breton wedding

*pix are going up on the ph&bb pix soon.

Philippe’s sister got married near the end of our visit and had a very traditional 3-day Breton wedding. yes, that’s right – THREE days. It was incredible, really, I’ve never seen so many consecutive meals, dancing and singing with so many people. It started at the civil office at 11am friday, walked across the street to the church (which was beautiful and had high gothic arches) with the bells ringing at noon.

By 2pm the caravan of cars and people drove honking with flashers on to the party hall. There were aperitifs and the full assortment of cheeses and snackies, and a cousin taking photographs and information to complete his genealogical tree. Then dinner. Where, over only 5 courses of food, the tables took turns singing out of the Breton song book. And periodically, everyone would ring their glasses with their spoons to instruct the bride and groom to stand up and kiss again.

The wedding cake was an enormous tractor (the groom is an agriculteur). After dinner was more singing and traditional breton dancing where the bride and groom start dancing around the room “picking up” everyone in a dancing chain and turning in to form a huge spiral around the room. Later, it turned into more of a disco, but we were pooped and left by midnight thirty.

the NEXT 2 days, was a barbecue in the bride and groom’s “backyard”, which is really one of his pastures for his cows. But the cows were moved off to another pasture to provide space for parking and the huge rental tent. They served the whole hog, literally. It was gross and huge, but delicious. More singing, and then they played some game I couldn’t understand what was happening.. because lucas needed to sleep so I went for a walk with the baby buggy. After eating, some played breton petanque, others spread out on the grass in groups, and basically hung out until DINNER. But i went home just before dinner. And only came the next day for lunch. But Philippe kept his party hat on, stayed for dinner again, and finished about midnight sunday.