception there
- your wedding costs will be much lower than expected

Away (holiday) wedding Disadvantages:

- not everybody will be willing to come (which will keep your guest numbers down) maybe it’s what we like to call the “Moat of Distance”
- there is nothing like a few thousand miles to deter those “must invite” acquaintances from swelling your guest list
- you may have to visit the location before the wedding to see for yourself how are things there
- some of your family members or friends may not be so happy with your plans

Destination weddings are now incredibly popular. Now you can get married in a wedding chateau and have a fairytale chateau wedding. Why get married at home when you could have a romantic castle wedding and a holiday with your closest friends and families for less than it would cost to get hitched at home.

Wedding Invitations

A typical French wedding lasts all day and into the next. It starts with a civil ceremony at the City Hall in the morning, and is followed by a religious ceremony, then a small cockatail reception (a vin d’honneur), followed by a 4 or 5-course meal, and then dancing. The dancing often starts between dinner courses, in order to give guests a chance to work up more of an appetite. A typical French wedding doesn’t end until 3:00 or 4:00AM, or even later.

A guest in France can be invited to all, or only part of the wedding celebrations - even JUST dessert around midnight, and what is more is that they will not get offended by it! If you were to receive an invitation to a French wedding, it would probably say that you have been invited to the civil ceremony, the church ceremony, and the vin d’honneur (small cocktail reception)immediately following the church ceremony in a small room at the church. In a typical French ceremony, pretty much everyone is invited to all of this. However if you are worthy, you will also receive have another card inserted into your invitation that says something like you have been invited to the dinner, with dancing to follow. Hooray. Alternatively, you could receive a card that says that you have only been invited for dessert. Wipe-out.

The reasoning behind this is that everyone gets to participate in the couples joyous day, and the french family is not financially crippled because of feeding their entire arrondissement.

French Traditions and Traditions Before the Marriage Ceremony

The traditional hope chest or bridal trousseau, began in France and came from the French word trousse, meaning bundle.

The popularity of a bride wearing a white wedding gown on her wedding day, began in France several hundred years ago. The custom of having fragrant flowers as decorations and bridal bouquets has also been popular for centuries. Each flower represents a special and unique meaning to the bride and groom, and especially fragrant flowers helped freshen things up a bit, before deodorant and perfumes were invented.

Wedding bells in France were usually heard in spring and summer when it was warm enough for everyone to bathe!

Still practiced in small villages today, is a traditional French custom, for the groom to call on his future bride at her home on the morning of their wedding day. As the groom escorts her to the wedding chappel, the town’s children stretch white ribbons across the road, which the bride cuts. Traditionally the groom usually walks his mother down the aisle just prior to the main wedding procession.

As the newlywed couple departs from the wedding site, laurel leaves are scattered in their path for them to walk over.

French Wedding Reception

A wedding toast is made to the newlyweds sometime during the traditional French wedding reception. Following this toast, they drink, as husband and wife, from a specially engraved, double handled goblet, usually a family heirloom passed down from generation to generation.

After the wedding reception, and even later into the couple’s wedding night, friends of the newlyweds might show up outside their window banging pots and pans, singing boisterous tunes. The groom is expected to invite them in for drinks and snacks.