France – Vacays and Sunny Days

Bonjour, Paris

Aug 23, 2022Aug 25, 2022 vacaysandsunnydays

It’s been a few years, but we made it back to Paris! I can’t believe the last time we were in France was for our wedding in August 2019 followed by our mini-moon down in Nice. It’s amazing to now have returned almost three years later to such a special place to us and be able to bring our little one too.

When booking our trip home to the UK for the summer for Arlo’s first trip, we wanted to be able to spend a little bit of time somewhere else in Europe but we weren’t quite sure how we (and Arlo) would be with flying and spending time in the airport etc. So when I saw that the Eurostar had a flash sale, I took the opportunity to get tickets for the three of us to head over to Paris for four days. We got a great deal paying only GBP208 for a return for the three of us (well, for the two adults as babies travel free, but I had to find a way to sell it to Ryan!)

Travelling on the Eurostar with a Baby

When we arrived at St Pancras, it was chaotic I’m not going to lie. But once we joined the queue and started making our way down the line it was quite a simple process. We arrived 2 hours before our departure to allow us some extra time, as the tickets say to arrive at least one hour before. In the first part of the queue we were required to show our COVID vaccine pass; the second part of the queue we were required to scan our Eurostar ticket; the third part was the UK Border Force to exit England, shortly followed by the French Border Force for our entry to France. All in all, the queue system was quite straight forward.

I carried Arlo in his carrier throughout the queue which was really efficient, especially at the border force so they could easily see Arlo’s face. At security, we were required to remove everything from Arlo’s stroller and place it in a tray, they then separately scanned and searched the stroller. I wish I had been slightly more organised so we didn’t have as much in the bottom of the stroller, but here’s to learning!

Once we were on the train it was pretty much smooth sailing through to Gare du Nord. Arlo was good as gold again and just loved sitting on our laps looking out of the window and watching everyone go by. I found traveling on the Eurostar with a baby very easy and it is a journey I would definitely recommend and would do again. You can read my blog here which lists all of my travel essentials for traveling with a baby!

Best Western Premier Kapital Opera

The choice of accommodation available in Paris is quite overwhelming as there really are so many options. When deciding on accommodation for us for this trip, our requirements were different to usual. We wanted something in a great location but also relatively close to Gare du Nord as we wanted to avoid having to take taxis as much as possible. Essentially, for this trip, we wanted to be able to get everywhere by walking.

We also decided that having a room with a balcony was very important to us, that way, in the evenings when it was time for Arlo to sleep, we had the option of still being able to sit outside and enjoy the view / have some room service and some wine. Finally, we needed somewhere with a travel cot available for Arlo and somewhere that wasn’t going to break the bank.

I contacted several hotels directly requesting industry rates as an independent travel agent and we decided on booking the Best Western Premier Kapital Opera hotel in the Opera District. The staff were extremely kind and provided us with a disabled access room which meant that we had more space for the stroller and travel cot.

The terrace was the highlight of the room and we loved sitting out of an evening to have pizza and wine whilst Arlo was asleep. Although a room with a terrace was slightly more expensive, we felt it was definitely worth paying extra for the additional space so that Ryan and I could still enjoy our evenings.

Our Itinerary

Day 1

We arrived at our hotel by 1.30pm and had a very quick turnaround to make it to our lunch reservation for 2pm. We were slightly late (which gives me such anxiety as I hate being late) but the staff at Coco were lovely and accommodated us for our booking. The restaurant was located behind the Opera Theatre with beautiful surrounding buildings. We sat outside but there was lots of shade so the sun wasn’t a problem. Arlo had a bottle and slept straight away so Ryan and I were able to enjoy our lunch which was lovely.

We shared the burrata and beef carpaccio to start, I then had the cod with gnocchi and Ryan had the lamb chops. I have to say, it was one of the best meals I have had in a long time. The cod was cooked to perfection and the lemon butter gnocchi melted in my mouth! All of this was accompanied with a few glasses of rosé.

After lunch we headed for a little shop at Galleries Lafayette where I was spoilt with a little “Push Present” from Ryan and Arlo. As a result of Brexit, if you shop in Paris take your passport along with you and you are able to claim back up to 11.4% VAT as long as you request the required documents from the store and scan these at the Eurostar when you leave!

