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Parisians have mixed feelings about weddings.
When Parisians first hear about a weddding, they get excited. Mechanically. Not by the good news itself; by the announcement of it: le faire-part. This one piece of paper that defines both the class origin of the couple and the social value of the new household. Le faire-part is an indelible imprint. Friends will find it “super classique“, “hyper moche“, or “original, disons“. Le faire-part is not really a wedding announcement note. It’s more one of these bound-to-fail tests. Mechanically indeed, excitement ensues for the Parisian.
Such pace is hard to sustain. At this point then, the Parisian gets annoyed with the wedding. He happily claims that he does not want to attend. Fun events are by essence painful to the Parisian. When fun takes the form of a social obligation, the Parisian sees nothing but non-sense. But he shall give in. Resiliently for the Parisian man; in vaguely hysterical stress for the Parisian women: “Oh la la, j’ai rien a me mettre. Et puis j’suis grosse, faut absolument que je perde cinq kilos d’ici le mariage“.
Then comes the glory day. Everytime, the same magic happens. The nice dresses, the charming church, the beauf uncle… Parisians smile. Genuinely. They are happy to be there. For a few minutes. And, slowly but surely, the soothing pleasure that comes with the reassuring ceremonies of life gives way to a new form of excitement. A more Parisian form of excitement that comes with the unconscious treat of encapsulating countless new people and groups into little boxes. Plenty of tiny boxes – usually sealed for life. The excitement is all the greater as all these people are acquaintances of a friend or a family member. “Oh, putain, tu l’as vu avec sa cravate l’autre, oh la la, putain, c’est pas possible“. It is impossible to have more fun than this.
Weddings do give many opportunities to judge. The ceremony, the venue, the looks of the guests, the food served… That is judging instead of enjoying. Which is fun enough to the Parisian. But a good Parisian wedding also allows Parisian guests to judge while enjoying. This happens during dinner. Good things come to those who wait.
The past few years have been years of escalation in French weddings. Escalation in the broad category of “les discours“. Between each course, one, two or three “discours“. Everytime, the same interrogations around the tables: “Alors c’est qui ca? Ah, les amis d’ecole? Il a fait l’ESSEC, lui, c’est ca? Bon, bah ca devrait etre pas mal alors!”. Just like in Roman times, each discours only has two possible outcomes. One – guests are captivated, smile, laugh or are touched. Two – discours sucks: polite guests simply look down – cheeky ones look for partners in crime to makes faces to.
An advanced form of “discours” is one enriched with a powerpoint presentation presenting old and funny pictures of the two. Pictures are certainly powerful allies to the uninspired. But the climax of the “discours de mariage” is la chanson. Cousins, friends from university, colleagues… Each coherent group feels a disturbing obligation to come up with a personnalized cover of a famous song dedicated to the newly weds. While some of these songs confine to comic genius, most navigate somewhere between plainly useless and straight-up embarrassing. Interestingly enough, the moment when a group of friends grabs the microphone and says “Lili, Nico, on vous a préparé une p’tite chanson” is the moment where Lili for the first time considers running away in the middle of dinner a worthy option.
The rest of the night is history. Older guests will go to bed early. University friends will get drunk and dance. The rare single friends left will regret the good old days where weddings were a good opportunity to meet people. The encapsulating process will be debriefed and continued in small groups. Newly weds will be amazed of how fast the day flew by.
The next day, everyone will agree that “Non, vraiment, c’était super“.
Super is strong enough a feeling not to sink in disliking weddings.
Mixed feelings, really, will do.
Useful tip: When it comes to “discours”, “Go strong or go home” sounds likes a wise policy.
Sound like a Parisian: “Ecoute, finalement, c’était hyper sympa le mariage. Ca me saoulait un peu d’y aller, mais vraiment, super cool finalementl. A part le DJ, ca, c’était un peu la cata, le reste vraiment, c’était super.”
NB: The URL of the blog has changed. It now is http://www.o-chateau.com/stuff-parisians-like. Best to update your RSS if you have one .
