When Alexa got in touch last Christmas to ask if we could help with her South of France wedding we were so excited. I had to keep remembering we would be going to work and not just waft about in lavender fields and drink coffee in pavement cafes. Though in reality we did squeeze in a bit of cafe action!

After ironing out the Menu (All Vegetarian / Some Vegan / Some Gluten Free – oh yeah, bring it on!) and Alexa promising not to be mad about it, everything feel into place. I swung from excitement to wandering how we were ever going to pull it off. We sussed out what we could from here and wrote lots of lists – Liz rewrote them and made the most amazing document – THE PINK FOLDER.

 

With such a dream team what could possibly go wrong? Kirstin, Maddy and Lisa were all over it…. Maddy left her passport in Roehampton and Lisa revealed on the way to Gatwick that ‘she didn’t really like flying’. Joy! For the first time in my life I was involved in a taxi picking something really-bloody-important-up and whizzing it cross county to us at Gatwick, it actually timed out pretty well and was worth every penny of the £42 it cost. (it was also a good test for Maddy’s lovely new boyfriend Richard – you want to know that they will answer the phone at 5am – look for your passport and hand it over to a taxi driver for you, don’t you?).

I clutched The Pink Folder that lovely Liz had put together, ALL the time. It was kind of like having her there with us, and had ALL the information in it. Everything. We / I couldn’t lose The Pink Folder. She’d even put a picture of our house in it, in case we couldn’t find it. (She actually did – although it made no difference and we spent hours, literally hours, looking for the bloody house)

We met up with our honery Gang gal Kat Hill – photographer extrodinaire at the Airport. Poor, poor Kat. She’d come to take Alexa and Sarah’s photos, but got roped into all sorts of stuff. I think suddenly being with us lot gabbling away must have been quite weird. She was a dream to work with though and really got into ‘the spirit of it’, Kat, if you ever fancy a change from photography, you know where we are…? We were 15 minutes trying to turn the fancy hire car on, and at least another 20 driving very slowly round the carpark before we even attempted to get out on to the real, actual roads. I think we all know that if we could have put off that moment, we would have.

 There were definitely moments when it felt a bit like some kind of weird Chellenge Anika Style TV programme – 48 hours to arrange / cater a wedding, somewhere you have never been and don’t speak the language. My French was decidedly lacking – but it turned out everyone else’s was too, so we scraped our way through buying ‘All the goats cheese’, (the girl at the Goats Cheese Stall in the market couldn’t believe her luck!), kilos of gorgeous veg, giant artichokes, and huge slabs of cheese. It was ace, and we only stopped when the hire car was rammed with goodies.

 

On The Day everything went perfectly. Thank God! The sun shone, all the friends and family were lovely and up for a right old jolly time. The canapés / champagne / cocktails went down a treat. To be a friend of Alexa & Sarah you need to play an instrument / Sing / Dance / Be funny, it seems. Their assembled crew put together an amazing Talent Show, which was actually brilliant. Really good. I was worried it might be a bit cringy, but it really wasn’t.

They all tucked in to dinner – A hot and cold buffet of savoury Mille Feuille with perfectly Roasted Mediterranean Vegetables and Roquefort (delish), Salads, breads, Vegetarian Layered Terrine, Potato Dauphinoise, a massive stack of cheese, a tower of macaroons and a selection of French Fruit Tarts. After all that they went on to have a proper good party.

The biggest joy with this wedding was how nice everyone was, closely followed up by the fact it was in The South of France! Kat Hill was so lovely to work with – for more of her beautiful photos of the wedding pop over here and have a look. Alexa & Sarah, you have a great bunch of friends, and doing your wedding was definitely a highlight of 2013…. Thanks so much for having us along – we bloody loved it. Liz is still sulky that she didn’t come… I think it’s time to renew those vows?