We headed back to the hotel to get Arlo settled down for bed. Ryan popped out to The Little Italy to get us take away pizza and a bottle of wine which we sat and ate on our terrace, it was the perfect end to the first day.

Day 2

On our second morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and then headed back down to Galleries Lafayette to the food court. They had so many stalls with so much variety of cheese, pastries, cakes, hams, olives, breads – you name it, they had it and everything was so fresh. We spent some time browsing the stalls and bought ourselves some bits for a picnic and then walked over to the Eiffel Tower for a picnic. The walk was around an hour which we didn’t mind as it was a lovely temperature and the weather was slightly overcast. I carried Arlo in the carrier most of the way (which my legs did not thank me for later in the day!)

After our picnic we walked along to the Champs Elysee and it has now become our tradition, when we are in Paris, to stop and have a drink in Le Fouquet. After drinks, we walked back to our hotel for a relatively early evening and Ryan headed out to The Little Italy again to get our dinner – honestly the pizza was that good!

Day 3

I think all of the walking from the previous day caught up with us as we didn’t get out of bed until 10.30am (save for a few feeds for Arlo). We sat out on the terrace for a coffee and a croissant before setting off on our walk to St Germaine as we had lunch booked at Les Deux Magots. It was my first time visiting the area of St Germaine and it was beautiful. There were so many cute and quirky bistros and shops around the area. Les Deux Magots was positioned on one street corner and on the adjacent corner was Cafe De Flores – famous for it’s feature in Emily in Paris!

The food at Les Deux Magots was lovely, hearty French food. I opted for the Croque Madame whilst Ryan had the seabass and we both ordered a pastry from the dessert trolley which were amazing!

Our final stop of the day was at Le Café Marly which is a lovely bar / restaurant situated in the grounds of the Louvre (Ryan and I ate here previously when we were in Paris on a wedmin-trip!). We met up with some friends from Dubai for some drinks before walking back to our hotel for yet another evening of pizza on the balcony.

Day 4

On our final morning, we decided to walk out to a cute café we had seen for breakfast called Triadou Haussmann and we had an amazing continental breakfast with croissants, eggs, ham, coffee, fresh orange juice – the full works. We also popped back into Galleries Lafayette so Ryan could have one final shop before heading home.

We decided to take a taxi back from our hotel to the train station which the hotel arranged for us and the driver was fully prepared with an infant car seat. We were lucky that when we arrived at Gare Du Nord the earlier Eurostar was delayed and they moved us onto the earlier train so we were straight onto the train and arrived back in England a few hours earlier than planned.

We absolutely loved our first city break with Arlo, we’re so lucky that he is such a chilled baby and just loves observing what’s happening around him. I’m sure he’s going to grow up loving to travel just as much as we do.

Our Mini-moon

Mar 2, 2020Mar 2, 2020 vacaysandsunnydays

I’m a little bit late with this post.. over 6 months actually! My goodness time flies! As we were lucky enough to get married in France, we decided to head down to the South of France for 6 nights for our mini-moon.

I cannot believe that I have never visited the South of France before! On the flight in we lost count of the number of super-yachts and private jets we saw, it was insane! The coast line was absolutely beautiful as well and it made me so excited to spend the next week there.

Hotels

When searching for accommodation we struggled a little bit because there is so much choice! There are so many amazing hotels in Nice such as Negressco, Le Meridien, the Radison Blu etc. all of which have amazing sea views. Then you also have the options of Air BNB and serviced apartments as well as the boutique hotels. When choosing your hotel you have to consider the location, and decide whether you want to stay along the promenade or in the Old Town… there was just so much choice! We decided on Hotel Villa Victoria which was a lovely 4* hotel based around 5-10 minutes’ walk from the beach and around 15-20 minutes from the Old Town.

We arrived at the hotel around 7pm and the staff were so helpful from the moment we checked in. We decided to drop our bags in the room and head out for a quick bite to eat as we were both feeling exhausted from the journey. We got back and sat outside in the hotels garden on the terrace with a bottle of wine and opened all of our wedding cards and read through our guestbook, it was so perfect. One of the other reasons I loved this hotel is they have two cats in the garden that they look after (of course that’s what sold me!)

Beach Days

We had a total of five full days in Nice, I had (obviously) planned an itinerary for our time but we decided to balance it by having a few chilled days down the beach and the rest exploring and activities! We definitely needed those chilled days after the build up to the wedding.