NB2: I have no idea what that last sentence meant 
Tags: beauf, ceremony, family, food, french, friends, fun, judging, marriage, News, notes, Pain, Paris, Parisian, parisians, party, people, politics, social, wedding, wedding day, wedding paris, women
Yes, you are absolutly right. i so much loooove this post ! Everytime I am invited to a wedding, mu husband starts the -yes/no game of going or not. Finally, we go. Now my game starts- with what I’ll be wearing … This is the best part and the most exciting thing- deciding what and how to get dressed… of course , the apogeum is when, while the wedding is unfolding ,we discus ” the around’
)) The belts, the shoes, hair bla, bla, bla … 
))What would a wedding be without this ? I don’t know the answer and I don’t want to find out 
)
Hey Olivier, I had an idea for a future post: what if comparing Parisians and Versaillais, and the love-hate feeling the latter nourish towards the former? Bah, it’s just an idea from an ex-Versaillaise…
But I thought Parisians rarely get married these days!
yes, I totally agree with dm! a little satire des versaillais by Olivier Magny!
Rosabell… Discussing belts!? Good Lord!!
Thanks – Glad you enjoyed it.
I’ll work on it then!
Dm… Hmmm, thanks for the idea. I will keep that in mind see what can flourish off of it.
Judy… Very true! But I didn’t say it was Parisians getting married, did I?
LM… Glad to see you haven’t had enough!!
I really enjoy what you write about here. I try and check it every day so keep up the good writing!
my tradition about “le discours” : always go as far as I can
only thing is that my best friends did the same at my own wedding… I was scared… and at the end… my grandmas were scared too
This makes sense considering that the only thing that makes weddings tolerable is excessive drinking. And we know how Parisians feel about excess…
I’m actually going to a wedding soon. First one I’ve been to in a long time. I don’t know what to wear. I don’t know who I want to bring. We’re not supposed to buy a gift. I think appetizers are before the ceremony, then dinner after the ceremony. How long will it go on?! I have something else to do that day…I’m dragging my feet–
And I’m not even Parisian.
Milo… Merci. Will try!
Stephan… Woopsies… and there goes the inheritance!!
Barbra… Love?
Ruth… Well, I hope company, food, wine and speech(es) will be good.
I love weddings. You are always hopeful on that day that love will last.
BTW, love the new blog layout. Very nice!
Who are these people that are getting married? I have not met one parisian that believes in forever… or is even hopeful about it!
Dear Poulette, you don’t have to believe in “forever” to get married… You just have to believe in love.. maybe commitment and certainly to be highly motivated to create something… And I am not parisian BTW.
hmm. “la cata” to mean “la catastrophe” eh? Does this mean “l’apostrophe” can be “l’apo”?
At a wedding, la p’tite chanson = la p’tite cata. Good post. Didn’t expect anymore, so it was a pleasant surprise!
Amanda… Is it ok to get excited for all the food and wine too?! Thx for the lay out comment. We’re really excited about this new site. Way cool!
And don’t worry, posts will; keep coming. I just have to keep some exclusive for the book!
Poulette… Parisians? Disillusioned? Really?
Nico… Speaking words of wisdom…
Ingo… Yup, cata = catastrophe. For the rest, I’m not sure
Nico, that was some food for thought. It’s the commitment and the motivated parts that i am feeling are a little lacking in a lot of people i talk to. I think this particular post is hitting a bit of a raw nerve with me, because i have been thinking a lot lately about how i’m living in a country where it seems that my values in regards to this vary vastly from the people around me. But at the end of the day, i think that all you need to have is good intentions, and that is enough. Maybe i’ve been talking to (dating) the wrong people!
I’m not sure why everyone is whinging so much about weddings – I love them! (Although I’ve never been to a French one.) Especially when it’s a good friend getting married, as it’s usually a lovely way to get friends and family together to celebrate the commitment of two people to each other. And then there’s the champagne and party!
