I am a bit behind on my blog writing, so I am now hopping back in time to August 2016 when we traveled to France for a friends wedding.

Le Croisic, France, is where the lucky Groom's family has a summer house. Imagine - a beautiful little french fishing town on the western coast of France. We were in love. And it wasn't too difficult to get to from Nuremberg, Germany. A quick layover in Paris and then we landed in Nantes, France. From there we picked up our rental car and it was just over an hour drive to Le Croisic! (with a quick stop for some fresh seafood)

The other wonderful thing about this wedding was - it brought together some of my closest friends who I have missed terribly while living in Germany.

On our first night we got together for a nice long dinner filled with several bottles of wine, cheese, foie gras, french bread, and basically everything else on the menu!

THE WORKOUT + BREAKFAST

The next morning Andrew and I woke up nice and early for a run around the beautiful medieval walls protecting the old town of Guérande. After we thoroughly worked up an appetite, we walked through the old town on a hunt for some breakfast. There happened to be a cute little town festival going on (or maybe this is what it looks like every weekend??). As you know if you read this blog, I LOVE a local food market.

We found a perfect little outdoor table for our breakfast (I think everyone thought we were crazy as we were sweaty & dressed in running gear).

We ordered what we thought was a crepe.. (or what we had thought of a typical 'crepe') and we were so happily surprised! Eggs, cheese... and a beautiful spiral-y ham?

I love France.

THE WEDDING

We hustled back to our hotel to take quick showers and get ready for our first French wedding.

As the bride is British & the groom is French the service in the gorgeous church was a mix of both. But since my two favorite things are romance & anything French... I was happily sitting there clueless to what they were saying and taking everything in.

After the service, we all transferred over to the reception.

THE RECEPTION @ CHATEAU DE VILLENEUVE

This was our first 'non-american' wedding, so i'll admit ... we were wondering - "Would this live up to the standards of an American style wedding". And I can definitely say - the French/British are PRO's at wedding!

Here are a few reasons why:

The location: a french chateau?! seriously?? I felt like I was in a Disney movie.
The "Cocktail Hour" was more like 3 hours. AND since the groom is French, the bride is British, but they were living in Barcelona at the time - they had 3 separate tables of amazing food which was for each of those three local flavors. I think the French table was our favorites as they had platters and platters of fresh oysters! heaven.
The speeches: In the US its typical that the best man / maid of honor and maybe the father of the bride will give a quick speech to the bride and groom. Well at this wedding, throughout the entire dinner service close friends & family members would come up and give very well thought out speeches... sometimes including videos & pictures they shared on the flat screen.
Dancing ALL night: In the US, you pay for a set numbers of hours at the venue, which means typically by 12am, everyone is pushing you out the door right as the dancing starts to get good. At this wedding (and we've heard other french/british weddings) the dancing went until no one was left on the dance floor. I believe we left around 3 or 4am, and there was STILL a large group that was no where near stopping!
The morning after brunch: See below for why it was AMAZING!

THE MORNING AFTER BRUNCH @ CHATEAU DE VILLENEUVE

After a long night of drinking & dancing, and very little hours of sleep... we slowly made our way to the brunch.

It was set in the same beautiful chateau as the wedding! And once again, the French know how to do a 'post wedding brunch' right! Freshly made breakfast crepes (with cheese, ham & eggs) ... they were literally still the best crepes i've ever had in my life. What is a great cure for a hangover? Fresh air and fresh crepes.

The brunch went for several hours where everyone felt welcome to come and go as they pleased. But, a great incentive to stay a bit longer? After a few hours the breakfast crepes switched over to dessert crepes with nutella and bananas!

EXPLORING LE CROISIC

After the brunch, we decided to spend the afternoon strolling through the beautiful seaside town of Le Croisic. A perfect afternoon of beers on the beach, some seaside snacks, and i'll admit... a little nap on the beach too!

I was so sad to leave all of my friends, but each of us had different road trips planned through France. Next - we drove down to St Emilion where we had less than 24 hours to explore this beautiful wine village! (blog post here)