The beach in Nice is stony so we didn’t fancy rocking up and putting our towels down on the floor. As you walk along the Promenade de Anglais you see several different beach clubs where you can hire a sunbed, towel and umbrella for the day. On our first day we stopped at a beach club called Le Galet, it looked super chilled, had a bar and restaurant and sunbeds to hire for the day for €20 each. We were sold!

We ate lunch the in Le Galet restaurant and just told the staff on the beach when we were ready for a table and within 15 minutes we were seated with a glass of wine in hand!

The food was amazing and the portions were huge! We shared a Caesar Salad and lobster linguini, both were wonderful! We also had several, probably too many, glasses of rosè! As you can imagine, the rest of the day was spent napping on the sunbed!

A few days later when we had another beach day factored into our itinerary, we headed straight down to Le Galet again! We spent the day in exactly the same way, the only thing that changed was our lunch order! Ryan ordered the Thai Beef Salad and I ordered the Seafood Pasta Salad, the food was seriously amazing!

Monaco

Our first adventure day out was one that i was most excited for. As one of our wedding gifts, Ryan’s dad kindly paid for us to hire a vintage car. We opted for a convertible 1963 cream MG MGA. I’m not exactly a car enthusiast but my god this car was amazing! We (Ryan) drove from Nice along the coast to Monaco, stopping in the small town of Eze on the way for some photos. We didn’t even have a satnav or map with us but we managed to navigate our way there using the road signs – I was more impressed at us managing this than anything else!

We arrived in Monaco and drove around the one way streets in front of the casino and Cafe de Paris, people were stopping to take photos of the car, it was honestly incredible. We parked up and headed into the casino to play on the slots. I thought I had one €24 and cashed out but it turns out €20 of that was the note I put in to start with! Oh well, it was still a win!

After the casino we had a reservation for lunch at Cafe de Paris. We had a lovely meal followed by wine and coffee and spent a bit of time walking around the area. We headed down to the harbour to see the yachts and window shopping (sadly it was only window shopping).

Ryan done so well driving considering the car had no assisted steering or breaks .. or air conditioning! But we wanted to make the most of our time with the car so we headed back to Nice and continued along the coastal road through Cannes and along to Antibes. It was such a memorable day.

Cannes

A few days later we had another day trip exploring and this time we got the train down to Cannes which was around an hour and only cost 12 Euros for a return. We stopped for a bite to eat at a little bagel cafe and then headed down to the main promenade. It’s become a bit of a tradition for us now whenever we visit France to stop in Le Fouquet for a drink. As we arrived relatively early we just had a coffee this time but at least we can say we have stuck with our tradition!

Living in Dubai you would think that we were used to seeing the super cars but honestly Cannes promenade was another level, even though 90% of the number plates were Emirati!

We had made a lunch reservation at La Guerite on St Margerites Island which is a small island off the coast off Cannes with not a great deal on it, apart from the restaurant! You can travel to the restaurant by arranging a speedboat with them or taking a public ferry. As we had a bit of time and wanted to explore the island a little, we took the ferry across and then walked around the island before making our way to the restaurant. The atmosphere st La Gueriete was amazing, it started with a live band going around the restaurant singing to each of the tables and later a DJ came on which is when the party really got going! It was crazy seeing all of the superyachts moored up outside and people taking their speedboats from their yachts to the restaurant and back. The food was also excellent, Ryan had the pot of mussels and I chose the prawns which were delicious! As the wine was flowing we got a bit carried away and ordered ourselves a bottle of Dom Perrignon! We told the waiter that we had just got married and when they brought it out to us, the Dj played Bruno Mars “I think I wanna marry you” and they were carrying huge England flags over to our table! It was so much fun.

Wine Tasting

The other fun activity day we had planned whilst we were down in Nice was a wine tasting tour. My sister and her boyfriend were also down in Nice for a few days at the same time as us so we all met up for breakfast and then headed to the Old Town to where our tour was starting from. This wine tasting tour was a bit different to others as it was on bikes, yes, bikes! We only a small group on our tour consisting of us four, our tour guide and another group of four Americans. Thankfully, the bikes were assisted which was definitely needed when we were cycling up the windy mountain roads to the vineyards.

