Weddingbee Boards Topic: Franco-American Wedding

Weddingbee Boards Topic: Franco-American Wedding http://boards.weddingbee.com/ Weddingbee Boards Topic: Franco-American Wedding en Tue, 14 Feb 2012 07:50:23 +0000 miaou on "Franco-American Wedding" http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/franco-american-wedding#post-798760 Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:19:04 +0000 miaou 798760@http://boards.weddingbee.com/ Bonjour everyone, I'm new to Weddingbee, but have been lurking for a little while.  I am getting married in July to my fiancé (French), and we are getting married in his hometown.  As beatrice-dg above stated, the organization of French weddings is nothing like how Americans prepare and organize weddings.  They are much less formally done, and the aesthetic style, for the most part, is...to put it diplomatically, "not American".  It's funny, you see in US wedding magazines how brides try to create a French style wedding, and in reality, their vision is not very French at all!  So at the outset of wedding planning, there I was having the idea of an American style wedding in France (i.e. at a Château, or some other venue like a big countryside estate), which, for most French people, would be completely over-the-top and unaffordable.  FYI, FI comes from a non-bourgeois background, so of course, FPIL had the idea we'd have a traditional French wedding.  They suggested several salle de fêtes where we could hold our wedding (salle de fete = community hall, like a VFW hall for example).  Future FIL even gave us the hook up to a high school dining room to have our wedding reception. (Yes, horror!! <img src="http://boards.weddingbee.com/my-plugins/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-surprised.gif" alt="Surprised" title="Surprised" />) Sure, FFIL was trying to help, but imagine having scores of relatives and friends flying in to France (and spending lots of $$ for a destination wedding from all over the world, only to attend a wedding reception in a cafeteria!)  I tried to find other options, but of course, for some strange reason, there aren't very many in my husband's home town.  I suggested maybe having an outdoor tent wedding, but FMIL and FI wouldn't hear of it <img src="http://boards.weddingbee.com/my-plugins/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-undecided.gif" alt="Undecided" title="Undecided" />.  I realize that in France they do traditional weddings differently and they don't know how it's done outside of their own context, but for someone who grew up with American weddings, downscaling to high school cafeteria standards was a lot to take. Finally, since FI lives in a wine region, we were able to secure the reception hall of a winery...of course, the price to reserve this place was, to French standards, quite expensive...but to American standards, it was actually very affordable.  It took several weeks of arguing with FI and his parents to convince them why this was the best place for our reception, they finally agreed. Planning for me has been fraught with pitfalls, as we have not two, but three cultures to respect...American, French, and Filipino (my family's background).  Given the fact that the FIL's haven't been exposed to many outside cultures and haven't traveled outside of Europe (to put it bluntly, they're xenophobes), trying to explain the foreign traditions and my wishes in terms of wedding planning has been really tough.  Alright, that's it for my little rant about planning my own Franco-American wedding.  Looking forward to hearing everyone else's experiences with it too! beatrice-dg on "Franco-American Wedding" http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/franco-american-wedding#post-791907 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:50:05 +0000 beatrice-dg 791907@http://boards.weddingbee.com/ Hi, it's interesting to read you. As a french photographer, I've shot American weddings in France, and of course a lot of french weddings. The biggest difference I've seen is about organization. American or English weddings are more organized. They care about having a good venue, beautiful decor, favours for the guests...  it's something happy and funny. French people organize their wedding because they have to do! They don't care about the venue, a "salle des fêtes"  (which is a community hall) is ample. There is a poor decor, no favors for the guests as it's money spent unnecessarily. There is just the basics, a reception room, music, food of course and it's ok. French people organize this party just because they will recover money from guests as tradition wants it.They have lost the desire to meet family. It's not really a special day, it's just a day you have to do when you're getting married. Only the French bourgoisie organize their weddings like american people do. bvig on "Franco-American Wedding" http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/franco-american-wedding#post-473812 Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:36:06 +0000 bvig 473812@http://boards.weddingbee.com/ We had the opposite, though DH is not French but Belgian.  We thought hardly anyone would make it because well it's a big trip and we only had a 4 1/2 mo. engagement (not much time to prepare a big trip).  And while there were of course a lot less people that could come because it was held in the US there were still 20 people who came over.  