Today was one of those one-day-in-a-lifetime days when I got to experience a fairy tale in real life — a wedding at a chateau in the French countryside complete with endless white and pink roses, ending with torches shooting their flames up high toward a sky of fireworks. It’s one of those things that American girls dream about growing up, but they never really get that type of wedding in the end because how many American girls will have a destination wedding at a chateau in France?
Since I left home in 2004 for college, I’ve realized exactly how sheltered I’d been about the world, and every day I’m learning exactly how little I didn’t know the day before. When Navine and Andy began planning their wedding, Navine said to me that she originally didn’t want to have a chateau wedding, that she wanted to do something “different” and get married along the French Riviera where there was warm weather, sunny skies, and the beach. She grew up in Paris attending weddings at chateaux because that’s what the French do when they get married — have a multiple-day-long celebration at a chateau. I laughed out loud when she said this because I thought, yeah, that’s not what my version of “normal” and “what everyone does” was when I was growing up. I grew up thinking the normal, everyday thing to do when getting married was having a church wedding and having a Chinese banquet at a Chinese restaurant, or having a wedding and reception at a hotel or country club. Our versions of “normal” or “cliche” are so different depending on where we grew up and how we were raised. It still makes me laugh to think of Navine rolling her eyes at a chateau wedding and thinking it’s a cliche.
At the end of the night, she and I chatted, and I told her how beautiful it all was today and how it really was very much like a fairy tale. She was glowing and saying, “Screw the French Riviera and the beaches and the sun; this is perfect!”
That’s how I felt. But I guess she’ll get to see our wedding overlooking a beach in just a few months, and that will be incredible in its own way. I’ll be honest and say that after being a part of this wedding, I felt slightly insecure and thought our wedding may be nothing compared to the extravagance of today. But as corny as it sounds, as long as the people we care about are there and I don’t screw up my vows, I think our wedding day will be another version of “epic,” and that’s coming from someone who never uses that word.