The views on the way were beautiful and we were able to take in so much more around us by cycling rather than driving. The vineyard we visited is one of the only vineyards in France that is inside the confines of a main city. We completed our tour of the vineyard which was followed by sampling five of the wine. We also bought some baguettes in the Old Town so we could stop and have a little picnic at the vineyard. We chose our favourite bottle of red wine and chilled out for a little while. By this point, I must say I was feeling slightly tipsy. On the way back down we had the assisted pedalling on and my bike reached up to 40k! I pulled over to get my phone out to video my speedo but as I was picking up the pace I felt a bit wobbly and pulled on the left break as my right hand was holding my phone. The left break slammed on and turned the front wheel of the bike to a halt and I absolutely stacked it off the bike! It was inevitable really wasn’t it, combining me with wine and a bike!!

On our final day we had the morning spare so met up with my sister and her boyfriend again for breakfast before heading across to the Old Town for a free walking tour. We actually got a little bit bored part way round and also distracted by the market so decided to slip away from the tour group before heading back for our flight. We absolutely loved our time down in the South of France. France will definitely hold a special place in our hearts now with all of the memories we made there this summer.

Our Wedding Day

Sep 16, 2019 vacaysandsunnydays

Oh, our wedding day. When I try to put into words how I feel about our wedding day the only word I tend to use is amazing. I’m not the type of person who can say I have always dreamt about what my wedding day would be like or that I had it all planned out as a young girl because honestly, I had never even thought about it until we got engaged! But our day really was everything I ever could have imagined it to be, and more.

Throughout the day I had to keep stopping to remind myself, “this is actually your wedding day… you’re getting married today” to make sure I tried to take it all in. Like when I was sat having my hair done in the morning by Sheree, or just as me and Dad were about to walk down the aisle, I just had to take a moment to process it all.

I’m not going to lie, I didn’t exactly have the best start to the day. Katie and I shared a bed the night before as Ryan was in with his best man, Harry. I think I got a total of about 90 minutes sleep the night before the wedding… it was without a doubt, the worst night’s sleep of my entire life. At one point, I was convinced the entire wedding party had food poisoning from the BBQ and I called my mum at 2.30am in tears saying “Mum, everyone’s got food poisoning, there’s not going to be a wedding, everyone’s ill!” I needed Mum to be the voice of reason and tell me, that actually, no one has food poisoning and I’m probably just feeling a bit nervous!

The morning of…

So on the wedding morning at 7am, my Mum, Ryan’s Mum (Lisa), Katie, Sheree and Jemma came to the bridal suite to start getting ready for the day. I am so lucky to have such an amazingly talented best friend as Sheree and she was not only a bridesmaid, but also our hair wizard. Kelly, from Perfection, also travelled across to France to do everyone’s makeup. Me, being me, prepared a schedule for the morning, broken down by every 15 minutes so that we knew who had hair and makeup at what time and to avoid the issue of running late or anyone feeling stressed out.

I have to say that getting ready was one of my favourite parts of the day. It was such a lovely, relaxing morning. We had presents, champagne, croissants and just all had such a lovely time. At around 1pm the flower girls and page boys came up to the bridal suite for some photos and to prepare for walking down the aisle.

We had suggested a hotel nearby for the wedding party to stay at and, for ease, arranged transportation to and from the wedding venue for the BBQ day and wedding day. At about 1.30pm, the wedding planner came to me and said “I don’t want to worry you but there’s been a slight issue with the coach… it’s broken down, so we’re going to be slightly delayed!” Can you believe the entire wedding party kept the bride waiting?! I just popped open another bottle of champagne! Both the photographer and the videographer wanted to capture me getting into my dress so, as we had time, I did it twice so that they could both get the shots they wanted.

The Ceremony

The guests all pitched together and made their own way as a lot of people had hired cars for the weekend anyway. Once we were informed that guests had started to arrive, that’s when the nerves started to hit me. Luckily the ceremony had only been delayed by 30 minutes but by this point I was itching to get started. Our ceremony was supposed to be outside but the weather on the morning was very hit and miss with a bit of rain and so the wedding planner and florist decided it would be best if the ceremony was held in the barn. As we walked from the Chateau to the barn we were all holding umbrellas, my dress was tucked right up and I could hear the cellist as we were approaching. Everyone told me how cute and well behaved out little page boys, Rufus and Rafferty, were. Now that we’ve received the video back I can see the nerves in my whole body as I walked down the aisle with Dad.