Maybe I’m just an old romantic, and I live in hope that one day I’ll end up starring in my own wedding…
But of course it is ok to get excited about food and wine. My two favorite things! Especially if it is good! But I am a hopeless romantic and love weddings too. (and I believe in forever!)
I checked in the site and saw the new layout – very cool. Then I noticed new entries that I haven’t seen and thought, weird, it didn’t come up on my reader. Of course, the RSS changed, so now mine has been duly updated so I can get the feed as usual again.
I admit to being a hopeless romantic and liking weddings, plus I think wedding is a fun way to catch up with my friends nowadays, because we live all over the place and it’s not often we get a whole bunch of us together at the same place at any one time. I would sure hope the happy couple are at least in love and wishing for a healthy and successful marriage on the day of the wedding. Whether this stay true or not, we’ll see.
Olivier
is it you on the second picture ?
Stéphan
Poulette… Big cities make us cold. Resistance is in order.
Gunilla… Girls will be girls
Amanda… Glad to see people here are still hopeful about love. I like that.
Lil… Yup, new lay out (glad you like it… we do too). Yup, new URL for the blog and therefore new RSS feed (we added a little RSS icon in the box on the right). question for you: is it ok to be a hopeless romantic and not liking weddings?
Stéphan… Bien vu! Yes, that was me at Nico’s wedding a few years back (nico starring on picture #1).
Yes, one can be a hopeless romantic and not liking weddings. Too many people nowadays forget that a wedding is a celebration, not a show-off event. I accidentally saw a snippet of Bridezilla (it’s an US tv show) once and that was enough to scare me off weddings.
I am completely horrible and always try to find a way out of going to weddings which usually have bad food, bad music and bad wine.
Also, what happened to your post about celebrations drinks?
Olivier,
It seems I can’t go anywhere these days without hearing your name pop into conversation! You, my dear, are a star and I’ll look forward to visiting one of your wine tastings soon!
Kim Poulin waxed poetically about you over cocktails at the Ritz, meanwhile La Mom Paris gushed about your new book deal and blog. I’m American by the way, am frequently in Paris for work, but live in Berlin and even in Berlin I can’t escape the presss about Stuff Parisians Like… just yesterday while catching up with a German girlfriend Sylvie Kronheim (who has also been to one of your tastings) I listened to a 20 minutes monologue about your awesomeness as Sylvie told in great details how she waits anxiously for each blog you post – sometimes checking your site twice daily just in case you posted later in the day and she missed it that morning!
All this to say, with such great fanfare surrounding you, your wine tastings and your blog (and book deal – congrats) I HAD to come check out your site. I now know what everyone is talking about – you lived up to the great press!
I will look forward to meeting you in Paris at a future wine tasting… rumor has it you have an incredible cave!
Best Regards,
Toma Haines
Question- David tweeted about your tv clip. Where’s your Twitter home page? FB fan page?
Lil… Bridezilla: Great name!!
It is great though to see that what we do is appreciated. Will try to keep it up. Merci merci.
Vlr…Well, party was fun. Vague memories of me dancing on the bar.
The Antiques Diva… Well, thank you for such a nice note. I did consider retiring over the line “20 minutes monologue about your awesomeness”.
Amanda… I’m still resisting Twitter. Facebook fan page… well, I’ll try to add an icon soon on the blog then. In any case, you can check out the France 24 vid here.
Olivier – pics from the book party??
Poulette… You can check them out on my new Facebook fan page (see icon on the top right part of this page). I know, this is awfully arrogant and ridiculous but I figured, since right now, I only know like 40% of my Facebook friends, let’s set up a new layer between completely foreign and passionately friends. Anyway, yeah, some pictures there. Hope to get new ones soon! Cheers!
[...] And if you want a bit more of an insider look on Parisians and their feelings towards weddings in general, check out this tongue-in-cheek article: Wedding Days [...]
Great job. You hit the nail on the head (in every post I’ve read)
[...] Wedding Days [...]