The Wedding Factory

It's been awhile!

Our wedding was on Saturday, July 21st!

It was perfect!

We only did the (required) civil ceremony at the Mairie (City Hall) of the 16th arrondissement of Paris.

It went really fast!

Our wedding time was 10 a.m. We set up the meeting time to be 9:30 a.m. but the BF and I showed up at 9:45 a.m. since we had a last-minute bridal bouquet emergency (as in the florist didn't have it ready for us the night before, so we had to stop by the florist at 9:30 a.m.)

When we arrived in front of the mairie, all our guests were already gathered there, along with another wedding party.

Some guy who worked at the mairie came up to us at 9:50 a.m. and asked if our party was ready - we weren't ready yet because the FIL was parking the car. The other couple waiting outside with us went in before us, and at 9:55 a.m. we entered the mairie and posed for pictures at the bottom of the stairs while some other employee went around checking that all our witnesses were there (so, basically, total mayhem for about 3 minutes).

At 9:57 a.m. we were upstairs and had to wait outside the "Salle des Mariages", where all weddings take place. At the same time, a totally different couple (not the one waiting outside with us) came out of the salle des mariages.
9:59 a.m., they herded us into the room and assigned our seats (BF and I in the center, mothers next to the bride and groom, and the witnesses all the way over on the side of the room). Some weird guy showed up and started taking pictures - turns out he is some sort of freelance wedding photographer who takes pictures of all couples getting married at this particular mairie.

The ceremony started at 10 a.m. on the dot. The deputy mayor basically just read the marriage certificate and stated all the important wedding info (i.e. You will take care of your children together) while staring menacingly at the BF and myself. After she was done reading everything, the BF and I signed the marriage certificate, and then our witnesses signed it too.

After we signed the certificate, an employee of the mairie came around the room with a basket, asking for donations for the mairie. Minor chaos ensued, since no one had thought this would happen, thinking, rightly enough, that while this was a common practice at a church wedding, it was really unexpected that the mairie would ask for money. My MIL had to give up 10 euros, since she only had a 10 euro bill on her, and my mom had to give about 20 cents, since that was all the change she had.

The entire ceremony was over at 10:14 a.m. (according to one of my witnesses, who timed the whole thing). We posed for pictures in the room for our friends and guests, while being frantically ushered out of the room by the mairie employees. As we left the room, there were two more couples waiting outside to be married.

Then we headed outside, where we posed again for pictures in front of the mairie, which was also total chaos as there were 2 other couples waiting out in front to enter for their wedding.

All in all, the actual ceremony was quite nice, but a little surreal.

More later about the party!