The ceremony itself seemed to go so quickly for us. As part of our ceremony, we had a Wine Ceremony. Ryan and I had to write a note to each other which is to be stored in a wine box alongside a Polaroid picture from the wedding day. If our marriage is ever experiencing any difficulty we are supposed to sit together, open the bottle of wine and read our notes to one another, to remember the reason why we got married and the reason we fell in love. The aim though, is that our marriage never comes into difficulty and that we are supposed to open the wine and enjoy it together on our 5^th wedding anniversary.

After the ceremony, we had the cocktail and canapés reception. We had arranged for the band to play an acoustic set during this time and when we visited France in April we sampled all of the canapés that would be served at this time. We even had a live station where the chef was carving a leg of Serrano ham. I’ll be honest, this is the part of the day that I was most looking forward to (obviously apart from actually marrying Ryan!) But, we were taken away during this bit with our photographer and videographer to capture some special moments together. I did manage to make my way in for some of the Serrano ham though, and it was lovely!

By this point, it was still drizzling and my dress had started to become a bit muddy. I had a bit of a bridezilla moment when mum said “don’t worry Lou, we can have it dry cleaned” I snapped back “but I need it clean NOW!” (Sorry Mum!) Everyone told me throughout the day that all the best wedding dresses end up covered in dirt and wine and that they tell a good story of the day but it was just a little heart-breaking seeing the bottom of it getting so muddy and wet in the rain. Thankfully it doesn’t show up in any of the photos!
We then had the family portraits which seemed to go on for ages so after that, Ryan and I decided to go for a little walk around the back of the Chateau, just the two of us, have some champagne and just spend a little bit of time together. That’s another thing so many people had told us in the lead up to the wedding… “make sure you get to spend some along time together on your wedding day”’

The Dinner

One thing that we really loved about our venue was all the space that could be used for different aspects of the day. Originally, we had planned to have the ceremony outside in front of the Chateau but thankfully had the backup of the gorgeous barn. The wedding breakfast was then held in the marquee which was attached to the barn and the barn itself had the stage and the band and was essentially our party room.

The marquee looked absolutely gorgeous, so much more beautiful than I could have imagined. Rather than having the tables set with name tags for people to find their seat, we had polaroid’s held in corks (all of the photos were taken of the wedding guests the day before at the BBQ)! Ryan and I entered to Luther Vandross “Never Too Much” being played and joined our family at the top table. The speeches were lovely, and I’m so glad we have our video which includes all of the speeches as when we watched it back, I couldn’t remember half of what was said, it all seemed like such a blur!

One of my favourite parts of the room was the corner where the cake was. Our wedding planner had set two oak barrels with flowers either side of a trolley on which the cake sat, I thought it looked gorgeous. The marquee was clear so you could see through to the Chateau in the background, and once the sun had set the festoon lights connected from the tree to the marquee looked beautiful. We cut the cake and then had our first dance, ready to get the party started.

The Party

Our band were absolutely incredible our first dance was to Robin Es “Show me love” as an acoustic version which then sped up into the dance version. It got everyone straight up on the dance floor and I literally didn’t leave for the rest of the night! The band were honestly brilliant and made the evening for us. It was so amazing to be surrounded by our family and friends, dancing and laughing and just having the best time. We had a sparkler send off at around 9.30pm after the bands second set and the proceeded to DJ for the remainder of the night. It was only the next day that I remembered that we had arranged for burger sliders and bacon buttys to be brought out for the evening food – everyone else polished them off and I didn’t even have one!

As we had to use up all of the alcohol that we had ordered for the wedding day, we started to hand out bottles of the champagne so, me being the classy bride, had one glued to my hand for the rest of the night! The coach was arriving at 1am to pick up the guests and take them back to their hotel so Ryan and I slipped off at 12.55 as we were told we should leave before everyone else starts to leave.

Writing this has made me wish I could just live the whole day again. It really was the best day of my life.

