Gay Paree, Stef, Vanessa and our boisterous godson Jack!

The eight hundred kilometre drive north to Paris passed without any major motorway hiccups - eight hours plus or minus a bit of tootling, but, again, with significantly lighter pockets due to tolls. 

We did get into a slight altercation at one of the motorway toll booths where an absolute delight of a Spanish woman was screaming and swearing at us, at the top of her lungs, with her back seat full of children, and her husband in the driver's seat looking like he was taking a vacation from his body whilst driving (and yet, somehow still managing to jam his BMW in front of all the other cars). Multiple motorway lanes were merging into single toll booth lanes, and this friendly family had decided that they owned this specific toll booth lane, and that no one else in the entirety of France was permitted to use it! Always nice seeing parents set such nice examples for their children, eh?

Anyway. Where were we. Ahh, that's right... Paris, la ville de l'amour. Also known as: a hot, car covered, dirty, stinky and fume-ridden city, just like any big city anywhere. But we were lucky to be able to spend almost a week with the always fantastic cousin Stef & Vanessa, and of course our delightfully cheeky godson Jack. We also got to catch up again with Stef's friend Craig who was visiting for a few days from NZ. 

Knowing it is one of Matt's favourites, and that Craig was a Raclette-virgin, Stef and Vanessa broke out the Raclette machine for us all... mmmm... melted French cheese on top of potatoes, yummy French bread, meat and veges... soo good. 

At least it wasn't as hot as during our previous visit in 2014... where Matt internally combusted from the heat but still insisted on inflicting the heater-like Raclette maker on us all (So good, so cheesy). Raclette is one reason for Matt not to live in France - he'd end up spherical!... although then he would fit perfectly into that spherical hole in the 'love hotel' mattress back in Turin... maybe this was fate?

Vanessa's talk of tartare (raw minced horse meat mixed up with stuff like raw eggs, onions, capers, ground pepper and Worcestershire sauce) over our previous visits had got Inga all aquiver to try some out... so Vanessa rocked out her French culinary skills and whipped up a fabulous batch of horse tartare for the gang, (whilst Matt the mostly-vegetarian watched on with mild disgust). Seemed to go down the hatch pretty well!

(mmmm... soo cheesy and soo horsey...)

Our boisterous godson Jack was just over a year old now - and growing up fast. It was good to see his papa keeping it real with one of Jack's first words being zizi :) (French for willy!). We had lots of fun with our French family wandering the streets of Paris, talking and catching up, drinking wine, visiting the 'Fondation Louis-Vuitton' park, chasing chickens (!) and just hanging out.

(this was an off-feeding session - Jack actually really liked being fed by Inga and vice versa!)

(yeah, tough pose Matt, tough, reeeaal tough)

A Château, a storm and 130 paper lanterns: Tamlyn and Sami get hitched in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of Southern France

Fourteen hundred kilometres and twenty hours later, we had arrived in Southern France, close to the city of Carcassonne and its fairytale castle & medieval citadel (now, Carcassonne is a good board game, right, amirite??).

Tamlyn and Sami had chosen Château La Villatade, booking out the whole place as the location for the week's festivities and where they would tie the 'official' wedding knot. And what an amazing of location! The place had a beautiful little spring-fed swimming pool, rolling French hills covered in leafy grape vines, an old Château with an inner courtyard surrounded by the rooms and a huge barn, and, of course, a donkey, just for Inga.

Soooooo, then Matt went and got sick and had to hang out in bed for a couple of days. Of course. Typical. And it started to look a bit sad on the wedding weather front... the forecast was threatening rain, rain, rain and more rain, right through to the day of the wedding. During the week we even had some torrential downpours with astounding thunder and lightning storms - lightning so intense that the sky was almost constantly lit with electricity. The Château courtyard flooded. Matt's brand new camera was outside and in the rain in an open bag (a couple of days in the hot water cupboard seemed to fix it though, phew!). Forecasts were checked hourly and every single finger was crossed twice and maybe even thrice.

(this is what the French heavens were still showing us, well after the storm had passed: the thunder had quietened and the light show had dissipated - still rather impressive nonetheless!)

Thankfully, the violent weather had exhausted itself and the sky had cleared by the morning of the wedding. Apart from a few lacklustre and late spits wandering between the clouds, it seemed that Tamlyn and Sami had been given a good weather pass by the gods of torrents & deluges.

The London gang kicked off a working bee (some of the ladies were much better at the early start than the gents!) and we started setting the wedding decoration plans in action: one hundred and thirty Chinese paper globe lanterns were to be built, then strung-up around the wedding glade, pool and Château courtyard, carpet had to (arrive first!) be unrolled and tested out, tables and chairs had to be arranged and last but not least, Matt's best man speech needed a few final tweaks. What had seemed like 'just another amazing French vineyard' was starting to come together nicely as a special place, for a special celebration...

Tamlyn and Sami swapped their vows in a quiet little glade of venerable oak trees, in front of a meandering trickle from a nearby spring, surrounded by happily swaying white paper lanterns and a vintage carpet. All of these touches transformed the glen from a cheerful wooded glade into an even happier and joyful place, where Tamlyn and Sami were joined by a group of around thirty of their closest friends and family.

Everything went perfectly - Sami's three sisters supported deftly as the bridesmaids, Matt safely completed the job of witness and ring bearer without dropping anything, the mums recitals of the readings (one from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy!) and Sami's dad's beaming face as he escorted his eldest down the carpet, all producing numerous happy tears around the glade.

Time for congratulations, celebrations, great food, fabulous drink and many hours of merriment!

(thanks to Rich for the first three photos of the wedding ceremony in this section)

The speeches were kept classy, with lots of reminiscing about the past, present and future possibilities. Tamlyn's toast masters training served him well - those looking on probably wouldn't have realised that his speech was based on about six words scribbled on a piece of cardboard a few hours earlier :), and Matt's best man speech received enough laughs to be considered a job well done.

Tamlyn and Sami even surprised everyone after dinner by breaking out a secret-squirrel 1920s Charleston wedding dance. The dance had even been uniquely choreographed just for them and their special day, with much practising in secret, but they performed it superbly to much clapping, smiling, whoots and general delight!

Well, the wedding was over, Tamlyn and Sami were now officially newly weds, with fingers sporting sparkly new rings and full of promise, promises and future plans. We'd made some new friends, great quantities of French food had been savoured and wine had been quaffed, but it was now time to head northwards to Paris, to hang out with our favourite French family; Stef, Vanessa and little Jack.

Let's hope the traffic is better this time...