My mum and dad arrived on Monday, giving themselves plenty of time to relax in the sunshine before the others arrived. Everyone else arrived on Thursday and Friday - some of them later than they had planned, due to the oh-so-happy coincidence of a French air traffic control strike, which delayed a lot of the flights our guests were on and completely screwed up the plans Paul and I had made which had meant we could relatively easily meet everyone from their flights. Lots of to-ing and fro-ing from the airport, collecting people as they arrived and showing them to their hotels. Both Paul and I were utterly exhausted, both days, and to be honest, they kind of blur in my mind. It was lovely to get to talk to everyone when they arrived, but if we ever do this again, people are definitely making their own way here!
Everyone had finally arrived by Friday night, and we had welcome drinks on the beach for those who were up for walking round; most of my family went off and had dinner somewhere - I hope they had a good time! Huge thanks to Vix, Stu, Lou and James for their sterling efforts in setting up on the beach for drinks, helping me with ironing and washing up, collecting waifs and strays, and generally ensuring I didn't actually go mad before the wedding. You are all fabulous, fabulous people.
(If you've never watched people trying to assemble IKEA furniture on the beach as the light fades, by the way, I recommend it. I'm not sure they'd recommend doing it, but as a spectator sport, awesome. I have photos, somewhere in the pile of photos.)
In an effort (mostly successful, I think) to ensure that no one was horrendously hungover for the wedding, we decided food would be a good idea - and I do take credit for the suggestion of takeaway pizza, which everyone seemed pleased by. Certainly the restaurant were, and all credit to them for not even blinking when we asked for 14 pizzas to go, and dealing painlessly with a request for no cheese on one of them. Not even the vaguest hint this might be a problem - actual customer service, I'd forgotten what it was like!
I'd also like to thank the local police who, instead of fining us for drinking on the beach when we shouldn't have been, stopped after several drive-bys and explained that we weren't supposed to be drinking in public anywhere in Villefranche. They ought to be fining us. So, they'd be very grateful if we could hide the bottles of wine etc. out of sight from them, since what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over, and then we could carry on happily, as long as we promised to tidy up after ourselves. They even congratulated us on our upcoming wedding. I was amused - and we did tidy up, of course. We made it home at about midnight, leaving Adam, Rich and Lou [ETA: and Fran and Tim] to bravely finish the remaining bottle of wine and find their hotel - they all looked surprisingly bright-eyed the next morning, all things considered!
(NB: This post may be edited randomly as people read it and remind me of things I've forgotten, or correct my misremembering. Don't be too surprised if it's utterly different each time you read it. If you read it and think I've cocked something up, do email me...)
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