Though it probably helped that the wedding was held at his parents house so they felt comfortable and had a place to stay. CurlyDreamer on "Franco-American Wedding" http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/franco-american-wedding#post-470687 Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:57:28 +0000 CurlyDreamer 470687@http://boards.weddingbee.com/ @Manchot: Yes, only two! And we invited EVERYONE in his family! Spent a small fortune on postage too! Neither his brother (who is XH's BFF!!!) nor sister came -- and his sister works for Air France! lol... My belief, based on living there, is that the act of a wedding doesn't necessarily hold the same value it does here for people of older generations -- not saying marriage doesn't -- only the actual wedding. None of my friends there (all 30 or above) are married or even engaged. In fact, none of our French friends who live here here are married -- not one(not including those who married for immigration purposes)! I can't say the travel is part of it, as lots of the X's family came here for touristy things, but none of them could be bothered to come for the wedding. Weird. Best to prepare yourself and your FI for not having a lot of French guests and if they do come, it will be a nice addition!             Manchot on "Franco-American Wedding" http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/franco-american-wedding#post-469766 Sat, 14 Nov 2009 03:54:26 +0000 Manchot 469766@http://boards.weddingbee.com/ CurlyDreamer - only 2 of your exhusband's French family members attended your wedding in the U.S.? My fiancé and I know several internationl couples here in Paris (Frenchmen with spouses from other countries) and it was a very similar situation.  The French husbands' parents did not attend their weddings, which took place on other continents.  The reasons that the French parents gave for not attending the weddings was that it was too far away and that they had never been on an airplane before.  The weird thing is that one of the sets of French parents is young - under 50 - so they didn't have any health problems or other issues that would have prevented them from traveling.  Apparently, our French friends' parents had never traveled outside of France so they were admittedly not keen on going overseas to another country.  The lack of attendance of the grooms' parents was hurtful to their brides' families but luckily they were able to smooth it over, using "cultural differences" as the official explanation. My French fiancé was just as shocked to hear about this trend as I was.  At least we will be prepared if very few of his family members show up.  But still...a wedding is a big milestone and it is a shame that some parents don't make the trek to support their children. CurlyDreamer on "Franco-American Wedding" http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/franco-american-wedding#post-469249 Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:39:08 +0000 CurlyDreamer 469249@http://boards.weddingbee.com/ My XH is French. Only two members of his family came to the wedding and his friends speak English, so it was pretty easy. His family members who live in some countries (not European) could not get visas, so that was kind of sad. We did have little "mixers," so they could meet my family members one-on-one. He and I translated during that time. Plus, my mom and grandma speak some French, and most of XH's friends are French so they felt very welcome. At the wedding, we did everything in English mostly, but we did say a big thank you in both English and French and my XFIL gave a lovely speak in French, which XH translated. Wedding invitations were in both French and English. mskalinin on "Franco-American Wedding" http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/franco-american-wedding#post-468487 Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:38:03 +0000 mskalinin 468487@http://boards.weddingbee.com/ The pronunciation is the WORST for me. I am so bad at it, and it really leaves me with no confidence to try and talk in front of anyone, even my husband. He laughs at me for being so shy about it because I speak Japanese, so he doesn't understand where the hesitancy is coming from. But Japanese is SOOOO much easier to pronounce! bvig on "Franco-American Wedding" http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/franco-american-wedding#post-466846 Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:37:58 +0000 bvig 466846@http://boards.weddingbee.com/ Oh I feel you on learning french.  Such a hard language!  I was listening to it at work on my Ipod, and I can understand things pretty well when I know the basic storyline.  But jeesh in family situations where they just start talking about random things and joking around, I get so lost, and pronunciation - ack!    mskalinin on "Franco-American Wedding" http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/franco-american-wedding#post-466476 Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:59:02 +0000 mskalinin 466476@http://boards.weddingbee.com/ Yeah, my husband and I have always put off learning french (him taeching me) because we could always "do it later." I had never studied any romance language, not spanish or french or italian, so it was kind of daunting to figure out where to start. But we made a resolution after we got married to just start it already, damnit! So now Tuesdays and Thursdays are the days we sit down in the kitchen and just do it. I am at the point where I can understand quite a lot of what is said, but I can't answer, so learning some basic phrases is really a great feeling. We started on conversation and grammer involving food and kitchen stuff since a large amount of social gatherings with his friends are dinner parties. XD The immigrant bride on "Franco-American Wedding" http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/franco-american-wedding#post-466457 Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:54:45 +0000 The immigrant bride 466457@http://boards.weddingbee.com/ @ <a href="http://boards.weddingbee.com/profile/mskalinin">mskalinin</a> you're not bad! Drinking wine is a good start LOL