The Lead up to Our Wedding

Sep 4, 2019Sep 4, 2019 vacaysandsunnydays

I really don’t know where to start with writing this. I also cannot believe how quickly the time has gone. We’ve already been married almost three weeks. In the build up to the wedding everyone told us how fast the day would go but you don’t realise it until you’re actually there, in the day. I had to stop and have a few moments to try and take it all in.

Ryan and I arrived in France on the Wednesday with a luggage allowance of 75KG! We picked up our hire car and headed straight to the venue. The weather was a bit hit and miss on the drive to the venue but I didn’t want to let it put a downer on things so we headed straight out to Ikea and Carrefour to get some of the final things we needed for the weekend. As our wedding was dry hire it meant that we had to source everything through vendors. However, there were somethings that were definitely cheaper to source ourselves, for example the caterers wanted to charge €2 per shot glass whereas you can get a pack of 6 for €1.60 in Ikea. The same with water and soft drinks. So after approximately 5 hours in the shops with a stop at McDonalds in between we were tired and headed back to the Chateau. On the drive back the heavens opened and I was sat in the back of the car surrounded by Coke and glasses and just cried. I thought, I can’t believe everything we have planned over the course of the last year is now going to be ruined by the weather.

We got back to the Chateau and unpacked everything into the caterers kitchen connected to the marquee and sat in the lounge with a bottle of wine and wrapped up our gifts for our family.

The Family Night

The next morning we went out to the shops again and stopped at a local bakery to order some sandwiches ready for when the family arrived. We asked the lady if she could speak English and her expression was shocked so she ran to get her son to help! We ordered 20 huge baguette sandwiches and some eclairs and little pastry bits for the family lunch and headed back waiting for them to arrive. Literally as the coach turned into the Chateau the sun burst through! It was so exciting to have all of our family there to show them what we’ve been talking about for the past year. We showed everyone to their rooms and all gathered in the marquee for lunch. It was exactly what we wanted, having all of our family there just relaxing and enjoying time together.

That evening was the first event of the wedding weekend and we had hired the caterers to prepare a 3 course meal. It was so lovely having all of our family together and the food was amazing. As people were on the first night of their hols and it was the first night we could properly relax and enjoy ourselves a few of us got a bit rowdy and didn’t make it to bed until almost 2.

The Barn

The Best Man

The Booze

The BBQ

The morning of the BBQ, Ryan wanted to laze about in bed and nurse his hangover but I was up and out of bed at 8am to tidy the barn as we had a list of tasks we needed to do that day! Me, Ryan, Mum and Ryan’s Uncle headed back out to the shops to pick up the remaining soft drinks and some bits for lunch for the family. The soft drinks were one of the things we were really struggling with, how do you quantify how many cans of coke are going to be needed for 80 people for a two day event?!

When we got back to the Chateau the weather was beautiful and everyone was sat outside in the sun so we had a little picnic, opened some wine. It was just perfect. It was exactly how we had pictured having all of the family together and one of the reasons that we decided on a destination wedding in the first place.

That afternoon, we had a rehearsal with all the people who would be walking down the aisle. Ryan and his best man, our mums, the flower girls and page boys, the bridesmaids and me and dad. That was the first time I got emotional and had to fight back tears a little bit. Ryan’s little cousins Rufus and Rafferty were so funny and I was kind of hoping they would be a little bit naughty walking down the aisle on the wedding day, but they were absolutely perfect on the day.

After the rehearsal, Sheree (bridesmaid/hairdresser) took me upstairs and treated me to a hair wash and blow-dry so I could get ready for the BBQ. Luckily the weather held off for the BBQ and we still had lovely sunshine. For the BBQ we had a selection of garden games and our wedding planner had set up some picnic blankets under the trees for people to sit and chill out. We had giant connect four, corn hole, Bowles, beer pong and rounders. The rounders was a hit and at one point almost everyone was there playing rounders together, I even managed to run in my dress and heels! It was so surreal seeing so many of our amazing friends and family from all different walks of life playing games together, drinking and just having the best time.

We had the same caterers for the family night, the BBQ and the wedding day and the food was amazing. We had chosen a selection of meats such as lamb chops, pork, sausages, chicken, salmon skewers and it was all so tasty. At around 10pm it started raining, to be honest I’m just glad the rain held off that long! Our wedding planner, Sarah, was on hand straight away handing out umbrellas and pashminas to keep us dry. At around 10.30 the fireworks started. They were brilliant. I was stood next to Ryan and Dad watching the fireworks under an umbrella just trying to take it all in.

