Thank you

I left from work "early" today - about 45 minutes earlier than usual - to fetch our thank-you cards from the same company that provided us with the whole set of our wedding stationeries. This was not on my agenda this morning and as usual things - urgent, of course - come when you have something else planned. I arrived just in time, about 2 minutes before the showroom closed its door, drowned in my own sweat due to the last-hundred-meter sprint but I made it!

Aside from that, we still have not sorted out our guests' pictures from the more-than-1000 pictures Luc made and they need to be printed to accompany our thank-you cards! We know what waits us this weekend...

Patience is gold

After dozens of corrections - and a huge dose of patience - through a week of e-mailing, we could finally give a go-ahead for our wedding invitations to be printed.

Invitations

We spent the whole weekend working on the lay-out and text for our wedding invitations.

In France there is the traditional two receptions for weddings: cocktail party where we can invite almost everyone - depends solely on your budget - and the wedding dinner - lasting the whole evening 'til dawn - where we only invite close friends and family. That made two invitations to prepare: the so-called invitation for the cocktail party and the faire-part for the intimate dîner dansant - dinner and dance.

Our guests being a mix of nationalities, we decided to have the text in two versions. French and english.

Everything was ready by Monday evening for my appointment at the printing agency we had chosen.

First hectic week

Monday - I figured out that it was about time to find musicians for our wedding receptions. We spent the whole evening scanning through DNA - Alsatian leading newspaper - ads hoping to find some decent local musicians. We wanted something of a easy listening jazzy atmosphere but looks like we have to compromise with what was available. By the end of the evening, we managed to make a first contact with a potentially real group of musicians.

Then I spent the rest of the week searching for a real photograph "worth the occasion". Knowing now how difficult it is to find a good photograph, not to mention two photographs, I changed my strategy to get one willing to cover our two separate ceremonies: the civil wedding registry in Paris and the Church ceremony - along with the receptions - in Wickersheim.

I found this great website of wedding journalist photograph association which is exactly what we were looking for. We hate unnatural looks on posed pictures. They even put estimated prices so we do not waste time contacting those outside of our budget. I contacted two of them working in France : Franck Aulnette and Fanny Dion. Mrs Dion responded almost right away but unfortunately she is not available for the date while Mr Aulnette was taking a bit of time.

Meanwhile I continued looking up for a photograph and by accident I found this website. I fell instantly in love with his works! I showed it to my future husband in the evening and he agreed right away to fix an appointment.

Friday - We met the photograph. For a second time, after my wedding dress, our instinct worked well. The guy, Luc, matched perfectly to the one we had been looking for! He was very passionated by what he did, with a good sense of humour without being too much, and of approximately our age. It was like having a friend for our photograph wedding. We booked him up a that same evening.

Saturday - We went to Dancourt, a wedding stationnery provider, to make up our mind on the choice of stationnery. They have a very nice website but I still find it important to feel the touch of their papers, their printing, ... The feel can make a difference. We picked this model for ours.