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...