When the fireworks finished, me and Katie snuck off and went up to get ready for bed as Ryan was spending the night with his Best Man, Harry. I can honestly say that that night was the worst night’s sleep of my entire life! Me and Katie were convinced that we had food poisoning which resulted in me calling my Mum at 2.30am in tears as I had convinced myself that there wouldn’t be a wedding because all of the guests were ill with food poisoning! That obviously wasn’t the case and it must have just been a combination of nervousness and excitement. Katie also wanted to keep the light on the whole night as she was worried about seeing a ghost in the Chateau (which I did actually see the previous two nights). I managed about an hour and a half’s sleep and once we noticed it started to get light outside, Katie turned the light off. Then within about 15 minutes our alarms went off to start getting ready!

Wedding Planning

Feb 28, 2019Feb 28, 2019 vacaysandsunnydays

Planning a wedding is hard.

Planning a wedding with a dry hire venue is harder!

Having a wedding planner makes it so much easier but oh my god I feel like there’s so much to do! People say that weddings cost a lot of money and that there are so many things to consider, and honestly, I hadn’t even thought about half of the things that are actually involved with planning a wedding.

With our wedding, there are several factors that have slightly added to the stress factor of planing our big day. Firstly, having a dry hire venue means that we simply hire just the venue itself. We then have to source all of the vendors, caterers, bar, furniture, band, DJ, marquee etc. separately!

Secondly, we live in Dubai, our family live in England and the wedding is in France! We are having to put in a bit of extra work with the coordination amongst the countries whilst also bearing in mind time differences. Additionally, we don’t speak French – honestly having an English wedding planner who speaks French has literally saved my life and my sanity! When we were first searching for a wedding planner, Ryan had set up a day of back to back calls to speak with different planners. Out of the six planners we spoke with, five were French, and although they had good spoken English, we would definitely have encountered some difficulties with the language barrier. I am so thankful for And Then We Got Married!

And Then We Got Married / Instagram

Also, the fact that we are planning a three day event – no, not an Indian style wedding – but having a family meal on the first night, a BBQ for all of our guests on the Friday and then the wedding on the Saturday, this has added another layer of consideration and cost to planning the weekend.

All of that being said, I am honestly having so much fun planning and researching for our wedding weekend. It’s great to have the knowledge of our planner who is on the ground and with amazing contacts but it is also fun to research and source different elements of the wedding ourselves.

The great thing about having a dry hire venue is that we can tailor it be completely our own. We have decided on the general decor and florals concept with our planner, without really having any restrictions from the venue. We have also been able to use the grounds of the Chateau exactly how we want to, so we’ve managed to plot different elements of the weekend at different locations around the venue. It’s allowing us to be creative and have fun in this huge project but we we also encountering factors that we wouldn’t necessarily have considered if we were using a traditional wedding venue / church / hotel.

We are both really excited for our next trip to visit the venue in April and we will be packing a lot into a few days whilst we are there! I will be meeting with my makeup artist for a trial; then both of our Mums are flying over to Paris so we can take them to visit the venue; trial the food and the wine; cake tasting and also to visit the hotel that our guests will be staying at locally.

We are seriously on the countdown now… 170 days to go!

Our Tour de France

Nov 5, 2018Feb 21, 2019 vacaysandsunnydays

I’m a little delayed in writing this post, I had two weekend breaks in quick succession last month and haven’t had time to write! I still can’t believe how fast everything is moving! Engaged for two months already, a whole month has passed since visiting France and confirming our venue and now we have confirmed our wedding planner, photographer, and can start ticking other vendors off our list! As long as we continue to make progress at this rate we will be fine – we’re now just over 9 months away from the wedding ahhhh!

We never planned on having an abroad (or destination wedding) the reason being we wanted to ensure that all of our family members would be able to travel and attend. But we were so surprised at just how quickly venues get booked up in England and we definitely wanted to have the wedding in 2019. The majority of our venues were completely unavailable, those that were available were only on random days like a Tuesday or Wednesday! So we looked further afield into other counties in the UK which meant that both families would have to travel and stay over night regardless. So we decided to branch a bit further out, across the sea and into France. Every wedding planner we have spoken to has asked “why France?” Well we love French food and definitely French wine, our family members can travel by train, plane or even drive across to Calais and we are hoping the weather will be easier to predict than it is in England!

As soon as we started looking at venues in France we realised they too were booking up very quickly. We found three venues that fitted our criteria of being less than two hours from Paris airport; onsite accommodation for at least 35 people and a building that has the “Wow factor”. When searching for a venue the part we struggled with the most was on side accommodation for guests in the northern region. We settled on the three venues:

– Chateau de Bonnemare;

– Chateau de Carsix; and

– Chateau Cheronne.

Once we contacted the venues to determine their available dates for 2019 they informed us they would only hold our venue for two weeks! So we had to book a last minute weekend trip to France (which I’m definitely not complaining about!) we flew over night from Dubai, arriving in Paris at 8am and had arranged a hire car for the weekend and we were both so excited to explore and hopefully find our venue!

Chateau Cheronne

Starting from the last first, the third venue we viewed as Chateau Cheronne a stunning castle built in the 1700s in the French countryside, just over a two hour drive from CDG airport. The grounds of the castle were huge with a lovely pond, old horse stables that had been converted into accommodation and of course the castle. The castle itself had so many hidden rooms, we felt like we were walking round in circles but it actually could sleep 30 people in the castle. We really loved the venue however it definitely felt the most outdated of the venues interior wise, even though it wasn’t the oldest chateau that we viewed. It was also further out than the other venues we viewed and so we needed to be able to justify the extra journey time.

The chateau had some amazing features, for example it was fully self-sustainable until quite recently and still has the damn and water pump from the 1700s. The grounds and garden area were also beautiful, we just felt this venue was a little outdated and not quite the right fit for us and what we would like from our wedding day.

Chateau de Carsix

The second venue we viewed was actually my favourite from looking online and I was so excited to view it. But, the night before our viewing, the wedding planner called to say she wouldn’t be able to make it to show us around… as you can imagine that did not go down well with me whatsoever. We had flown 7 hours to Paris, driven almost two hours to the venue and the woman who will potentially be planning and over seeing our wedding cannot be bothered to show up?! That was a big red cross against the venue and we hadn’t even viewed it yet!

When we arrived in the morning, we were told that the groundskeeper would be showing us around, but she didn’t speak a word of English – and we don’t speak any French! So we were a bit stuck! Ryan had the genius idea of downloading a translations app so we literally communicated by talking through an app and surprisingly it worked quite well!

The venue really did have the wow factor, a gorgeous chateau built in the 1800s which slept 96 people in the grounds. This was a huge bonus for us because it meant the entire wedding party would be able to stay together on the same grounds. However, the rooms were all quite basic and also smelt a bit musty, kind of like an old people’s home. There also wasn’t a specified Bridal Room or area for the bridal party to get ready in the morning, it felt more like a boarding school. The onsite accommodation was one of the key selling points but there’s no point in having a lot of basic accommodation, we decided we would rather have less onsite accommodation that’s of a nicer standard for our venue.

Chateau de Bonnemare

The first venue we viewed was chateau de Bonnemare, a gorgeous family run chateau built in 1555 approximately an hour and a half drive from CDG airport. Neither of us wanted to admit it right away, but we fell in love with this venue.

I obviously don’t want to give too much away, but from the very entrance point we were in love. This was then complimented by the fact that it’s a small family run chateau by a lovely French family who have had the chateau in the family for several generations. Although the owners aren’t fluent English speakers, their son has excellent written and spoken English which really helped with choosing this venue.

The chateau has recently undergone a lot of renovation to modernise the accommodation and even though this chateau was the oldest venue that we viewed, it was the most modern but maintained its authentic, rustic feeling. One of the things we really love about Chateau de Bonnemare is the space that can be utilised for so many parts of the weekend, all of which will make different aspects of it individual and special.

There are a few towns located between 15-30 minutes from Bonnemare and we stayed in a family run b&b in a small village called Les Andelys. The village was so quaint and we bought sandwiches and pastries and sat on a grassy riverbank to have lunch. There’s not a great deal to do in the village so we just used it as a base to get to the venue which is definitely something we will recommend our guests do.

When we visited Bonnemare we could both just picture having our own wedding there, it just felt right. We are so excited to get married there and it’s approaching quickly!

Tag: France